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What the world might look like if we get a federal GRANITE Act | Preston Byrne | …the joy of this is that it might even be bipartisan
[Someone] referred to GRANITE as a “legal atomic bomb.” I think that description is apt, and suggestive of what will emerge after such a law’s enactment – a state of affairs I would describe as an “Online Censorship Cold War.” The larger the EU makes their penalties, or the bigger and more strategically important a…
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“India’s request for satellite-aided iPhone location data is a privacy nightmare” | AppleInsider
According to sources of Reuters, India has thought about a telecom industry proposal to require smartphone producers to enable satellite location tracking. It is to be kept active, so as to better improve surveillance efforts. Multiple sources and documents have emerged, showing that Apple, Google, and Samsung all opposed the order, over concerns for user…
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Sometimes even politicians agree that it is necessary for social media to carry videos of people literally and really being blown to pieces…
You have to wonder how the Online Safety Act is going to accommodate such thinking?
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Lord Carlile believes that “[websites can] lose their right to appear on any screen in the United Kingdom” – rather than “citizens will suffer censorship by the British state”
The noble lord might learn “that’s not how it works”: “On the Radio 4 “Today” programme this morning, ofcom admitted that none of the three fines levied so far has been paid. Is it not right that Ofcom should be encouraged to take much stronger enforcement action against those who do not pay by making…
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Baroness Floella Benjamin of BBC PlaySchool fame proposes Australia-like YouTube age-ban impacting Sesame Street, Ms Rachel, Cosmic Kids, Danny Go! …
Perhaps the noble Baroness could be reminded that Ms Rachel & DannyGo are primarily on YouTube, not BBC1 as she once was; and that actual YT-provided affordances for kids are essential for modern parenting? Quote: “Also, by relocating to countries with few or no internet safety Laws, children can be exposed to more extreme, illegal or…
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I hate that this man has a point
To be clear: this is not the majority of the criticism of the act; let alone the mocking of the act nor the ridicule of the act. I love the BBC, but yeah, no.
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Ofcom writes to 4chan: “We are a UK-based regulator, but that does not mean the rules do not apply to sites based abroad” — true, but irrelevant…
Ofcom may declare that their rules apply anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that anywhere is necessarily within Ofcom’s jurisdiction. America might as well be another planet. Ofcom may claim whatever it likes, but it’s what the inhabitants believe that is important. Expect another clickbait million-pound fine announcement, imminently:
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EU’s Top Court Just Made It Literally Impossible To Run A User-Generated Content Platform Legally | Techdirt
Oh dear: Under this ruling, it appears that any website that hosts any user-generated content can be strictly liable if any of that content contains “sensitive personal data” about any person. But how the fuck are they supposed to handle that? The basic answer is to pre-scan any user-generated content for anything that might later…
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Ofcom: “I can levy vasty £1m fines upon Porn!” Internet: “So can I, so can any regulator; but will they pay when you levy them?”
This will be interesting: Ofcom have imposed a headline-grabbing fine on “AVS Group” for £1 million — plus a second fine of £50,000 — for dereliction under the Online Safety Act. The first fine is politically intentionally dramatic; but it’s the second fine which is far more interesting… Ofcom document number 1 tells us that…
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ReclaimTheNet: “ChatControl was meant to be temporary, the promotion of mass scanning of private messages until data proved it worked. The data never came.”
https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-chat-control-law-permanent-privacy-risks-error-rates-lack-evidence It was supposed to be a stopgap measure, a temporary derogation of privacy rights until proper evidence came in. Now, if you’ve been following our previous reporting, you’ll know the Council wants to make it permanent, even though the Commission’s own 2025 evaluation report admits it has no evidence the thing actually works. Via:
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Age Verification: Teaching the world how to evade censorship
The number of Missouri residents searching for VPNs has quadrupled since the introduction of state-wide age verification laws on November 30, 2025. Trends data from the past 30 days indicates a four times increase in traffic for the search term ‘VPN‘ from within the Show-me State. https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/missouris-search-for-vpns-lifts-off-as-the-first-day-of-age-verification-arrives via: