blaineMar 17

It's easy to blame the UK government for being incompetent nitwits for writing the horrendous Online Safety Act (https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/14/online_safety_act/) that strengthens monopolies with the resources to implement it and weakens small communities without those same resources.

But this is all according to plan for Meta/Facebook et al. It's regulatory capture in action. It's way cheaper to kill your competition with regulation than to buy it, especially when it's decentralized.

It's not just Big Tech: The UK's Online Safety Act applies across the board

Analysis: That niche forum running for 20 years – get ready, there's work to do

The Register
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I hope Europe and Canada don't go down the same path as the UK here.

I also hope that "we" (as in, folks who build and care about small, independent online communities) can step up to the plate – both in terms of ensuring regulation supports _actually_ good outcomes AND in terms of building meaningful approaches to online safety.

Mar 17 at 3:18pmWeb
Show threadMarkMar 18
@blaine yeah me too. Little places have a very hard time with layers upon layers of legal.