This article isn’t reporting - it’s narrative management. It frames the Online Safety Act as a spat between a Silicon Valley billionaire and a noble UK government, carefully avoiding the substance: the Act is a surveillance and censorship scaffold dressed up as “protecting the children”.

The language is pure spin - citizens defending their rights are downgraded to “free speech activists”, as if liberty were a niche cause, while ministers smear opponents as “on the side of predators” (projection?)

It should have been obvious what was coming when we had incidents like this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/king-charles-protests-arrest-signs-b2165602.html

“Officer came and asked for my details. He confirmed that if I wrote ‘Not My King’ on it, he would arrest me under the Public Order Act because someone might be offended.”

Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Someone *MIGHT* be offended? What if someone was offended by King Charlie?

And last week the met arrested something like 500 people for peaceful protest.

The monarch is protected from most things by crown immunity.

The real problem is the law regarding hate speech, especially in Scotland after the SNP rushed through an ill thought-out law.

But I'm going to get you arrested for what I think you're thinking about me!

King Charlie's immunity doesn't protect him from criticism. I think we fought a war a while ago about this very topic.

The UK isn't Germany and we do not have a specific 'insult law'. And in reality a sign that says 'not my king' should not even be interpreted as an insult. It would also take some gymnastics to call it hate speech. From where that person was standing could Charlie even have seen the sign?

Unfortunately laws are being written based on the views of a tiny vocal minority, usually part of some NGO think tank who have convinced MPs that they really need to do this for 'the good of the people'.

Maybe the poster was not precise. Perhaps should read "Not my pet king" or something.

Of course it isn't an insult. As I understood it, the police action claimed to be on the basis that the signs could provoke violence from people who disagreed. I would have thought that in that case the police should be providing protection to the sign-bearers and/or arresting anyone who looked like a violent skinhead who might have attacked them!

I wrote to Chris Philp (then policing minister, now shadow Home Secretary of all things!) suggesting that he instructs the police make a very visible public apology for the misuse of their powers, thus making up somewhat for the loss of public visibility and on-going debate which would have occurred if the signs had been seen on TV. I also suggested that the Prime Minister may like to make a humble suggestion to the King that he makes a personal statement that while he (obviously) has every confidence in the role he performs, he deeply recognises the right of others to disagree and regrets the heavy handed behaviour of his Police and so will permit the campaigners to post their Not My King sign outside the palace for a week (and maybe even privately sending them a small cash donation himself - I certainly sent them one).

I never got a reply - surprise, surprise.

The smears are typical Labour/Marxist tactics.

What a terrible article.

It's disingenuous about what Andreessen actually did & said (his tweet is here https://x.com/pmarca/status/1953970057018818960) and it's also completely downplaying the widespread anger at the OSA.

It's the sort of biased reporting one expects of the MSM, not El Reg.

Obviously, the act is to protect innocent children from online Peter Kyles! Why are you siding with Peter Kyles, you monster!

Or at your local newsagent's*. The same places that sell the bootleg tobbaco.

* Sorry, "convenience store", newsagents are obsolete

" Or at your local newsagent's*. "

Do I bag a grocer's apostrophe ?

* I suppose "shop" or "store" is understood and freestanding groceries are rare nowadays; all gone to 7-Eleven heaven where the dubious mags and bootleg baccy are probably available from behind the counter along with the barber's "something for the weekend, sir." Arkwright would be turning in his grave.

I think he's with the grocers. I can't remember newsagents ever being written with an apostrophe as the context never suggested it would be appropriate: both singular and plural could refer to a specific shop or in general. Cf. "neighbours".

honestly, its gauling all these people who pick you up on every sleight mistake. They're seems to be no stopping them! ;-)

UK TV has shows with naked people in them.

The UK is not the place to develop tech any more. The censorship and blocks will just increase.

Kyle should be fired for his comments.

I agree that Peter Kyle's comment was out of order and inappropriate, coming from an MP, let alone a Minister.

On the other hand, I would not fall for the narrative of the key players in the tech sphere of influence; they have their own motives. They may make comments that occasionally align with the public interest, but they are also quite happy to take government contracts in areas about which they would not wish to be so forthcoming.

... instead of letting things go too far so people who don't understand the Internet end up regulating the Internet.

Tech luminaries would have implemented a decent interoperable version of [1]PICS instead of [2]making encouraging noises but [3]not implementing it (see p2) . In an alternate universe:

- Browsers ubiquitously implemented PICS.

