@Cyberleagle

IT and internet lawyer. Sceptical tech enthusiast. RTs and links are not endorsements. All views my own. No tweets are legal advice.

 London, UK
cyberleagle.com
Joined July 2009
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Santa's just-in-time delivery.
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Three years ago today the UK's Online Safety Act 2023 received Royal Assent. It is safe to say that no-one - supporters (in sorrow) or critics (we told you so) - is happy with the way that it has panned out. 1/3
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With online safety campaigners now drawing up snagging lists and suggesting ways in which the Act should be amended, a reminder of how we got here: an updated compendium of the 55 Cyberleagle posts that I have written about online harms since 2018. 2/3 cyberleagle.com/2020/02/an-o…

An Online Harms Compendium

Since June 2018 I have written a lot about the UK government's Online Harms proposals for a duty of care and an online regulator, the s...

cyberleagle.com
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And, as an anniversary bonus: a GenAI take on the compendium. 3/3
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Graham Smith  retweeted
Cato Institute
@CatoInstitute20h
Think life was better before the Industrial Revolution? The Grim Old Days by Cato's @chellivia reveals how gruesome preindustrial life actually was, from famine-induced cannibalism to streets that doubled as open sewers. Order now! ow.ly/MNAT50ZU7VP
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Graham Smith  retweeted
Owen Boswarva@owenboswarvaOct 23
Letter from Ofcom on how it thinks its powers to seek "business disruption measures" against platforms under the Online Safety Act could be strengthened committees.parliament.uk/pub… Evidence to DCMS Committee committees.parliament.uk/eve… #techpolicy #censorship #siteblocking #openweb
• Remove the requirement on Ofcom to show a continuing breach of the duties in order to secure a BDM and enable a pre-emptive order to be applied for. At present, we can only begin the court order process if a site is in ongoing breach of its duties. These changes could enable us to apply for a pre-emptive order for services that are no longer in breach – for example, as a result of geo-blocking UK users, or taking their sites down – but which could easily be made available again. • Make it possible for Ofcom to secure BDMs for failure to pay a fine alone. At present, it’s not possible to obtain a BDM order solely on the basis of non-payment of a fine if, for example, the service has geoblocked or otherwise come into compliance (for example by introducing highly effective age checks). …

ALT • Remove the requirement on Ofcom to show a continuing breach of the duties in order to secure a BDM and enable a pre-emptive order to be applied for. At present, we can only begin the court order process if a site is in ongoing breach of its duties. These changes could enable us to apply for a pre-emptive order for services that are no longer in breach – for example, as a result of geo-blocking UK users, or taking their sites down – but which could easily be made available again. • Make it possible for Ofcom to secure BDMs for failure to pay a fine alone. At present, it’s not possible to obtain a BDM order solely on the basis of non-payment of a fine if, for example, the service has geoblocked or otherwise come into compliance (for example by introducing highly effective age checks). …

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Graham Smith  retweeted
inire@goblinessenceOct 23
Replying to @Cyberleagle
Ofcom consulted last year on additional safety measures (including broader use of proactive technology), and said it did not consider it proportionate to extend the new measures to all priority illegal harms - partly due to the number of offences, and partly (I think) due to a lack of confidence that sufficiently accurate, effective and unbiased technology was available for many of those harms. So perhaps Ofcom’s view is that a defensible interpretation of these constraints sets a high bar in practice. Although not obvious how the Act could be amended to lower that bar without causing bigger issues.
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If these are the constraints being alluded to here, are they really a very high bar?
(5) A proactive technology measure may be included in a code of practice in relation to Part 3 services of a particular kind or size only if OFCOM are satisfied that use of the technology in question by such services would be proportionate to the risk of harm that the measure is designed to safeguard against (taking into account, in particular, the risk profile for the time being published by OFCOM under section 98 relating to such services). (6) In deciding whether to include a proactive technology measure in a code of practice, OFCOM must have regard to the degree of accuracy, effectiveness and lack of bias achieved by the technology in question, and may— (a) refer in the code of practice to industry or technical standards for the technology (where they exist); (b) set out principles in the code of practice designed to ensure that the technology or its use is (so far as possible) accurate, effective and free of bias.

