Comment by exasperaited
1 day ago
If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. Such a challenge would not be prevented by the outcome of this claim.
Seems pretty logical.
Again I think people outside of the UK perceive Ofcom to be a censor with a ban hammer. It's an industry self-regulation authority -- backed by penalties, yes, but it favours self-regulation. And the implementation is a modifiable statutory instrument specifically so that issues like this can be addressed.
In a perfect world would this all be handled with parental oversight and on-device controls? Yeah, maybe. But on-device parental controls are such a total mess, and devices available so readily, that UK PAYG mobile phone companies have already felt compelled (before the law changed) to block adult content by default.
ETA: I am rate-limited so I will just add that I am in the UK too. Not that this is relevant to the discussion. There is no serious UK consensus for overturning this law; the only party that claims that as a position does not even have the support of the majority of its members. I do not observe this law to be censorship, because as an adult I can see what I want to see, I just have to prove I am an adult. Which is how it used to work with top shelf magazines (so I am told! ;-) )
I suppose it's not really the done thing to say this, but if you disagree with me, say something, don't just downvote.
As someone in the UK: Ofcom is a censor, that by leaving these things unclear are further having a massive chilling effect that is absolutely already being felt.
The issue here is not parental oversight. It's the massively overly broad assault on speech.
The UK PAYG block is a good example of a solution that would have had far less severe impact if extended.
Pretty sure the PAYG block is circumvented by simply changing the APN in the carrier settings using freely available information online - that's how 3Ireland works and VodafoneIRL IIRC. It also had the annoying consequence of blocking all 'adult' sites - which included sites of historic interest and things like the internet archive.
The problem with 'child safety' in the UK has almost nothing to do with pornographers or 'toxic' influences as viewed through the lense of neo-Victorian morality anyway.
Instead, it is a societal powderkeg of gang indoctrination and social deprivation leading to a culture of drug-dealing, violent robberies, and postcode gang intimidation. This bill is simply a cheap and easily supported deflection from the dereliction of duty of successive governments towards the youth of the country since Blair.
In short, it is nothing but an electoral panacea for the incumbent intolerant conservative voting base; moral-hysteria disguised as a child safety measure.
This is inherently obvious when you assess the new vocabulary of persecution and otherness - detailing 'ASBO Youth', 'Chavs', 'NEETs and NEDs' and their inevitable progression to 'Roadmen'.
The Netflix series 'Top Boy' is the Sopranos equivalent of how this culture operates and how children are indoctrinated into a life of diminished expectations in a way that is often inescapable given their environment and cultural norms around their upbringing.
Even with this plethora of evidence and cultural consciousness, the powers that be are smugly insistent that removing PornHub is more important than introducing Social Hubs and amenities - and those that argue otherwise are derided as 'Saville's in the new parlance.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/online-saf...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo
Normalizing those mosquito devices and trying to drive teenagers out of public life, banning kitchen knives in some attempt to keep kids from getting used to blades...
the UK strategy on kids is very very strange to me. I can't follow the logic at all. Do they expect them to silently sit at home, not using the Internet, not going anywhere with friends, and end up well adjusted adults anyway?
2 replies →
Seems like It’s just too dangerous for Wikipedia or many others to risk though - the potential penalties in the law are just too huge as far as I’ve seen.
For a lot of sites, the safe response has just been cautious over-blocking as far as I can see (or smaller UK-based services just shutting down) but you can imagine why Wikipedia don’t want to do that.
But you’re right that encouraging much better parental controls would have been better than passing this bad law - I’ll give you that one.
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