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Hundreds of Websites To Shut Down Under UK's 'Chilling' Internet Laws (telegraph.co.uk) 98

Posted by msmash from the cause-and-effect dept.
Hundreds of websites will be shut down on the day that Britain's Online Safety Act comes into effect, in what are believed to be the first casualties of the new internet laws. From a report: Microcosm, a web forum hosting service that runs 300 sites including cycling forums and local community hubs, said that the sites would go offline on March 16, the day that Ofcom starts enforcing the Act.

Its owner said they were unable to comply with the lengthy requirements of the Act, which created a "disproportionately high personal liability." The new laws, which were designed to crack down on illegal content and protect children, threaten fines of at least $23 million for sites that fail to comply with the laws. On Monday, Ofcom set out more than 40 measures that it expects online services to follow by March, such as carrying out risk assessments about their sites and naming senior people accountable for ensuring safety.

Hundreds of Websites To Shut Down Under UK's 'Chilling' Internet Laws More | Reply

Hundreds of Websites To Shut Down Under UK's 'Chilling' Internet Laws

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  • The strategy is clear (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @03:46PM (#65020377)

    Only corporate sites will be allowed
    Any hobby or personal sites are dangerous and must be destroyed

    • Re:The strategy is clear (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @03:56PM (#65020427)
      This is about political speech, not corporate control. The UK has already imprisoned people for posting memes on Facebook. This is just putting that emergency ruling into law. The UK has no concept of free speech in law. These are the consequences of that. Labor finally won an election (despite only getting 75% of the number of votes they usually get). And even though they are only the 3rd most popular party at the moment with support from less than a quarter of the voting population (which is about 1 in 7 of the total population), they are in charge till the next election. And it seems that they are going to make the most of it and are passing multiple very unpopular policies that probably aren't going to benefit the wider population. Its like they want Reform (which is very right wing) to win the next election. Truth is, the UK isn't really in a great position economically. Their energy costs are high and they have few natural resources with a high standard of living. That makes it hard for any political leader to make things work. The only industry keeping the lights on is finance and a lot of that is pretty corrupt (see Londongrad). So its a difficult position for any leader, let alone a scared little boy (I've never seen a leader with such a look of terror on his face when talking to the population) trying his best to deal with an almost impossible economic system.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )
        Sorry, Labour, not Labor. I'm not British.

        • Sorry, Labour, not Labor. I'm not British.

          That has not prevented your Dunning-Kruger to get the better of you. Please, tell us about inter-universal Teichmüller theory now - you probably know as much about that as about internal UK politics.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Teckla ( 630646 )

            That has not prevented your Dunning-Kruger to get the better of you. Please, tell us about inter-universal Teichmüller theory now - you probably know as much about that as about internal UK politics.

            The Dunning-Kruger effect has been debunked as a real psychological effect and is instead considered a statistical artifact.

      • Re: The strategy is clear (Score:5, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @04:41PM (#65020547) Homepage Journal

        "The UK has no concept of free speech in law."

        As usual you have no fucking idea what you are taking about.

        https://www.legislation.gov.uk... [legislation.gov.uk]

        The UK does have weaker free speech laws than the US, for example truth is not an absolute defense against libel like it is here. That is not the same as no concept, however.

        • Re: The strategy is clear (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @05:57PM (#65020771)

          The way the law works in the UK is that the police themselves get to make the call of whether something said is hate speech, and the only requirement for that is that at least one person was offended by it.

          At this point, Russia makes similar claims about having free speech, to the point that simply holding up a blank piece of paper got a guy arrested, again at police discretion. What's the effective difference?

          • That's called an accusation and police have the ability to do that everywhere in the world. That doesn't mean they choose to get you in trouble. In fact they have no say in it at all. Whether or not your speech broke laws is entirely up to the judge or jury depending on the nature of the trial.

            Now stop skipping your civics class.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 )

              That's called an accusation and police have the ability to do that everywhere in the world.

