tutoteket.no is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Tutoteket er ein liten server med liten plass, men vi har lesestoff og god drikke, så vi klarar oss.

Administered by:

Server stats:

7
active users

#onlinesafetyact

19 posts13 participants0 posts today

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

Shut vile death video site, families say, as Ofcom gets new powers
...
From Monday, Ofcom gets new powers to crack down on illegal content, but it may not be enough to close the site.

Ofcom has no powers to "shut" or "close" sites.

At most, it can seek an order from a court to compel ISPs on the UK to attempt to block access (which probably means abusing DNS).

And from the summer all sites must have robust age verification systems to prevent children accessing a range of content.

No, they don't.

Bravo, BBC. Another excellent job reporting the facts there.

#OnlineSafetyAct

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w1z2

Mike Haines
BBC NewsShut vile death video site, families say, as Ofcom gets new powersFamilies want a website showing deaths of their loved ones to be taken down, as the online regulator gets new powers.

I spent a good chunk of my weekend helping people running tiny, low risk, online services complete paperwork about the UK’s Online Safety Act, for zero discernible benefit.

So it is a bit galling that the main headline on the BBC this morning is about the government wanting to “slash red tape”.

I have spent one heck of a lot of time on the OSA, trying to help others with its burden, and it just seems so utterly unnecessary.

Continued thread

When it comes to blogs, Ofcom says one thing, the UK Online Safety Act says another.

This lack of clarity over whether blogs with comments are exempt will push small sites to shut down completely.

We need the UK government to tighten up the definitions and exemptions in the Act.

Read our explainer for more detail ➡️ openrightsgroup.org/blog/save-

Open Rights GroupSave our Sites: Deadline 17 MarchIncredible as it may seem, thanks to the Online Safety Act, dozens of harmless, safe, small websites are closing down by 17 March, rather than face threats of fines that could lose their operators their homes.
Continued thread

Under the UK Online Safety Act, small blogs, forums and fedi instances are faced with disproportionate requirements to:

⚫️ Check if they have UK users

⚫️ Do a risk assessment on whether kids might access the content, or if CSAM or terrorist material might be posted in the comments

⚫️ Put themselves at the risk of fines, and even prison sentences, if they fail to comply with Ofcom’s future directives

#SaveOurSites 🌐

Protect Net Plurality! 🦾

Broad brush duties under the UK Online Safety Act threaten any website with possible penalties.

Small, safe sites can't shoulder this burden. We'll see the lights going out on blogs, Fedi instances and forums from 17 March with a devastating impact for online communities.

The Fediverse is under attack!

We must #SaveOurSites 🌐

openrightsgroup.org/blog/save-

Open Rights GroupSave our Sites: Deadline 17 MarchIncredible as it may seem, thanks to the Online Safety Act, dozens of harmless, safe, small websites are closing down by 17 March, rather than face threats of fines that could lose their operators their homes.
Continued thread

The solution to bad technology isn’t naive anti-technology reaction or “think of the children!” moral panic like the #OnlineSafetyAct. It is careful, smart, well targeted action against big technology players who create the bad stuff, and creating better, more human scale technology that’s not reliant on surveillance and big corporate nonsense and infinite growth ponzi economics.

But good luck fitting that into an op-ed column or a Newsnight soundbite.

If you are in the UK, you should already / should soon see "age assurance" tools restricting your access to porn sites.

Are you be willing to give a porn site / random third party service sufficient documentation or information to verify your age?

(For the sake of argument, let's agree that, yes, this will be circumventable trivially, even for many sites which bother to comply,, but that's not the point of this.)