🚨 Wide ranging powers to restrict Internet access in the UK have been voted through 🚨
Ministers will be able to impose digital ID checks, curfews and VPN restrictions without Parliamentary scrutiny.
This can be used on websites, social media, apps and games with no need to show there's any harm to children.
Find out more ⬇️
#onlinesafety #digitalid #id #privacy #ageverification #freedomofexpression #ukpolitics #ukpol
“This broad amendment takes power away from [UK] parliament and Ofcom and hands it to ministers. The consequence of this would be every adult having to provide their personal data, or use their body and biometric features as a key to unlock the Internet."
It doesn't address the structural causes of online harms and can be used to restrict content ideologically.
🗣️ @JamesBaker
#onlinesafety #digitalid #privacy #ageverification #freedomofexpression #ukpolitics #ukpol
@openrightsgroup @JamesBaker Alternately users could abandon all UK-hosted and UK-compliant websites, and use only the darknet and noncompliant sites such as noncompliant Mastodon servers which will always exist.
The only counter to this is ID require to obtain SIM cards and landline connections, with existing SIMs cancelled unless registered with ID. Mexico was forced by noncompliance to abandon an attempt to do this.
VPN controls won't work either, non-UK based VPNs will ignore ID requirements and the malicious "free" ones certainly will. Then there's Tor, which they cannot block without blocking their own military's use of it.
The UK cannot afford to copy the Great Firewall of China, which is labor-intensive to run from what I hear and leaks like a sieve when facing determined opponents,
I think the "legal" Internet will become largely deserted except for shopping in large parts of the world.
I have yet to see an age verifiication prompt from any site even when accessing porn from inside Florida, again due to mass noncompliance.
@JamesBaker @openrightsgroup A big limiting factor the age verification thugs face on under-13 is that fact that few 13 year olds have government-issued ID. In the US, teens who do not drive or have a bank account may not have any sort of ID either.
Asking for school ID's leave out those who are homeschooled, have dropped out, or go to private schools that do not issue ID.
If they try that anyway, a false ID claiming to have been issued by a school that does not exist may be legal on the grounds that it is not a counterfeit of anyone else's document
@JamesBaker @openrightsgroup What I am hoping happens is that the corporate/ad supported social media sites all choke on this age verification crap, followed by a mass migration to platforms beyond the reach of the offending governments.
I normally pursue "counter-law enforcement" strategies to defeat shit like this, as the political process seems to be bought and paid for. In this case, its all about creating, then expanding "no-go zones" for online law enforcement.
Wide ranging powers to restrict Internet access in the UK have been voted through 🚨
Keir Stalin Starmer and Orwellian Surveillance Fetischist Shabhana Mahmood given even more power to damage citizens rights.
UK Labour is a desaster in action.
@DJGummikuh @Kerplunk @openrightsgroup
They're the continuity Tory party, put in place to keep the oligarch agenda going after the wheels fell off the traditional Tory party's clown car.
@DJGummikuh @Kerplunk @openrightsgroup The Tories voted in favour of the Lords’ amendments, which is a blanket Australia-style ban for under-16s, including restrictions on VPNs. Labour’s objections were that a blanket ban would just send kids underground and block them from critical information that they have a right to access, but their solution is vaguely-worded ad-hoc powers.
I think that’s better on balance but hard to say, and still bad. Many Labour members abstained.
@teamonkey @DJGummikuh @Kerplunk @openrightsgroup Of course the kids will go to noncompliant underground sites, followed by the rest of the UK public.
As for VPNs, remember that VPN hosts not based in the UK plus Tor node operators can tell OFCOM et all to frack off.
@DJGummikuh @Kerplunk @openrightsgroup ideology makes it sound very tolerant. I was mostly making reference to practices and policy making.
I am quite unsure in what era were the left/right parties being centrist. Their approach is simple: divide and conquer.
@openrightsgroup
So let me get this straight: UK govt will from now on be able to restrict internet access at will with no legislative oversight?
IIRC they enacted a law quite similar in Russia a while back.
@openrightsgroup You should link to the public consultation.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/growing-up-in-the-online-world-a-national-consultation
We are consulting on further measures to prepare children for the future in an age of rapid technological change. This includes potential age restrictions on social media and other services such as gaming sites and AI chatbots, restrictions on addictive design features and risky functionalities, and better support for parents and families.
Y'all are building Airstrip One all by yourselves over there... Have fun with that I guess?
FKS.
So remember V for Vendetta?
You brits might want to start stabbing all your government bodies now.
"the free world" /s
@openrightsgroup urgh!
Now we get to see parliament struggle to actually form a plan that will actually work, and when it doesn't they use the old "think for the children!" sales technique.
Sounds an awful lot like china or north korea
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