              No, they actually don't. In the US, this would fall under one of unlawful arrest or malicious prosecution. Police and prosecutors can and do lose their jobs over it.

              That doesn't mean they choose to get you in trouble. In fact they have no say in it at all. Whether or not your speech broke laws is entirely up to the judge or jury depending on the nature of the trial.

              How little you know. That's not how the law works everywhere. Not even remotely. You know there was a guy in the UK who got tossed into jail without even a jury trial over this, right? A single judge found him guilty. The response he gave to a reporter over it was priceless:

              https://youtu.be/r-je9MrShCA?t... [youtu.be]

              So basically, the reporter broke both t

              • You know there was a guy in the UK who got tossed into jail without even a jury trial over this, right? A single judge found him guilty.

                So literally exactly what I said. - Not the police. Also "without even a jury" shows you know little of the UK legal system. Most trials aren't jury trials over there. Though the defendant in a crown court may elect to request a jury trial.

                So basically, the reporter broke both the spirit and the letter of the law exactly the same way he did. He goes to jail and gets a fine, reporter does not.

                So please share that video instead of a video showing that neither the spirit or the letter of the law was broken entitled "context matters". LOL. I mean I didn't even need to tell you the answer, it's right there in the video title.

                I don't know what on earth possesses that little peanut of yours to believe laws and justice systems work the same in every country.

                I don't. I do know UK law though, and l

                • I don't. I do know UK law though, and literally nothing you said disagrees with what I wrote.

                  Obviously you don't. If you had, you'd have known about this already:

                  https://www.scotland.police.uk... [police.uk]

                  An accusation alone, that is, simply calling somebody a name, as stupidly subjective as that is, is sufficient to land a conviction there, but you really don't even need that. Just like in Russia. What part about that don't you understand? The law, as it is written, gives the police very broad authority to have probable cause for a lawful arrest and spending actual time in jail while you wait for arraignmen

              • You know there was a guy in the UK who got tossed into jail without even a jury trial over this, right? A single judge found him guilty.

                I expected that to be a lie, and knew it was as soon as I saw Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's (hereafter "SY-L") ear in the video. No need to watch more than the opening thumbnail of that video (which I've not linked to here - he gets no free publicity from me).

                So, the facts of the actual case : SY-L posted various derogatory and incorrect (Americans take note : the defence that "

                • The guy talking to the reporter was Markus Meechan. I don't know how much time you spent on that post, but 100% of it was a total loss, and you're never getting it back. Here's an idea: Why don't you watch the video so that you know what you're talking about, that way when you waste time, at least you get to claim that it was relevant.

                  • Answer : 3 seconds.

                    If you're posting using "Stephen Yaxley-Lennon" and something parsing as "journalist" in the same sentence, you've almost certainly swallowed the Nazi-v2 Kool-Aid.

                    but you probably would like to think you're one of the "good guys2. And you will do even when you're dragging the corpses out of the gas chambers, wishing you could get some of the slaves to do the job.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by tragedy ( 27079 )

                No, they actually don't. In the US, this would fall under one of unlawful arrest or malicious prosecution. Police and prosecutors can and do lose their jobs over it.

                I would love to see some examples of police officers losing their jobs over it. From what I've seen, if they want, they can arrest just about anyone for the sole crime of "resisting arrest" which is just so wonderfully paradoxical.

                • They have to have a good faith reason to arrest or otherwise detain you to begin with for you to actually be resisting it. If they didn't have a good faith reason, then guess what?

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by tragedy ( 27079 )

                    If they didn't have a good faith reason, then guess what?

                    They make one up and do it anyway. Then the courts automatically accept their word on it over yours because they're sworn officers of the court and you're not and the official position of the courts is that sworn officers of the court don't lie in court even though police officers lie all the time.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by dcarmi ( 940742 )

            The way the law works in the UK is that the police themselves get to make the call of whether something said is hate speech, and the only requirement for that is that at least one person was offended by it.

            At this point, Russia makes similar claims about having free speech, to the point that simply holding up a blank piece of paper got a guy arrested, again at police discretion. What's the effective difference?

