Online Safety Bill
 

I couldn't find an existing thread about this, but with the online safety bill in the news thought it could do with one

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...bench-pressure
In addition to the amendment for the changes to add criminal charges for tech platform managers, this has also been added which seems to be contrdictory for a goverment that's supposedly against 'cancel culture' and for free speech

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This is completely mad.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

China, Iran, Belarus, Russia and North Korea will be wondering if they've got a new bedfellow!

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

What exactly is a "tech platform" ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Anything here answer your question - https://www.gov.uk/government/public...the-draft-bill

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Nope, its equally vague, referring to 'tech companies' and 'major platforms'.

[ and Category 1 companies ] whatever they are.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

As people on social media have pointed out, celebrating Dunkirk would technically be illegal under those rules :shocked: . Christopher Nolan's film would be banned.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This is inline with their recent erosion of our rights & liberties. They be locking you up next for "Wearing a loud shirt in a built up area" :D

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Having an absurd or aggressive haircut in public

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Being in possession of an offensive wife. :D

This bill still treats the internet as if it's the top shelf of the corner shop. The only parties likely to fall foul of it are the BBC and innocent UK forums etc. Tik Tok, twitter et al will still be unreachable.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I did read this in the draft link ;
Good luck with that .... delusions of power.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Except it wouldn't. The channel was crossed in troopsships before embarking in the landing craft.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ships_of_Dunkirk

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

My bad Ben, I'd seen similar about Dunkirk and D-Day. Confused.com.:D

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Some companies like What'sApp will withdraw from the UK because they will not weaken their security just for the UK. It's a terrible bill.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Rumblings from OFSTED via the BBC.... "youngsters have smartphones!"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64330128

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Was on the 10'oclock News that there has been a rise in child sex grooming. Tens of thousands of online grooming crimes have been recorded during the wait for updated.
online safety laws.

Websites continue to resisti the wish of Governments to allow access to encrypted nessages via a back door. They say that this will make the nessages less secure for everybody ans put victims of domestic abuse etc at risk;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66498601

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Of course they do.
Anyone with an ounce of commen sense can see how stupid that idea is.
"a rise in child sex grooming" is not a good reason to compromise online security.

I really hope you are not dumb enough to believe that, or fall for it.
Perhaps when your bank accounts are hacked by a back door, you'll realise.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If they have recorded crimes the online safety bill will not make a difference to them as it was already a crime

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Richard, both you and the Government are clueless how the internet works. That is the problem.

There is no forum, site, VPN or Social Media that will allow a backdoor for any access as it risks client security and indeed the sites normal operation. Its a total non starter.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

AFAIK Governments only want a back door to monitor encrypted end to end private messaging.

I personally can see both points regarding privacy & the need to protect vulnerable members of society, prevent terrorism etc.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

you are really showing you naivety now

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

How many of these encrypted message providers are UK based? I doubt those that aren't based here will be that bothered.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

They are as it's not just the UK Government that wants access to encrypted messages. Also, if the relevant sites refuse, they are likely to face sanctions for non compliance.

One party will get their way, but which one??

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Oh right ....... 'Only' :dozey:

Perhaps you need to look up the work "Private" since you seem unable to grasp its meaning.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It’s far more likely that the big loser will be the UK consumer as big tech companies decide to exit the UK market rather than bow to the wishes of curtain twitchers on these small islands.

There’s 7 billion people on the planet - the vast majority of whom value privacy - so the idea the tech giants will bow down is fanciful.

What other countries should get a right to this back door?

Iran?
Syria?
China?
India?
Russia?

Do the tech giants create varying back doors depending on how strict or loose laws are in a given territory?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

When HMG realises that Meta is about to close WhatsApp in the UK rather than fundamentally undo the entire point of strong encryption, HMG will find some face-saving way to back down. WhatsApp groups are the engine of every interest group within every political party in Westminster. If nothing else persuades them, this will.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The Lords debated this and now require a "suitable person" to authorise access but not defining what that person will be. One peer recognised that to have the mechanisms available to allow access (however authorised) makes the whole encryption vulnerable.


I wonder what would happen if access was available, services remained in the UK and then some group of vulnerable people that relied on the secure service to report issues or communicate was suddenly targeted because the nasties found/made a copy of the back door key.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

That's an argument against it that the tech firms are using.

