UK Online Safety Act: Difference between revisions

The Online Safety Act received royal assent on 26 October 2023, following five years of work by Carnegie UK, working in concert with over 50 partners. In 2018, Carnegie UK published a series of blogs by William Perrin and Professor Lorna Woods, outlining the proposal for social media regulation. The UK Government published its [https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-paper White Paper] on 8 April 2019, tackling online harm, with a duty of care approach at its core. Carnegie UK ended their work on the Online Safety Act in October 2023.<ref name="online-safety-and-carnegie-uk">{{Cite web |last=Davidson |first=Sarah |date=26 October 2023 |title=Online safety and Carnegie UK |url=https://carnegieuk.org/blog/online-safety-and-carnegie-uk/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250701203854/https://carnegieuk.org/blog/online-safety-and-carnegie-uk/ |archive-date=2025-07-01 |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=Carnegie UK}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |last=Sim |first=Kate |date=August 7, 2025| title=The Online Safety Act Has Nothing to Do With Child Safety and Everything to Do With Censorship| url=https://novaramedia.com/2025/08/07/the-online-safety-act-has-nothing-to-do-with-child-safety-and-everything-to-do-with-censorship/ |website=Novara Media |access-date=August 25, 2025}}</ref>

To view age-restricted content on [[Spotify]], users in the UK are now asked for facial scanning; if that fails, ID verification can only correct the error.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cole |first=Samantha |title=Spotify Is Forcing Users to Undergo Face Scanning to Access Explicit Content |url=https://www.404media.co/spotify-uk-age-check-verification-yoti/ |access-date=3 August 2025 |work=404 Media |date=30 July 2025 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250730160610/https://www.404media.co/spotify-uk-age-check-verification-yoti/ |archive-date=30 July 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref>

4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images

On 14 April 2025, Ofcom issued a formal information notice to the provider of the service 4chan requesting a copy of the record of its Illegal Content Risk Assessment, as part of our [https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/enforcement-programme-to-monitor-if-services-meet-their-illegal-content-risk-assessment-and-record-keeping-duties-under-the-online-safety-act-2023 Risk Assessment Enforcement Programme]. At the date of opening this investigation, no response has been received to the information notice. <ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-13 |title=Investigation into 4chan and its compliance with duties to protect its users from illegal content |url=https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/investigation-into-4chan-and-its-compliance-with-duties-to-protect-its-users-from-illegal-content |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250615131417/https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/investigation-into-4chan-and-its-compliance-with-duties-to-protect-its-users-from-illegal-content |archive-date=2025-06-15 |access-date=2025-08-18 |website=Ofcom}}</ref>

On 10 June 2025 Ofcom opened an investigation into "the online discussion board" 4chan. The investigation will consider 4chan's compliance with its duties under the Online Safety Act 2023. Ofcom has powers under [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50#section-102-8 section 102(8)] of the Act to require persons to respond to an information notice in the manner and form specified.

Theo posted a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TZozNjPcGw YouTube video] covering the Online Safety Act and how it going to destroy the free internet if internet community don't stop it ASAP. He said it's rare that he gets that extreme about something like this, but it's a really important thing that the community jump in front of. In his opinion, this is the fist time something this potentially damaging has been implemented in decades.

The Online Safety Act will normalise providing your government-issued identification in order to see content, making everyone more susceptible and vulnerable to phishing attacks perpetrated by identity thieves.  

 

"The only winners of this shit are VPN companies and identity providers."

 

By continuing to shift the responsibility down the pipe, we are increasing the potential harm for when it goes wrong. "Who is harmed if they fail their responsibility?"

 

when parents do a bad job of protecting their kids, the kid sees things that they shouldn't.

 

If the government does a bad job of helping the parents protect their kids, it could destroy the open internet.

 

If the platform does a bad job of verifying the kids using the rules the government gave them, personal info starts to leak.

 

We've massively increased the opportunity and the like surface area of identity attacks and identity theft in general. We've made the internet less free and we've made it way harder to share information and we gave a ton of money to VPN companies for no reason.