            No! As with any crime the UK police can arrest someone on suspicion of a hate crime and charge them. This then gets referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) whose lawyers will decide if an offence has likely been committed and there is a reasonable chance of a successful prosecution based on the available evidence. If so, the case then goes to court and a jury decides based on the prosecution and defence evidence and arguments.

            You don't cite a reference to the case of the blank paper. If it is the sa

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sfcat ( 872532 )
              Just to be clear, the UK calls these offenses, "Non-crime hate incidents". Also, I find it sad to watch the British left try to defend this stuff. Just be ashamed of your government as you should be. And after the next election, Labour won't be in power again in your lifetime. Enjoy...

          • The way the law works in the UK is that the police themselves get to make the call of whether something said is hate speech

            To be fair, this is true about all laws in all locations. It is the judges that actually determine your innocence or guilt.

        • Individual Brits like individual USians prove the rule.
          Both are far more conformist than most citizens would like to admit, but both our societies are not slow-motion failure by accident.

          Change is led by the few with nothing to lose and while legal gestures comfort the sort of people comforted by legal gestures, the only thing the powerful respect is what they fear.

          The cycle includes perpetual over-reach by the master class until they are sent packing by revolution and the more of them slaughtered the bette

        • The UK does have weaker free speech laws than the US, for example truth is not an absolute defense against libel like it is here.

          Don't worry - the incoming US administration is doing what they can to fix that...

        • for example truth is not an absolute defense against libel

          The portion of your sentence tells me everything I need to know about the concept of Free Speech in the UK. There is NO Free Speech in the UK. You can't just sit there and smugly claim that the concept of Free Speech is weaker when Truth is not a sufficient defense against the offense of your words.

          It is not that Free Speech is weaker. It is that it DOES NOT EXIST. When you place limits on truth, you are malformed, repugnant, ugly, and directly evil.

      • "This is about political speech, not corporate control"
        Two sides of the same coin: better control over public opinion. Harsh laws against "hate speech" and onerous requirements for moderation and censorship cause sites ran by individuals or groups of enthusiasts to shut down for fear of serious consequences for breaking rules they have no hope of complying with. Corporate sites have economies of scale and will find it far easier to comply. Whereas the government will find it far easier to get corporati

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The UK has already imprisoned people for posting memes on Facebook

        Incitement to violence, including encouragement to burn down a hotel housing asylum seekers is not "posting memes". Show me an example of someone who has been successfully prosecuted for hurty words, without resorting to social media posts.
        Go on.
        I can wait.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Count Dancula for his Nazi Pug YouTube skit, Chelsea Russell, for quoting rap lyrics on Instagram.

          There's two and they took seconds to find. Now begone, apologist.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hattig ( 47930 )

        Upvoted despite not being British or knowing how things are in Britain.

        Amazing.

        Labour and Tories are polling roughly equally, this is because Labour have had to put in some tough things in the budget because the previous party, the Tories, ruined the economy over 14 years. They are polling around 26%, but this is a result of the immediate aftermath of these policies. In addition FPTP skews polls as well as elections.

        Today's WASPI shutdown ruling is popular though (online and in the street, you wouldn't thin

        • > the Tories, ruined the economy over 14 years

          From what I have seen over the last 40 years the Tories took 14 years to do what Labour usually do in 3.

          Also lets not forget the WHO had a massive part to play, bankrupting most of the world due to covid when it turned out none of that lockdown crap really mattered.

        • The Tory leader cannot stop putting her foot in it with almost every utterance. She will be gone within a year or two,

          She's a placeholder, while the fight for the ... "soul" is not the right word ; would "trademark" be closer? ... of the Conservative Party continues, mostly out of sight and behind the scenes. Whether they then re-integrate their racist and anti-immigrant wing (currently trading as "Reform UK Party Limited") is a question for the next several years. I doubt there would be a meaningful "Tory

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by newbie_fantod ( 514871 )

        The UK has already imprisoned people for posting memes on Facebook.