ALT (5) A proactive technology measure may be included in a code of practice in relation to Part 3 services of a particular kind or size only if OFCOM are satisfied that use of the technology in question by such services would be proportionate to the risk of harm that the measure is designed to safeguard against (taking into account, in particular, the risk profile for the time being published by OFCOM under section 98 relating to such services). (6) In deciding whether to include a proactive technology measure in a code of practice, OFCOM must have regard to the degree of accuracy, effectiveness and lack of bias achieved by the technology in question, and may— (a) refer in the code of practice to industry or technical standards for the technology (where they exist); (b) set out principles in the code of practice designed to ensure that the technology or its use is (so far as possible) accurate, effective and free of bias.

Graham Smith @CyberleagleOct 22
Replying to @Cyberleagle
Dawes: "When it comes to things we would like to be able to do in our code, it would be to require platforms to use AI to search for illegal content more than is currently allowed by the Act. The bar for us to require that is very high. ...
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Transcript here. committees.parliament.uk/ora…
Reclaim The Net
@ReclaimTheNetHQOct 21
The UK speech regulator's chief executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, told MPs this week that the regulator won’t be able to recover every Online Safety Act fine. Nine of the eleven fines it has issued remain unpaid. 4chan was fined £520,000 plus £800 a day, and its lawyer replied with a picture of an AI-generated hamster. When Ofcom wrote again, he sent another hamster. In July, Ofcom closed a case against an American forum it had fined £950,000 because it had run out of legal routes. Then it asked the government for more powers. In the same hearing, Dawes said the UK’s under-16 social media ban will be “much more draconian” for Meta than its US settlement. Those were her words. The only way to keep under-16s off a platform is to check the age of every adult on it. reclaimthenet.org/ofcom-stru…

UK Speech Regulator Ofcom Struggles To Enforce Censorship Law Fines Abroad

Ofcom can write the fines, but foreign courts get to decide whether anyone pays them.

reclaimthenet.org
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Dawes (cont): “We do not believe that the Act gives us that extraterritorial jurisdiction. I am not quite sure how you can carry that out. The Americans are pretty clear about that as well, it should be said.” 2/x
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“That means that, in essence, the furthest a UK court could go even if we had applied for a business disruption measure is to secure a geo-block, and to do so with the telecoms companies, with search and so on to make sure it is comprehensive, but it is as far as you can go." 3/x
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Too many people are reading this as if it were me saying this, not me reporting what Ofcom said. I’m going to delete and repost.
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See 'Practical, effective rights'. cyberleagle.com/2026/08/the-…

The Vibe of the ECHR

A thought experiment: suppose I wanted to transform the European Convention on Human Rights into a vehicle for state regulation of speech, h...

cyberleagle.com
Preston Byrne
@prestonjbyrneOct 22
Replying to @prestonjbyrne
The MRF also criticizes Ofcom for attempting to balance "fundamental rights" in its decisions (I disagree that this actually happens, but let's grant it to them arguendo). MRF says that this balancing does not consider the rights of those who want to censor the Internet.
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And Carol. cyberleagle.com/2021/06/spee…

Speech vs. Speech

Can something that I write in this blog restrict someone else’s freedom of expression? According to the UK government, yes. In its Full Re...

cyberleagle.com
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Graham Smith  retweeted
Preston Byrne
@prestonjbyrneOct 22
My aggregate read of the first comments from the Online Safety Act consultation: Enforcers/advocates for OSA v1: "the OSA we told you to enact failed, give us more power and we'll fix it." Critics of OSA v1: "the OSA failed, and v2 will fail too, for the same reasons."
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Dawes: "To be clear, we went to the absolute full extent of our powers for the suicide forum. It was our first enforcement case. It has been geo-blocked in the UK. No other jurisdiction has achieved that, and we were unable to go any further. ...
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... There was nothing more that a court could have done to block the service beyond the way that it has already been blocked."
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