---------- Post added at 18:22 ---------- Previous post was at 18:16 ----------

Oh yes, if the various Governments do back down you can be sure that it will be spun to look like they haven't.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The EU version of the forthcoming Online Safety Act is now going through. It's called the Online Services Act.

According to the BBC's Media Show, it's expected to affect the UK as EU legislation usually becomes a defacto global model, such as the GDPR. I'm assuming that this is because companies find it easier to work to a standard set of rules.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Which is why nobody cares about the UK Bill and it’ll be ineffective.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The EU is implementing the Digital Services Act, and it differs in a crucial respect from the UK’s Online Safety Bill (it isn’t an Act until Parliament has passed it and it gets Royal assent). The EU measures do not attempt to force services to break their own encryption to allow GCHQ, MI5 or your local council to snoop on your WhatsApp account whenever they feel it necessary. In other respects it is similar in that that requires online service providers to do better at data profiling and dealing with inappropriate content or abuse of their services.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Quite timely our Government has watered down their proposals on end to end encryption.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...ption-ban.html

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The entire Westminster bubble operates on WhatsApp. Faced with Meta’s credible threat to exit the UK market el gov was always going to blink first. The fudge they’re now proposing is a contorted attempt to back down without being seen to back down, but it’s hard to see it in any other way. The measures as now drafted cannot currently be enforced because the technology doesn’t exist, and if those conditions were ever met then service providers can still make good on their threat to exit the UK. Presumably at this point the Tories are assuming it’ll be a Labour government that has to deal with that, at some point in the next 10 years or so.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Definitely sounds like an episode of Yes, Minister! Tech companies are happy and the Minister is happy.

Ultimately, we'll end up following international/EU standards. We're too integrated with the Western world and frankly too small to be able to be an outlier on this matter.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

We said earlier that the UK Government would probably fudge the issue to save face and that's exactly what they've done!

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

God bless their ineptitude.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yes, its nice when they screw up in a good way :D

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The spinning yarn would be that they have now taken into account other factors and after careful consideration and consultation made sensible modifications to the bill that, while does pose some challenges in some areas, best allows the UK to lead in the field of secure communications while at the same time making provision for the protection of some of the most vulnerable in our society.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan spoke about the latest on the Online Safety Bill on Tuesday.

She said that if websites fail to prevent innapropriate material from appearing, they will face huge fines and that some had already changed their behaviour.

With regards to children, the average age that they see pornography is 13 and that seeing innapropriate material had led some childten to take their own lives.

Moderators have said that they are having to check four things at once for eight hours a day, but, nevertheless, there will be zero tolerance of this material.

She spoke about the requirement for age verification that can be aided by AI & technology. If there is any doubt about someone's age, just like supermarkets when they sell age restricted products they will have to ask the individual for more information to prove their age.

2/3 of adults will be targeted by online fraudsters, so websites will be required to be proactive in preventing this.

It's about 15 mins in.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/...mand/74264-197

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

At 13, I was hunting that material, not trying to hide from it, which is pretty normal and healthy.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

And how the hell do they achieve that? How does anyone get any warning that such material is about to land on their sites?

And how will discussion forums like this one operate without flooding their sites with moderators?

This is so ill thought out, I find it difficult to understand how it’s got so far in the legislative process. The only way for websites to achieve this is to vet all material before it lands.

Good luck to the likes of X Corp (ex Twitter) and Meta (ex Facebook) with thousands of posts arriving every day.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Many, many more than that…

https://blog.wishpond.com/post/11567...t%20each%20day.

And in May 2022

https://www.businessdit.com/number-of-tweets-per-day/

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Couldn't agree more, this is as stupid as a law banning the wind from blowing.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So today free speech was killed and laid to rest. The online safety bill has passed and all of the I will be offended for you because you should be offended but are not offended zealots will now have the time of the lives. I feel sorry for forum owners who will be inundated with petty little complaints. I just hope that any forum owner who has to deal with a constant list of complaints from the i am offended zealots will exercise there right to remove such zealots via the terms and conditions of the said forums.

As of today any new forums i join will be joined via a vpn and burner email address. :)


https://news.sky.com/story/online-sa...ntent-12965080

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This mornings Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme featured an interesting interview with Michael Grade, the chair of Ofcom.

