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#ofcom

7 posts7 participants0 posts today
Public *
alecm

US Troll site Kiwi Farms receives Ofcom demand for Online Safety Act “Risk Assessment”, rejects it on 1A/Jurisdiction grounds, demands MLAT

Remember September 2020 when “good” people pressured Cloudflare into removing troll harassment site KiwiFarms (KF) from their services, thereby improving the internet?

It didn’t work, was never going to work, and all it achieved was teaching KF to build resilient architecture. Now…

…now Ofcom stomps in with its big boots on, demanding that KF perform a risk assessment under the terms of the online safety act, and KF (whatever you might think of them) have told Ofcom to get stuffed and to come back with an American warrant.

I cannot see any way that this ends without British civil society (mostly the non-technical “child and online safety” kind, whilst the digital rights activists stare at their shoes) screaming for the government to implement some or all of:

  • Mandatory DNS results censorship in the UK
  • Mandatory restrictions upon VPN provision / destination site access from the UK
  • Age verification for VPN usage
  • Demands for stronger filtering of DNS registrants and deanonymizing them / tying them to responsible people, whether or not that is actually relevant or makes sense
  • Demands for domain takedown processes to be performed on the grounds of hate speech
  • Bans upon Tor usage from the UK
  • Censorship of particular destination IP addresses being accessed from the UK

…none of which are liberal or proportionate, and any one or all of which will do nothing but turbocharge youth desire to access such content — but since when has strategic common sense restrained a campaigning politician with a safety remit?

Previously

Source:

https://twitter.com/KiwiFarmsDotNet/status/1906777515403956483

The Cloudflare Blog · Blocking KiwifarmsWe have blocked Kiwifarms. Visitors to any of the Kiwifarms sites that use any of Cloudflare's services will see a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post.
#1stAmendment#cloudflare#kiwiFarms
Public
Alec Muffett

“I’ve just closed the forum of a small classic car club because we don’t have the time or capacity to ensure compliance with only volunteers. Meta will benefit, because we will, reluctantly, move to using a Facebook page”
alecmuffett.com/article/112834

image text: Quoth @ColinPoynter: https://twitter.com/ColinPoynter/status/1902038092090859694
Dropsafe · “I’ve just closed the forum of a small classic car club because we don’t have the time or capacity to ensure compliance with only volunteers. Meta will benefit, because we will, reluctantly, move to using a Facebook page”
More from alecm
Public
Alec Muffett

“There is something deeply wrong when a law passed with cross-party consensus & endorsed by Britain’s most trusted charities has made it impossible to run an internet forum for hamster owners”
alecmuffett.com/article/112832

image text: Quoting @Sam_Dumitriu: I forgot to say that every major newspaper was also in favour and the main opposition in Parliament was "It doesn't go far enough." https://twitter.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1901950022477832384
Dropsafe · “There is something deeply wrong when a law passed with cross-party consensus & endorsed by Britain’s most trusted charities has made it impossible to run an internet forum for hamster owners”
More from alecm
Public *
alecm

“There is something deeply wrong when a law passed with cross-party consensus & endorsed by Britain’s most trusted charities has made it impossible to run an internet forum for hamster owners”

Quoting @Sam_Dumitriu:

I forgot to say that every major newspaper was also in favour and the main opposition in Parliament was “It doesn’t go far enough.”

https://twitter.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1901950022477832384

X (formerly Twitter)Sam Dumitriu (@Sam_Dumitriu) on XI forgot to say that every major newspaper was also in favour and the main opposition in Parliament was "It doesn't go far enough."
#hamsters#ofcom#onlineSafetyAct
Public
Grant Denkinson

#Ofcom launches investigation into #GBNews over #LGBTQ+ slur goodlawproject.org/ofcom-launc #GoodLawProject "launched an online tool helping the public make a complaint to Ofcom about this latest example of GB News platforming toxic rhetoric. A record 71,582 people filed complaints in this way – almost 17,000 more than the 54,595 who complained about Piers Morgan in 2021."

Good Law Project · Ofcom launches investigation into GB News over LGBTQ+ slur | Good Law ProjectBroadcast that received more than 70,000 complaints over a lie linking the LGBTQ+ community to paedophilia will be subject to a formal investigation.
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

There's still time to put pressure on the UK government.

The UK Secretary of State has the power to exempt small, safely moderated websites from the Online Safety duties.

We need urgent change to protect net plurality, rather than further consolidating power in monopoly platforms. We need competition for a safer Internet.

Write to your MP (UK) #SaveOurSites 🌐

action.openrightsgroup.org/sav

Open Rights GroupSave our sites - Write to your MPSmall UK websites, user-to-user services and even computer games that are completely safe and well managed, are faced with difficult paperwork, risks assessments, registration and fines thanks to the Online Safety Act. Even personal blogs with comments are forced to undergo these difficult tests and compliance tasks. Getting it wrong or ignoring them could cost an operator their house – as fines can be imposed for failing to do them. As a result, many small websites in the UK are deciding to close down.
#OnlineSafety#onlinesafetyact#ukpolitics
Public
Open Rights Group

The UK Online Safety Act comes into effect today.

Its onerous duties may cause many small sites, blogs and fedi instances to shut down or geoblock UK users when faced with potential fines and penalties.

This won't keep children safe. It'll benefit large platforms like Facebook and X that are laying waste to content moderation.

theregister.com/2025/01/14/onl

The Register · It's not just Big Tech: The UK's Online Safety Act applies across the boardBy Lindsay Clark
#OnlineSafety#onlinesafetyact#ukpolitics
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