Comment by amiga386
4 months ago
Charlie Stross's blog is next.
Liability is unlimited and there's no provision in law for being a single person or small group of volunteers. You'll be held to the same standards as a behemoth with full time lawyers (the stated target of the law but the least likely to be affected by it)
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/12/storm-cl...
The entire law is weaponised unintented consequences.
> the stated target of the law but the least likely to be affected by it
The least likely to be negatively affected. This will absolutely be good for them in that it just adds another item to the list of things that prevents new entrants from competing with them.
> unintented consequences
Intended consequences no doubt.
> The entire law is weaponised unintented consequences.
That would assume no malice from the goverment? Isn't the default assumption that every government want to exert control over its population at this stage, even in "democracies"? There's nothing unintended here.
I thought that posts with comments are an explicit exception from the OSB.
From Ofcom:
> this exemption would cover online services where the only content users can upload or share is comments on media articles you have published
From the Ofcom regulations (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli...):
> 1.17 A U2U service is exempt if the only way users can communicate on it is by posting comments or reviews on the service provider’s own content (as distinct from another user’s content).
A blog is only exempt if users communicate to the blogpost author, on the topic of the blogpost. If they comment on each other, or go off-topic, then the blog is not exempt.
That's why that exemption is basically useless. Anyone can write "hey commenter number 3 i agree commenter number 1's behaviour is shocking" and your exemption is out the window.
Yeah I see what you mean, that does seem oddly useless. And thanks for finding the correct section.
I'd like to say we could trust the implementation and enforcement of this law to make sense and follow the spirit of existing blog comment sections rather than the letter of a law that could be twisted against almost anyone accepting comments —for most people GDPR compliance enforcement has been a light touch, with warnings rather than immediate fines— but that's not really how laws should work.
There has been new information since that blog post which has reaffirmed the "this is much ado about nothing" takes because Ofcom have said that they do not want to be a burden on smaller sites.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...
"We’ve heard concerns from some smaller services that the new rules will be too burdensome for them. Some of them believe they don’t have the resources to dedicate to assessing risk on their platforms, and to making sure they have measures in place to help them comply with the rules. As a result, some smaller services feel they might need to shut down completely.
So, we wanted to reassure those smaller services that this is unlikely to be the case."
Nothing more reassuring than a vague “we’re unlikely to go after you [if you stay on our good side.]”
It’s clear the UK wants big monopolistic tech platforms to fully dominate their local market so they only have a few throats to choke when trying to control the narrative…just like “the good old days” of centralized media.
I wouldn’t stand in the way of authoritarians if you value your freedom (or the ability to have a bank account).
The risk just isn't worth it. You write a blog post that rubs someone power-adjacent the wrong way and suddenly you're getting the classic "...nice little blog you have there...would be a shame to find something that could be interpreted as violating 1 of our 17 problem areas..."
For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.
Uneven enforcement is the goal.
Sovereign is he who makes the exception.
Changing the code of practice is a years long statutory consultation process, they're not going to be able to change the rules to go after you on a whim.
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> So, we wanted to reassure those smaller services that this is unlikely to be the case
This is the flimsiest paper thin reassurance. They've built a gun with which they can destroy the lives of individuals hosting user generated content, but they've said they're unlikely to use it.
"... unlikely ..."
Political winds shift, and if someone is saying something the new government doesn't like, the legislation is there to utterly ruin someone's life.
You can try the digital toolkit and see for yourself if this is a realistic pathway for a small site (such as a blog with a comment function). Personally, I find it puzzling that Ofcom thinks what they provide is helpful to small sites. Furthermore, they make it pretty clear that they see no reason for a purely size-based exemption (“we also know that harm can exist on the smallest as well as the largest services”). They do not explore ways to reach their goals without ongoing collaboration from small site owners, either.
Ofcom need to change the law then.
Unless Ofcom actively say "we will NOT enforce the Online Safety Act against small blogs", the chilling effect is still there. Ofcom need to own this. Either they enforce the bad law, or loudly reject their masters' bidding. None of this "oh i don't want to but i've had to prosecute this crippled blind orphan support forum because one of them insulted islam but ny hands are tied..."
The Canadian government did the same thing when they accidentally outlawed certain shotguns by restricting bore diameter without specifying it was for rifles.
A minister tweeted that it didn’t apply to shotguns, as if that’s legally binding as opposed to you know, the law as written.
The democrats wrote a bill to hire 60k new armed IRS agents and promised they wouldn't be used to go after anyone with an income less than 250k. Senator Mike Crapo tried to add an ammendment to put that in the bill but they blocked it. We have a serious problem with politicians lying about the text of bills.
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The use of "unlikely" just screams that Ofcom will eventually pull a Vader..."We are altering the deal, pray we don't alter it any further".
"Unlikely," I suppose if you don't have any significant assets to be seized and don't care about ending up in prison, you may be willing to take the chance.
Nothing reassures one as much as a goverment enforcement entity essentially saying "we have full legal right to squash you like a bug but for now we won't because we just don't want to. For now".
Its very much intended. It's easier for the powers that be to deal with a few favored oligarchs. They're building a great British firewall like china.
big DMCA energy
What standards would you want individuals or small groups to be held to? In a context where it is illegal for a company to allow hate speech or CSAM on their website, should individuals be allowed to? Or do you just mean the punishment should be less?
The obvious solution is to have law enforcement enforce the law rather than private parties. If someone posts something bad to your site, the police try to find who posted it and arrest them, and the only obligation on the website is to remove the content in response to a valid court order.
I don't have a strong view on this law – I haven't read enough into it. So I'm interested to know why you believe what you've just written. If a country is trying to, for example, make harder for CSAM to be distributed, why shouldn't the person operating the site where it's being hosted have some responsibility to make sure it can't be hosted there?
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How about:
Individuals and small groups not held directly liable for comments on their blog unless its proven they're responsible for inculcating that environment.
"Safe harbour" - if someone threatens legal action, the host can pass on liability to the poster of the comment. They can (temporarily) hide/remove the comment until a court decides on its legality.
How about have separate laws for CSAM and "hate speech". Because CSAM is most likely just a fig-leaf for the primary motivation of these laws.
This is an honest question. Why does a blog need to shutdown? If they moderate every comment before it is published on the website, what's the problem? I ask because I've got a UK-based blog too. It has got comments feature. Wouldn't enabling moderation for all comments be enough?
No, you still need to do things like write an impact assessment etc and you're still on the hook for "illegal" comments where you aren't a judge and have to arbitrarily decide what might be when you have no legal expertise whatsoever.
If I'm moderating all comments before they're published on the website, what's the problem? I mean, I've got a simple tech blog. I'm not going to publish random drive-by comments. Only comments that relate to my blog are ever going to be published. Am I making sense?
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