He answers some questions raised previously by Cableforum members and gives an outline of how the Onlne Safety Act will operate. Thousands of jobs have been created by websites to ensure that the new requirements are met.

The discussion then switched to the subject of GB News and he stated that Ofcom has to get the balance right between freedom of speech & expression and complaints made. I'm assuming, therefore, that this same view will be applied to the Online Safety Act.

The interview starts at about 0:54 here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sg59

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The problem with Michael Grade is he thinks the solution to any problem is cancelling Doctor Who.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

There is a clause about browsers too. Browsers will have to code in trust of "government actors" so they can intercept and re-encrypt HTTPS without the browser highlighting that to the users. Companies do the same sort of thing on proxies, understandable, you are using their resource.
Essentially traffic will pass through a device that will decrypt the traffic, check the "plain text", then re-encrypt using the actors certificates. The browser "trusts" those certificates so won't complain. Browser makers may have to have versions for the snoop countries and for the "free" countries.
I guess you could get a "free" version but you would have lots of warnings about untrusted certificates. I'd also guess that the actors device would have to find a way to pass on any originating problems so you would still get warnings about "real" untrusted certificates.
I am not really interested about the workability of the solution here as the implications for secure communication.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I imagine that this will be being done to flag up concerning searches for things like child porn, information on how to make a bomb, how to commit suicide etc.

I do think that this Act will always have to be a work in progress as technology is changing so fast. One new thing that's arisen is the use of images of real children being used to create child porn via the use of AI.

---------- Post added at 17:08 ---------- Previous post was at 17:04 ----------

:D :D There has recently been some programmes about the history of Dr Who on BBC4 and a forthcoming programne on Radio 4 that you might be interested in.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Now that the Online Safety Act has been passed into law, Melanie Dawes from Ofcom is working on the codes of practice that websites must operate.

The safety of our children must take priority and, with this in mind, preventing them from accessing pornography is currently being looked at.

The average age that children first see pornography is 13 (though a quarter of children have come across pornography by age 11) and a shocking 10% of 9 year olds have seen pornographic material. By age 18 79% have been exposed to pornography that is coercive, degrading or involves pain inducing sex acts.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Most of these proposed safeguards would easily got round by tech savvy children, some adults might struggle though!

I wonder if there is genuine desire to enforce this, or its just words.They've been on about this for years ( like protecting renters from no fault evictions), but delivered nothing.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Is there a genuine desire for this Government to do anything but to blow a whistle at rabid dogs?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I think so. When asked what would happen to websites that didn't comply she said that Ofcom would have a word with them. If this didn't work, compliance powers eg fines would be imposed. If this didn't work they would take steps to ensure that the site would no longer be accessible from the UK.

When asked about the possibility of people circumventing this she said that she accepts that this may be possible and that the legislation wasn't a golden bullet.

However, as most children tend to stumble onto pornography by accident, this should resolve most incidents.

When asked how those under 18 could be stopped from accessing pornography, she said that various methods were being looked at, including linking access to bank accounts (whilst maintaining privacy) and facial recognition to check someone looks over 18. No data would be stored, it would simply be used by adults to access pornographic sites and never retained.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This is nonsense, its not the early 2000's anymore, you dont stumble on porn by accident these days.
You would have to go looking for it, which of course young people do (and naturally, they deny it, or claim it as an "accident" if caught).

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Two suggestions on par with Trump shining his UV light and bleach comments.

Absolute gibberish spoken by people with no understanding.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The problem shouldn't about how or if you can access porn today, it should be about the content of what is normalised and classed as porn today. That is a much bigger problem. This needs to be address in schools before they get to the stage and age of searching online. Tricky but very much needed.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Young people are just copying adults here
MP Caught Watching Porn In Parliament Claims He Was Looking At Tractors

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The question of personal responsibility and accountability still remains. a degree or parents use a device/internet as a baby sitter. since you can block content at a device, home network, or service provider level with considerable ease.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Not all parents have the will or capability to utilise these tools and their children deserve to be protected too.

Examples of where porn has been stumbled upon include a search for 'Spice girls' and 'Bigger women fashion'.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

"He believes…" ;)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I have no reason to disbelieve the members of the panel (one a national broadcaster) who supplied these examples amongst others.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I call B/S. I just did a seach of both, very disappointing, no porn.