- OSes ubiquitously implemented discoverable on-device parental controls (see Windows up until 8, older MacOSes) to allow parents to choose the PICS settings for their child's profile.

- Websites implemented PICS and advertiser and regulator pressure was applied to the stragglers.

- That would have worked until the rise of smart phones and apps, but equivalent parental controls would have been developed given the precedence set by a successful PICS.

[1] https://www.w3.org/PICS/PICS-FAQ-980126.html

[2] https://www.w3.org/PICS/960314/steam.html

[3] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2006/03/13/1277_09b.pdf

Sorry but that would never have been the world we live in:

Browsers would allow such functionality to be disabled, and if they didn't, then users would simply migrate to browsers that did, or to browsers that didn't include any censorship functionality

OSes - responsible companies already implement filtering of such material through corporate devices, home users would once again simply disable such functionality - kids often know more than their parents anyway.

The kind of websites we are talking about wouldn't implement any such controls - of course I can't say so myself but a friend tells me that the advertising on most porn sites is for other porn sites - so where is the "advertiser pressure" going to come from?

Parental controls - that's the root of the whole problem anyway - parents generally not caring what their kids are viewing, and treating smartphones, consoles and the internet as a babysitter

Browsers would allow such functionality to be disabled, and if they didn't, then users would simply migrate to browsers that did, or to browsers that didn't include any censorship functionality

Why are you calling it censorship if it's set by the parents? When they told you you couldn't watch something on the TV as it was 9 o'clock and time for bed, did you call it censorship?

OSes - responsible companies already implement filtering of such material through corporate devices, home users would once again simply disable such functionality - kids often know more than their parents anyway.

I don't know if you've tried them or not, but the last time I looked at MacOS' parental controls, there was a local proxy which all browsers run by that user had to use.

The kind of websites we are talking about wouldn't implement any such controls - of course I can't say so myself but a friend tells me that the advertising on most porn sites is for other porn sites - so where is the "advertiser pressure" going to come from?

Probably government pressure, notice how I listed more than one.

Parental controls - that's the root of the whole problem anyway - parents generally not caring what their kids are viewing, and treating smartphones, consoles and the internet as a babysitter

How about the ones that do care but don't have a way of seeing what their kids are viewing the moment they step outside?

Rather than being concerned with imagined concerns, the real issue is the obstacles a member of the public must navigate to report criminal activity. The government is reporting that crime numbers are down, but they are only counting what the police now decide to pursue rather than the actual reported incidents.

The UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), which recently came into force and is designed to prevent children from stumbling across unsavoury content on the internet.

Let's be realistic. They're not "stumbling" across it. They're actively trying to access it.

Which is really not very different to the way people of my generation (40-something) passed CD-R discs around in high school with such material. Or those before did with VHS / printed magazines.

It would have gone a lot better if the people who implement this crap reminded themselves of what they did... well themselves!

Other fond memories include using fake ID to get served in pubs at 16/17 back in the day. If you try and restrict everything people will just find a way around it. In this case a VPN is the answer and I dare say CD-R discs of yore will simply be replaced by equivalent flash drives or cloud storage locations.

You couldn't make this kind of shit up. Let's spend £££ on coming up with something that can be circumvented in 5 seconds and totally ignores the reality of why people are doing this in the first place (human nature).

Where I would draw the line is accessing extreme or illegal material. That's a whole different story and very much something that platforms can and should be obliged to deal with.

There should be only two standards involved: Is it a completely made up work of fiction? If it involves real people performing real acts, is what is being filmed legal to do? If either answer is yes, then the content should be allowed, no matter how much of an ick it is. Anything less and you’re inviting the devil to your doorstep.

A reminder of the slippery slope everyone kept claiming was a fallacy:

In 2009, the UK government decided that depictions of sexual abuse in anime, cartoons and video games should be treated just like the real thing, despite the fact that it would criminalise existing well known and well respected works released (and stocked in libraries) around the time the law was introduced. Nobody stepped in to prevent our politicians from fundamentally altering peoples ability to express concepts through the medium of fiction because only Jimmy Savile would be against this, right? Well, it provided the government with the foundations necessary to take away anything they wanted.

5 years later, the UK government then banned the production of many other categories of pornography (intended for video on demand consumption) popularly searched for by British citizens, even things as simple as spanking and caning. Nobody stepped up then either. That same year, we saw people being locked up for possessing legitimate anime the government didn’t like. Worse, people who used encryption because they didn’t want the details of what they got off to being made public, would find themselves threatened with 2 years in prison if they didn’t let the police have unfettered access to their private data, even if what they possessed was completely legal. Again, nobody did anything about it. Two years later, the Online Safety Bill is drafted and again, nobody threatened to disown the people discussing the further erosion of our civil rights.

