The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the privacy and security of U.K. residents, but internet users worldwide.
    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      581·
      1 year ago

      I think the idea behind these kinds of laws isn’t so much the stated intent, which as far as I can tell is basically unenforceable, but to introduce a ton of extremely vague laws that could apply to almost anything you do online, which they can then use selectively against whoever they feel like.

    • JoKi@feddit.deEnglish
      28·
      1 year ago

      Jesus Christ how staggeringly incompetent is the national government that no tech ceo can find a way to explain to them there is no way to govern content without having access to it via a backdoor, which is to fundamentally break encryption.

      Pretty sure they know that it’s not possible without breaking encryption. They just want to blame the tech companies because their bill ‘doesn’t demand it’.

    • renlok@lemmy.ml
      10·
      1 year ago

      This government is the result of multiple votes of no confidence and they somehow get worse each time.

    • Retiring@lemmy.ml
      7·
      1 year ago

      I feel what you are saying, but tech ceos explaining governments things is the problem. I do agree with the rest of what you said.

  • paulcdb@kbin.social
    514·
    1 year ago

    I think we’re now seeing what happens when the rich have too much control and people continue to let it happen.

    People talk about free countries but is there any country left that isn’t working flat out on decimating peoples freedom at an alarming rate?

    Free speech, Wage theft, the car you drive, the way people who don’t, or can’t work are alienated… even the way people vote are all used to divide people and make it easier to take away peoples freedoms!

    It really is utterly disgusting whats going on but as we see in Wales, Labour is an even shittier, controlling party! 😞

  • TriStar@lemmyfly.orgEnglish
    402·
    1 year ago

    now that the government separated the UK from the EU they should put propellers up their asses and push their pathetic island between russia and china if they wanna pass laws like that

  • Łumało [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    413·
    1 year ago

    Britons again with the most draconian laws you can possibly imagine. That wretched island has been nothing but a pile of the worst things and ideas humanity has to offer, and still it’s the “bastion of freedom” and part of the “free west”.

    What a joke. At least free software alternatives that make sense and can provide anonymity and privacy could possibly be free from such a backdoor, like SimpleX or something else.

    Well I wish best of luck to all Britons so that they may be safe. Especially trans people…

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      211·
      1 year ago

      Sometimes I feel like the UK is the West’s testing ground for all their worst ideas. Dump it in there, see what happens, then roll it out everywhere else.

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        It’s the Orwellian fascism dev environment there, rolling out all the new privacy-killing tech and policy to squash the boot down on Britons a little farther each day. While the snoopers in the US and Australia watch with baited breath to see how much they will tolerate.

      • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
        23·
        1 year ago

        It’s admittedly a very long shot, but just the thought that the USA might be about to find out the answer to the question “Can a president be elected, then lose an election, then plot to overturn the results of that election, then fail, then be legitimately re-elected once again, then go to prison for trying to overturn the previous election, and then pardon themselves from within prison?” is utterly wild to me.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
        41·
        1 year ago

        Trump will go away in at most 4 years even IF he get’s elected. This law will exist forever and will only be enforced against undesirables.

        • spauldo@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Oh, you know he’ll try to find a way to be president for life. And half the media will support it.

          • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
            21·
            1 year ago

            Cool. A Trump dictatorship would be just the shot-in-the-arm that our gerontocracy needs when he dies in 2026.

    • TriStar@lemmyfly.orgEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      November 17, 2021

      Thankfully outdated but keeps coming back to the parliament/commission every now and then. Someone should just kill it already, I mean it’s pretty obvious it’s in direct contradiction with Article 7 of the Fundamental Rights Charter of the EU

      • oranki@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        1 year ago

        The article is old, yes, the first one from a search engine. If you have a source for saying it’s not in the works anymore, I’d be glad to see it. Not saying you’re wrong.

        Just this month there was a statement from FiCom (finnish organization advancing IT businesses’ interests) urging our government to not accept the bill, so to me it seems it’s just under development.

        link to statement, Sep 13th, in finnish

        • TriStar@lemmyfly.orgEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Looks like Spain is still trying to revive this but so far it’s a proposal to start a discussion on whether it should be introduced, so still far from actually becoming law. Like I said, keeps haunting us every now and then.

  • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
    51·
    1 year ago

    We really need some kind of FOSS encryption service that can’t just be compromised like that.

    🤔 Do you think they could force devs to fork over private keys to blockchains like Bitcoin?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    2·
    1 year ago

    Did they?

    I feel like this is yet another don quixote versus the windmills thing.

    SSL, TLS, SSH, just a few protocols that float the internet don’t support any of the crap that the UK government wants, nor can they.

    So either the entire world spends 10 years building a completely new internet based on new protocols that will be abused within 2 weeks, just because UK politicians are retarded, or… well, I guess the UK will just have to cut their country off of the Internet, a brexit, if you will. I heard those work really well too.

    It doesn’t work like they want.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    2·
    1 year ago

    Hey, didn’t I have 50.000 ony bank account? It’s empty!

    No, you logged in and transferred it all to some Russian account.

    what do you mean I have child porn images in my files? I don’t have those

    Now you do after your ex working at obs put them there for you

    …

    So so so so so many ways that this WILL be abused to death. Meanwhile actual criminals will continue using secure encryption protocols, good luck with that.

  • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
    32·
    1 year ago

    i praise the kids of great britain and the colonies for making uk leave the eu. may they have tea, biscuits, a broken economy and no privacy.

    • Gazumi@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 year ago

      A touch harsh, but possibly accurate. I’m still furious that we have people who still think it was a good idea. Those people blame the imoact of Brexit on the poor handful of people arriving here as migrants. Then double down by saying thar if it hadn’t of been for the migrants, they wouldn’t have voted Brexit. Sorry, rant over.