[ ... and what child these days is even searching for 'spice girls', I'd bet the majority of have never even heard of them, they date from 25+ years ago ].

Actually, for that matter, what child searchs for 'Bigger women fashion' ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yep just done the same search and found nothing. Yep complete bull excreta based on my search.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I even searched on "spicy girls" - still nothing ;) it just returned stuff for the spice girls.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I wonder if the panel members previous searches influenced their search results?

;)

Update - I searched in both of terms mentioned by RC, and the first 50 returns were for each term were "family friendly" ; got bored after that…

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Search engines nowadays are more discerning than those of the past(Altavista, Webcrawler).

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I do miss those early days, I remember a friend was a self employed electrician at the time and searching his company name (on Hotbot???) returned all sorts of stuff including porn and most of it was unrelated to his business or electrical installation in any way.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Melanie Dawes is determined to protect children from being exposed to pornography, whether purposefully or accidentally, and measures will be introduced to prevent this.

The media picked up on this today and have dubbed it as the 'Passport to porn'.

Ofcom has no problem with adults viewing appropriate pornography if that is what they wish to do, but children must be protected from such material.

Other vulnerable groups will be considered in due course, but children have been made a priority so protective measures are being brought in for them first.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Almost no porn sites are based in the UK, so what "measures" ?
Good luck telling sites in other countries how to run, just because some MP in the UK decided they know better.

Other "vulnerable groups" ? Such as who exactly ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Wonder if it might be easier for site owners to just ban vulnerable groups and users once they become known, might save them some tedious aggravation further down the line

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

That's what i hope, make friverlus complaints and your gone, no more issues :)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

And there in lies my point

The parent is primarily responsible for the child’s safety if they can’t be arsed to do it or to learn how to do it that’s on them. It is not the job of an isp or site owner to make up for a lack of parental responsibility or capabilities

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

In an idral world, I would agree with you, but there may be many varied good reasons why they aren't able to do this. Even if there isn't their children must still be protected.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Such as ?

You explicitly stated those that can’t be bothered and this that don’t know how too they are not good reasons

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yes they are. Parents may lack intelligence or education or have debilitating illnesses/disabilities Some may simply hold the view that they don't care or can't be bothered.

These children need to be protected from exposure to harmful images etc. In fact, it's these children that will ultimately benefit from this legislation as those with parents who use parental controls etc are less likely to see pornography.

Alcohol and cigarettes are legal, but shops tjat sell these products are obliged to take steps to try and protect them getting into the hands of children.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Please tell me what illness or disability stops you from picking up the phone or using the app to contact an isp or mobile network to turn on parental controls.

The fact that parents don’t care or can’t be bothered does not make it the responsibility of the isp or site owner

It’s a legal requirement for children to be either in a suitable car seat or to use the seatbelt. But if a child doesn’t use either the vehicle manufacturer isn’t held accountable are they ? No, the parent gets the fine.

You’re talking utter absolute gibberish as per.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I think he's defending this bill no matter what anyone says. He's basically a one man crusade that just won't listen or have any answers put to him. It seems pointless responding to him.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

You're nonsense comments are moot as this is going ahead and has all party support.

The time to put any objections forward was during tje consultation period.

---------- Post added at 17:31 ---------- Previous post was at 17:24 ----------

This Act has all party support from people from all walks of life and countries abroard are planning similar measures

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If this is going ahead then why are you still talking nonsense about it? Funny how you pull that card out when you’re put in a position you don’t like.Now, stop swerving and answer the question put to you?

I’ll bet you this bill doesn’t go ahead as stated, it will be that watered down it will be next to useless.

You’re like the politicians on this subject, clueless

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

As previously stated, it's no longer a Bill, it's now an Act of Parliament.

The first ever case of online rape inside a virtual reality video game has been referred to police for investigation.

The avatar of a little girl was sexually assaulted by a group of characters. Detectives believe that she was believed to have been wearing a headset and suffered the same psychological trauma as someone who had been raped in the realworld.

Sexual offending of both adults & children in virtual environments has become rife and cannot be allowed to continue.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

You can previously state as much as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that this will be eventually watered down.