        Lies of omission are still lies. You are, I assume, fully aware that Tyler Kay and Jordan Parlour were imprisoned for inciting an attack on a hotel sheltering refugees during a period of violent unrest. Incitement to violence has long been an accepted limitation on free speech - everywhere.

      • The online safety bill was voted in October 2023. Labour took over government in July 2024. You're barking up the wrong tree.
      • Great anti-labour speech, only that this act was filed (2022) and unilaterally approved for royal consent (2023) by the the Conservative Party. Labour didnâ(TM)t come into power until roughly a year later. This act was tabled by Nadine Dorries, the short-time Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, a Tory very loyal to Johnson. 530 MPs were present for the vote. The Tories voted for this bill in unison with 307 Ayes and 0 Noes, which was all MPs present. They got 5 more Ayes from t

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        This is about political speech, not corporate control. The UK has already imprisoned people for posting memes on Facebook. This is just putting that emergency ruling into law. The UK has no concept of free speech in law. These are the consequences of that. Labor finally won an election (despite only getting 75% of the number of votes they usually get). And even though they are only the 3rd most popular party at the moment with support from less than a quarter of the voting population (which is about 1 in 7 of the total population), they are in charge till the next election. And it seems that they are going to make the most of it and are passing multiple very unpopular policies that probably aren't going to benefit the wider population. Its like they want Reform (which is very right wing) to win the next election. Truth is, the UK isn't really in a great position economically. Their energy costs are high and they have few natural resources with a high standard of living. That makes it hard for any political leader to make things work. The only industry keeping the lights on is finance and a lot of that is pretty corrupt (see Londongrad). So its a difficult position for any leader, let alone a scared little boy (I've never seen a leader with such a look of terror on his face when talking to the population) trying his best to deal with an almost impossible economic system.

        Erm... you know this bill was passed by the previous conservative government, right?

        Hey, but don't let the truth get in the way.

        Oh, and it's Labour (because in the UK, we put u in a lot of things, like honour). Nice troll, but you're not smart enough to pass yourself off as British, what is also clear is that you've no idea what is gong on over here.

      • This legislation was passed in 2023, guess which party was in power then.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by davecb ( 6526 )
      The effects were predicted, and the proponents went on and did it anyway.
      The result? it's exactly what they planned.

    • Re:The strategy is clear (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @05:56PM (#65020769) Homepage Journal

      They should reincorporate in the US and hire the staff as remote workers.

      Another UK anti-revenue act.

      Maybe Farage or UKIP can save these bozos from themselves but it appears doubtful.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Farage is too busy with his tongue up Trump's arse to do anything. Not that he would if he could. In the run-up to the Brexit vote he was often seen hanging around fishermen banging on about how hard they had it, yet of the forty-eight meetings of the EU fisheries committee that were held during his time as an MEP how many do you think he attended? Zero. None. Fuck all.

        Since the election he's literally spent more time with Trump than he has in his own constituency. That frog-faced cunt Farage cares only for

        • Farage doesn't like remembering that the UK's fishing quotas were sold to the highest bidders (generally EU fishing consortia) by his wet dream, Thatcher (hawk, spit!).

          If he mentioned that to his fishing buddies, he'd get a kicking for libelling their wet dream with the truth.

  • Remember that when they go after S230, which they will and have been for years and years.

    You will be promised the right and ability to troll as much as you want if only you give up S230. For some reading this that's a tempting offer. They'll call it "common carrier" and say that everything will be fine as long as there is no moderation, and you're upset because of all the forums you've been banned from over the years...

    It's not worth it. The forums won't invite you back, they'll just shut down. The

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The only modification to current S230 is exactly what you said, that it should be a subclass of common carrier. The original intent of S230 always was this, just worded in a way that current internet town squares were trying to have it both ways to their advantage. If you publish curated content, then you are liable, if you don't it's a town square, common carrier, public venue, etc and are afforded liability protections.
      • that kills the internet.