It’s been 15 years since this all began, and I still reckon there will be people out there who think banning fiction merely on the grounds that it gives some people the ick is acceptable. Had we nipped this political stupidity in the bud at the first instance, like the populations of many other countries did, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

... these days, when you wish a plague on both houses. The days when I had any lingering respect for Andreessen are long gone, as he seemingly wants to cultivate the vibe of a Bond villain with a liking for pies, and face fuzz, and Ayn Rand tech bro libertarianism (i.e. We can do what the fuck we want, you do what we tell you)

Meanwhile, HMG has decided to go all in on implementing bad legislation from a previous government with little clue about anything, especially towards its end. The first noises from Kyle and his department last year weren't entirely awful, but are starting to sound more and more deranged as the weeks go by.

In the meantime, as is normal, many users find workarounds for bad law, and bad regulation. And what's left is just a confusing mess because hardly anyone in a position of so-called authority seems to know what they're doing.

Plus ça change ...

I agree with Illuminatus' argument, the problem is not "porn" the problem is a subsect - "Violent/Degrading/Demeaning Porn". Just so we are clear here the law on porn has been broken when we use child images or images that depict rape, strangulation etc... see Serious Crime Act 2015. This is just the boot catching up with tech bro's who refused to engage and find a middle ground like a narcissist. You want to be angry blame big tech for not respecting our laws in the first place. Very few people have an issue with taken down or restriction of say "terrorist" or "radicalizing content", so what really is the difference here? Its not the content, its the delivery mechanism and putting proportional controls around that.

For those that use the newsagent argument - they were at the top shelf outside of my reach in my day, so there was an attempt to make it hard, and of course any publication showing a woman being choked while have a dick shoved up here would result in instant trip to the courts so problem solved - again a control at the delivery mechanism (publishers).

I have more sympathy for the government - but recognize the impracticality in enforcing the legislation, but again big tech's being failing that for 10 years already.

> so there was an attempt to make it hard

> Shock news: billionaire techpreneur is not a fan

Very few people are fans.

But honestly, normalizing VPN for *everything* is a good thing and should have been done years ago. Its way more important than 2FA and that seems to have propagated quite well to casual users.

Ok, I'll bite.... How does one verify that a VPN service isn't a bad actor, hiding parts of the internet from the user or worse, skimming off data passing through?

Which is a question that should be directed at the current Government who just pass this Swiss Cheese piece of legislation

The only way it makes sense to use a VPN for everything is if you are forced to use an ISP you don't trust, which is not really the case in Western countries.

Using a VPN for general connections (instead of bypassing geo restrictions) gives something of a false sense of security. If you connect to a remote site through "Fred's VPN service" you will have a secure connection between the client on your device, and the server hosting Fred's endpoint. From there the connection will be routed over the ordinary Internet to whatever bank/shop/mailserver you're using.

Just using a standard SSL connection, like HTTPS, gives you a secure connection from your device right through to the remote site you're accessing. A VPN adds little to that.

Obviously using a VPN like OpenVPN, Cisco AnyConnect, etc. for, say, remote work, where the VPN endpoint is on your employer's server and opens directly into their secure network is a different matter. There it is useful, because you have end-to-end security.

Is the Online Safety Act going to demand games like Roblox to verify your age to make sure you're UNDER 18 to play to stop kiddie fiddlers from "talking" to kids?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer - grow up teenager.

So very few are disagreeing with the stated intent (preventing those below legal age from seeing inappropriate content)

Many people are complaining about how it has been implemented and its potential impact on freedom of expression and privacy.

If the implementation had been postponed until a secure and privacy-preserving proof of age system could be put in place, then the whole issue could have been avoided.

But as always, the government wants to be value signalling and doesn't actually care if it works or causes a massive-scale Ashley Madison-style data breach.

Unfortunately, the average teenage boy is infinitely more tech-literate than the average MP and will find a way around the controls, whereas the average grown-up, for who this content is created, will end up suffering as their private habits are exposed in the inevitable breach of the age verification service.

While technology catches up and puts in place the verification, it has made a considerable dent in the finances of the increasing number of "Content Creators," who rely on its consumption for their livelihood.

until a secure and privacy-preserving proof of age system could be put in place

There's no such animal, and never will be. Generating proof of age requires surrendering some privacy, by definition.