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Interesting to compare and contrast EU attempts to force chat control, with failed Australian attempt at the same from 2024:
2024 Australia: In November, the eSafety commissioner announced draft standards that would require the operators of cloud and messaging services to detect and remove known child abuse and pro-terror material “where technically feasible”, as well as disrupt and deter new material of the same nature. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/21/australia-esafety-commissioner-child-abuse-detection-online-safety Key Concerns Raised by Experts: 1. Flawed ‘voluntary’ AI
australia censorship chat control client side scanning encryption end to end encryption european union surveillanceFediverse reactions
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Australia: eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant called to testify before US Congress by Donald Trump ally over ‘threat’ to Americans’ free speech | Sky News
Chickens coming home to roost: Sky News has obtained a bombshell letter from a US House of Representatives committee chairman and ally of President Donald Trump accusing eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant of being a “zealot” and “direct threat” to the free speech of American citizens and requesting she testifies before Congress within two weeks.
4chan age verification australia censorship eSafety free speech online safety online safety act privacy surveillance vpnsFediverse reactions
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The difference between British regulation vs: American regulation: Rat Shit in Food vs: CSAM
US regulation is binary: FDA permits 9ppm of rat droppings in flour, realising it’s inevitable. You are within limits, yes or no? UK regulation is analogue: banning any & all poop in expectation that this will drive ever-cleaner processes of food handling, so any (rare) cases can be dealt with by individual investigation. Guess which…
age verification censorship ian russell libera chat online safety online safety act Preston Byrne surveillance VPNFediverse reactions
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BREAKING: EU attempting last minute resurrection ChatControl client-side scanning & message surveillance under vague “mandate… all reasonable mitigation measures” figleaf; FightChatControl.EU to be reactivated…
Quote Patrick Breyer: A perfidious trick? The EU Council Presidency wants to introduce mandatory #ChatControl through the backdoor: An Art. 4 amendment would MANDATE “all reasonable mitigation measures,” including scanning, enforced with sanctions! https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2025/11/2025-10-30_Council_Presidency_CSAR_Policy-debate_14032.pdf
censorship chat control chatcontrol client side scanning denmark end to end encryption feed privacy surveillanceFediverse reactions
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“Trump [poised to] to deport boss of Starmer-linked charity” | Imran Ahmed of CCDH, being booted from USA?
A quick run through the archives reminds us that Mr Ahmed’s CCDH recently called for Ofcom to be able to appeal for powers of direct censorship in times of crisis, whilst elsewhere downplaying the consequences of the Online Safety Act lest it get a bad reputation. And now the Americans are considering kicking him out?
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“New Danish proposal for Chat Control: three fat problems remain”
If kids can’t use WhatsApp, will parents have to use SMS? Will the EU not ban SMS? Denmark’s update to the EU “chat control” plan shifts to “voluntary” scanning, but ex-MEP Patrick Breyer warns it still sidesteps Parliament’s court-order safeguard, would ban under-16s from messaging apps, and could effectively end anonymous communication. https://eutechloop.com/new-danish-proposal-for-chat-control
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IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act | Hacker News
Hackernews comment amongst themselves regarding Ofcom’s chasing foreign websites rather than pursuing domestic censorship: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860654
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Commission agrees to advance child safety online with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and the UK’s Ofcom | Shaping Europe’s digital future
Surveilling. Not empowering, surveilling: Empowering young people to use the Internet safely and protecting them from potential harm is not just a priority for the European Commission, but for many countries around the world. It is by working together towards this shared goal with like-minded partners that we can best achieve it. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-agrees-advance-child-safety-online-australias-esafety-commissioner-and-uks-ofcom
age verification australia censorship european commission ofcom online safety online safety act surveillance vpnsFediverse reactions
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Online Safety “Duty of Care” is failing to launch in the USA? Good.
Key to the Online Safety Act was a novel idea from UK academics Lorna Woods & William Perrin that Online Harm is like Physical Harm, so platforms and venues both should have “duties of care” to prevent harm occurring amongst punters. In short: platforms should police user speech for “safety”, and the state should demand
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“[Ofcom] threatens tech giants with algorithm audits to protect children” | …this is genuinely hilarious
I was a Facebook engineer, I had my own instance — gigabytes of PHP & other goo — and when I was there (10+ years ago) the feed code was hacked-on by herds of maths PhDs & considered black magic by 95% of the other engineers, including me. And now someone whom Ofcom can afford
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Analysis: The Online Safety Act is still on a faltering upswing, it will take 5…10 years to mitigate (and 10…30 to undo) the damage being caused
A small clique of UK peers, activists, academics & journalists, see “The Internet” as a monster from which they must protect “The People”. Frustrated by disobedience & general lack of progress, they’re attacking each other while demanding harsher whips, blind to the truth: the monster *is* “The People”. They will lose, but it will take ages
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Heading to MozFest 2025 in Barcelona? See “Encryption and Feminism: Reimagining Child Safety Without Surveillance”
Too often, the public debate around encryption and child safety is framed as a zero-sum game. Privacy or protection, never both. This framing misunderstands the technology and also reinforces outdated power structures that position surveillance as the only way to protect children […] We’ll look at how encryption can be aligned with feminist values and
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