Can you point me to the legal definition of the offence of ‘online rape’ I’m unable to find one.

Can you also provide statistics as to how you reach the assement that it’s ripe ?

I think by you classifying someone as being sexually assaulted and using the term online rape you dilute/lessen the impact/severity of the offences that physically occur. Whilst the mental impact may be similar a virtual offence cannot for obvious reasons result in unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease or physical damage.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Further reading may now be found about the online rape as this has now been picked up by the media.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

As requested please provide the link to the specific defined offence of ‘online rape’

If you could answer the other points too, please ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Sounds more like a moralistic vs legality issue.

Personally I'm struggling with it all, certain people should just refrain from using the internet and just bubble wrap themselves. Richard included.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I think the media have defined the term ‘online tape’ to sensationalise with their actually being no specific actual offence of that nature.

Am I going to get investigated for shooting someone in call of duty and causing them to ‘die’ will that be ‘online murder’ ?

Or perhaps ‘online manslaughter’ for accidentally running over someone in GTA V or ‘online armed robbery’

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So let me get this right.

A person partaking in a VR video game started getting raped (virtually) and carried on with the game instead of shutting it down (if not earlier)? I would think that person had a psychological problem to begin with.

What has happened to common sense in this world? Why does no-one accept the consequences of their own actions?

I think I've found the evidence that Richard has based his post upon.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/r...-b2090491.html

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

What you say is the argument. Would you call the police to say you've been shot in a game. How do you define rape in VR. Okay you might have the use of hands attached to your avatar within VR (I use VR a lot). But you don't have appendages etc. So does continuously moving back and forth with your avatar onto another avatar is that now is classed as rape?? It is insulting to those that are the real victims of such crimes.

I don't agree with verbal abuse online, or in any game or whatever but that is rife but it's just noise that you can just ignore. But within VR all you need to do is log out, or take off the headset if it becomes an issue. But where there's blame there's a claim for some.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Whatever happened to the on - off button. Is it not a thing anymore. ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Apparently not.

Ridiculous, as already noted above, there is no such offence, and absolutely nothing physical happening, the whole point of VR is its not real - and you can simply turn off the VR/Game. As everyone has been saying from the start, this bill is complete nonsense, wasting police time that should be used to investigate real crimes.

Reading above there are even settings in the game to stop interaction - "personal boundaries setting", which you would have to disable.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Which Pip stated above were disabled by player despite the reccomendation from the company.

That being said someone should be able to play any game without fear of harassment, however rape/sexual assault this is not

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

There is no such crime.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yet again Richard is on his own with this one. I'll never understand why he doesn't come to his senses and see that we're all from different walks of life here on this forum, yet no one here agrees with any of the crap he posts and agrees with. All I can say is get a bloody grip on 'reality' Richard.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

May I remind everyone that this is a little girl that we are talking about.

Paedophiles are increasingly using VR as a way to gain access to children to groom then and/or act out their sick fantasies.

Is anyone suggesting that this is acceptable because sexual offence legislation hasn't yet been updated to take account of new technology?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So clearly well supervised by their parents, not to mention they should not even have been playing it.

https://oursaferschools.co.uk/2022/0...lds-metaverse/

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

A) no we don’t know it’s a "little girl", as no links have been provided.

B) If it was a "little girl" (define, please), what was a young child doing online in a VR environment without adult supervision?

Update - just seen pip’s post - it was an adult researcher….

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Richard you are stating that this is the first case of virtual rape. Please explaine how it is rape see Legal definition below



I feel for the young Girl and what she has gone through however it is stretching it to claim it is rape based on the above.

By the definition you are making then i need to go hand my self in to the police for the killing of 75 passengers in a cruse ship in Elite Dangerous last night, are those players now going to come after me in the courts.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’ve just been teabagged by someone in CoD, what offence* is that ?

(*Apart from being guilty of being rubbish at CoD….)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Assault with a deadly teabag :)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

.The "young girl" in question is an avatar that was used by the SumOfUs internet researcher.

I look forward to Richard highlighting (with link) any other case of online virtual reality rape. It is just so rediculous. Just as Richard's posts normally are.#

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So this was not a real girl and was instead a test and could have been a man for all anyone knew. I understand in this case it was a female reseacher ?