        There is no "common carrier". One of two things happens if you take away content moderation:

        1. Trolls crap flood the forum making it completely unusable.

        2. Moderation exists but is so intense (as to avoid legal liability) that anything not approved by big media companies and their billionaire owners. Ultimate censorship.

        The idea of common carrier exists for 2 way communication, e.g. telephone. It is not applicable to the Internet which is why we created S230. The Inte

        • One of two things happens if you take away content moderation: 1. Trolls crap flood the forum making it completely unusable. 2. Moderation exists but is so intense (as to avoid legal liability) that anything not approved by big media companies and their billionaire owners. Ultimate censorship.

          Currently content is moderated by a few large companies who use it to shape the content on their sites to suit their commercial interests. Then they deny all responsibility for it.

          There are plenty of ways to limit "Trolls" and bots other than moderation that removes their posts based on their individual content. The problem is that they may cost money to implement and limit the audience for the site. In other words, they can't serve commercial interests nearly as well.

          • Currently content is moderated by a few large companies who use it to shape the content on their sites to suit their commercial interests. Then they deny all responsibility for it.

            What? It has been the consistent argument of social media companies, et al. that they *do* moderate, do so intentionally, and it is within their company's First Amendment rights to do so. And if you don't think a corporation is a legal person, I refer you to the travesty which was the Citizen's United ruling of a clearly corrupt and bought off SCOTUS.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          You can have a virtual public square where only verified humans can post, and only at a reasonable rate. You can have a moderation system where unaffiliated groups perform moderation, resulting in a blacklist of people or posts, and readers can subscribe to whichever list they prefer (and even modify it as they wish). The platform itself isn't banning anyone. You're free to speak, but nobody has to listen to you.

          The main problem with this is that the government doesn't actually want internet forums to be pu

  • Doing what they are paid to do by their Corporate and Elite paymasters.

    • Not often actually well intentioned, either. They're typically people trying to feel important, and if you show them a better way to accomplish their supposed goal that doesn't require them to champion it, you will be ignored or vilified.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
        Somehow most of the "thinkofthechildren" people show up en masse in comments on every story that has Tiktok in the title.

      • Mostly politicians trying to look like they're doing something. Protecting the children is always a vote issue. For motivation reasons, failing to vote for laws claimed to protect children will lose you many votes. Even if the law is really bad, it's safer for political careers to at least abstain instead of voting against.

  • They've been under 'pseudo' freedom - but never actually were - and we're seeing the real powers starting to lock down because we've seen these same powers are starting wars, committing crimes against humanity and performing war crimes.

    We'll soon only be allowed 'authorised' speech - and it will be couched in such a way that the foolish will think there's a choice in the matter.

  • So... (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday December 17, 2024 @04:47PM (#65020575)

    ...they will just be renamed from .co.uk to .com?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The law doesn't care about the the TLD, only where the operators are based. Once moving to the EU would have been viable, but it's much harder post-Brexit.

  • Ah, yes, think of the children! We must protect them...from ever saying anything bad online about minorities that hate your culture and skin color and women and LGBTQ+ people and don't integrate and throw acid in your face and kidnap your kids. I think someone needs to overthrow the British government because it's a fucking joke at this point. Australia and Sweden too.

  • Anyone know this platform? My search produces no results but this news story.

  • ... and protect children ...

    We've seen Facebook for children but that doesn't seem to be enough. Yes, children need to be protected from pedophiles, but there's only one way to to do that: No anonymous accounts. Anything else, is re-arranging deck-chairs in the vain hope that all the panicked work will 'trip' the few criminals that exist. One answer might be, "for Children" services being a separate server that can't access adult's pages. (Even that's a problem: How does a child contact their family?) Reminding children of online

  • It is chilling to see how quickly democracy and freedom of speech have been continuously undermined in what can only be described as strategic long term salami tactics over at least a decade now.
    And sadly the UK and EU are on the forefront of this, including invasions of privacy attempts and in Germany a defacto new laesae maiestatis law to protect politicians exclusively, where they send the police and swat to break down your door, similar to the UK for posting online .

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