Online Safety Bill Etc

[nffc]

Originally Posted by jem

As per ’Sirius’s example above; imagine I run a site, say ‘filthyPornR-US.com’ based in Hungary, I have no presence, no office in the UK, why on earth would I invest time, effort and money in checking to see if any of my ‘clientele’ are connecting from the UK and go through all the efforts to age check?

Of course I won’t, and what can the UK do about it? Sweet FA really! Maybe get a Court order to instruct all UK ISPs to block access, and we all know just how effective these are (PirateBay, anyone?)

Actually, according to the OSA at least they would have to comply if they are not based in the UK and have a significant number of UK users (this number isn't defined).


There's a checker you can use to see if your site or service is in scope or not.


As for whatever powers ofcom would have to enforce it on a site which wasn't based in the UK, well that remains to be seen, I'm sure at some point they will test it...

[RichardCoulter]

It seems that some websites are taking this latest implementation of the Online Safety Act seriously by either implementing age verification or geoblocking the UK, whilst others are ignoring it completely.

They too must not believe the Ofcom threats of fines, imprisonment, having their site blocked or having their business interrupted by Ofcom working with their suppliers etc or are simply not aware of these new requirements.

Ofcom have said that their preferred method of compliance is to work with website owners before using their more drastic powers, but will they work? It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

[Carth]

Of course they're taking it seriously Richard.
They're probably thinking "We should just move our operations base to the Philippines and screw the UK, everyone can still access with a VPN "

[Sirius]

A friend of mine has just installed a vpn for the first time. His reason is he is being asked to give photo id, credit card and bank details for age verification on sites that are NOT I repeat NOT porn sites. As far as he is concerned they can sod off and if it means using a vpn then so be it. The government has given VPN company’s a very lucrative market here in the UK.

[tweetiepooh]

I have Norton on my phones and tablets as well as my PC. The VPN turns on for unsecured networks and off on networks "it trusts".

[Sirius]

Just seen a post on a forum I frequent and due to site rules I cannot repost the post here however it looks like the spammers are trying a new tactic where they say someone has installed a vpn server on your pc. Of course they are after installing a remote setup and then empty your bank.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Sirius

A friend of mine has just installed a vpn for the first time. His reason is he is being asked to give photo id, credit card and bank details for age verification on sites that are NOT I repeat NOT porn sites. As far as he is concerned they can sod off and if it means using a vpn then so be it. The government has given VPN company’s a very lucrative market here in the UK.

Part of that is the media coverage in a sense making out this is mainly about porn sites.


it is not, it is also about sites which allow user to user content even this one.

[RichardCoulter]

From what i've been reading online it seems that there is confusion between what's required of user to user sites and age verification, the two are becoming conflated.

They said that the Act was intended to be broad, but it appears that this is leading to different interpretations of it too.

One site has now disabled their DM facility. Their reasoning is that public posts can be monitored for inappropriate content and dealt with but, as their software doesn't allow staff to read DM's, inappropriate or unlawful material could be sent from one member to another. This could lead to a situation where the owner(s) and staff could be held responsible for something that they had no knowledge of.

[jem]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

From what i've been reading online it seems that there is confusion between what's required of user to user sites and age verification, the two are becoming conflated.

Wow, confusion as to what is required, well with such a badly worded and vague piece of legislation, who could possibly have predicted that would happen?

They said that the Act was intended to be broad, but it appears that this is leading to different interpretations of it too.

Yes, because it is vague.

One site has now disabled their DM facility. Their reasoning is that public posts can be monitored for inappropriate content and dealt with but, as their software doesn't allow staff to read DM's, inappropriate or unlawful material could be sent from one member to another. This could lead to a situation where the owner(s) and staff could be held responsible for something that they had no knowledge of.

Well staff shouldn’t be able to read DMs should they, they are supposed to be ‘personal messages (or direct messages) between users. And no in this case the site owners are not responsible. This is the so-called ‘chilling effect’, it’s not illegal but we aren’t sure so we’ll shut it down just in case.

Think of it like this, if hypothetically, I were to send ‘inappropriate material’ to a 15 year old, say, in the post; then would Royal Mail be held responsible? Should they open and check every single letter and parcel just in case?

Although I do get the intentions of this law, it’s bad law, it will not, absolutely will not achieve what it claims do to in any meaningful sense, but will risk users personal information.