{"id":5258,"date":"2023-09-24T11:45:17","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T18:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=5258"},"modified":"2023-09-24T12:03:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T19:03:07","slug":"uk-quietly-passes-online-safety-bill-into-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/24\/uk-quietly-passes-online-safety-bill-into-law\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Quietly Passes \u201cOnline Safety Bill\u201d Into Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The totalitarian grip in the UK just tightened. But it’s a good time to reflect on the fact that being on these megacorp tech platforms that are already censoring content is not the place to be. Consequently, the Internet’s greatest gift was that anyone can self publish by running their own services. And if you’re more fearful of government persecution you can run your service hidden with six server hops around the world through Tor<\/a> (other privacy protocols are available as well). And with docker, GNU\/Linux… it’s extremely easy to spool up your own services, even overseas paid for anonymously. There are also distributed services coming online, but unfortunately many of those running such services are liberally minded and will censor other nodes or servers on the network because of truthful content which goes against megacorp propaganda narratives they’ve bought into. So why continue to stay on the major megacorp tech platforms that do not respect you, your opinion, or allow you to freely access information as you choose? And who actively work to distort your perception and ability to discern what is really happening in the world? If you’re in the UK or any other crown property and conservatively minded, I’d certainly go underground through Tor or a trusted VPN to mask your home IP and drop the megacorp tech platforms except for innocuous activities. The OCGFC totalitarian grip on the world is only going to tighten going forward as they build the digital Panopticon around us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of some note is the \u201cinformation offenses\u201d clause, which empowers OfCom to demand \u201cinformation\u201d from users, companies and employees, and makes it a crime to withhold it. The nature of this \u201cinformation\u201d is never specified, nor does it appear to be qualified<\/em>. Meaning it could be anything<\/em>, and will most likely be used to get private account information about users from social media platforms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2023\/09\/20\/uk-quietly-passes-online-safety-bill-into-law\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

By Kit Knightly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buried behind the Brand-related headlines yesterday, the British House of Lords voted to pass the controversial \u201cOnline Safety Bill\u201d into law. All that\u2019s needed now is Royal assent, which Charles will obviously provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill\u2019s (very catchy) long-form title is\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A Bill to make provision for and in connection with the regulation by OFCOM of certain internet services; for and in connection with communications offences; and for connected purposes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s essentially it, it hands the duty of \u201cregulating\u201d certain online content to the UK\u2019s Office of Communications (OfCom).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes could barely contain her excitement in a statement to the press<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cToday is a major milestone in the mission to create a safer life online for children and adults in the UK. Everyone at Ofcom feels privileged to be entrusted with this important role, and we\u2019re ready to start implementing these new laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As always with these things, the bill\u2019s text is a challenging and rather dull read, deliberately obscure in its language and difficult to navigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of some note is the \u201cinformation offenses\u201d clause, which empowers OfCom to demand \u201cinformation\u201d from users, companies and employees, and makes it a crime to withhold it. The nature of this \u201cinformation\u201d is never specified, nor does it appear to be qualified<\/em>. Meaning it could be anything<\/em>, and will most likely be used to get private account information about users from social media platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of the more worrying clauses, the Bill outlines what they call \u201ccommunications offenses\u201d<\/em>. Section 10 details crimes of transmitting \u201cHarmful, false and threatening communications\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that sending threats is already illegal in the UK, so the only new ground covered here is \u201charmful\u201d and\/or \u201cfalse\u201d information, and the fact they feel the need to differentiate between those two things should worry you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, the truth can definitely be \u201charmful\u201d\u2026Especially to a power-hungry elite barely controlling an angry populace through dishonest propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather amusingly, the bill makes it a crime to \u201csend a message\u201d containing false information in clause 156\u2026then immediately grants immunity to every newspaper, television channel and streaming service in clause 157.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently it\u2019s OK for the mainstream media to be harmful and dishonest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the primary purpose of the new law is a transfer of responsibility<\/a> to enable and incentivize censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search engines (\u201cregulated search services\u201d<\/em>, to quote the bill) and social media companies (\u201cregulated user-to-user services\u201d<\/em>) will now be held accountable for how people use their platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example: If I were to google \u201cIs it safe to drink bleach?\u201d<\/em>, find some website that says yes, and then drink bleach, OfCom would not hold me<\/em> responsible. They would hold Google responsible for letting me read that website. Likewise, if someone tweets @ me telling me to drink bleach, and I do so, Twitter would be held responsible for permitting that communication to take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could result in hefty fines, or even potentially criminal charges, to companies and\/or executives of those companies. It could even open them up to massively expensive civil suits (don\u2019t be surprised if such a legal drama hits the headlines soon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly the mainstream coverage of the new laws<\/a> barely mentions any of these concerns, instead opting to put child pornography front and centre. Because the Mrs Lovejoy argument<\/a> always works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s all window dressing, of course, what this is really about is \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201chate speech\u201d. Which is to say, fact-checking mainstream lies and calling out mainstream liars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section 7(135)<\/strong> is entirely dedicated to the creation of a new \u201cAdvisory committee on disinformation and misinformation\u201d<\/em>, which will be expected to submit regular reports to OfCom and the Secretary of State on how best to \u201ccounter misinformation on regulated services<\/em>\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is clearly a response to Covid, or rather the failure of Covid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, the pandemic narrative broke because the current mechanisms of censorship didn\u2019t work well enough. In response, the government has just legalised and out-sourced their silencing of dissent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

See, the government isn\u2019t going to actually censor anyone themselves, protecting it from pro-free speech criticism. Rather, huge financial pressure will be applied on tech giants to be \u201cresponsible\u201d and \u201cprotect the vulnerable\u201d. Meaning de-platforming and cancelling independent media via increasingly opaque \u201cterms of service violations\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These companies will be cheered on by the vast crowd of jabbed-and-masked NPCs who have been so successfully brainwashed into believing the \u201cthey are a private company and can do that they want\u201d<\/em> argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has been going on for years already, of course, but that was covert stuff. Now it\u2019s legal in the UK, and is about to get a lot worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It won\u2019t be just the UK either, considering the messaging on \u201cmisinformation\u201d<\/a> being seen at the UN in the last few days<\/a>, we should expect something similar on a global scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can read the full text of the Online Safety Bill here<\/a>.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The totalitarian grip in the UK just tightened. But it’s a good time to reflect on the fact that being on these megacorp tech platforms that are already censoring content is not the place to be. Consequently, the Internet’s greatest gift was that anyone can self publish by running their own services. And if you’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5262,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5258\/revisions\/5262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}