What's frustrating me about this is that theoretically this list should include every MUD and BBS, if they don't want to get in trouble. It's a horrible law, which forces people into the pockets of the largest sites which can afford to do the age verification.
Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.
Making content restrictions easier for parents to implement would help a ton — like being able to block all sites in a browser and create a whitelist of the ones kids are allowed to access. Similar whitelisting should be available and easy to implement for YouTube and social media. Having to individually block each site/video/profile you don’t want your kid to access is a futile game of whack a mole.
A more sensible approach to this law would be to require adult sites to include a clear marker in either an HTTP header or an HTML meta tag. For example:
This would allow locally run browser content blockers to automatically detect such sites without blocking them individually, and it would be trivial for site operators to implement. Since it would be mandated by law, sites that refuse to comply could be subject to legal action.
Of course, this would still rely on parents taking the basic step of setting up a content blocker before allowing their children unrestricted internet access.
But you can do this now: I made this for my sisters kids and my friend his Alzheimer dad years ago. Agree: its not mainstream or installable by just anyone, but if you are on HN it will take an old laptop with linux and chromium and a few hours.
I'm able to do this using the Google Family controls for my kids' mobiles. I've tied it down so much that they use them rarely and for specific purposes.
This is already fairly trivial to do. There are many DIY and commercial off-the-shelf solutions. The problem with all client-side blocking is that it can be bypassed by just...using a different computer. People who want this legislation want restrictions to apply everywhere, not just on parent-managed devices, so shifting the discussion to client-side blocks just makes our arguments trivial to dismiss as irrelevant.
WHITELISTING. It's utterly infuriating the obvious, time tested strategy with all the technological pieces already in place and an easy slot-in for government isn't at the tip of everyone's tongue. Just setup a set of new TLDs, ".kids1", ".kids2", ".kids3" etc, with kids1 being appropriate for anyone ages 0-4 years old, kids2 ages 5-9, kids3 ages 10-14, etc. Or whatever permutation experts and the public say make the most sense. Governments can set the requirements for anyone or any organization who wants to register a domain there to ensure all content is controlled, no user submitted content (or only submissions from registered people/orgs like schools say), no algorithmic engagement usage allowed, no advertising or whatever else is desired. It's also trivial to add that in under country TLDs so every single nation that wants to regulate their own can do so to their own standards. An alternate similar approach would be to have a single ".[ccTLD].kids" domain and then legally required DNS txt info site-wide as well as standardized metadata tags at the top of every single page going into more granular detail about content by category (like if some parents though their kids were ready for a higher age bracket of world news before being ready for a higher bracket of something else).
With age-appropriate content under its own TLDs, all the other technical pieces are easy to slot in as well. It'd be absolutely trivial for OS makers to have parental control mode simply gate a given user into whatever TLDs match the age or content levels set by the parents. It's very easy to imagine a nice GUI at the router level combining TLD-restrictions with VLANs and PPSKs such that a parent can "add a child" and it spits out a separate WiFi password that gates the child into their own age appropriate stuff.
The general internet should be a free for all for adults (or adult level), period. Access at all should imply someone is ready to navigate it. Trying to restrict and sanitize it is evil, wrong, and also just plain fucking stupid since it'll never work well. We can easily make a child internet however.
They're also one of the few sites in a perfect position to; enough usage to make people/government really notice, not typically NSFW related to make the message clear that its not just a "porn ban", and without the profit incentive that makes the likelihood of such an act unlikely or to give the government room to "wait them out".
Regarding Wikipedia - the people in change of these recent anti-consumer laws and ideas would love to shutdown Wikipedia permanently. It is not immediately bad for them, but it is in general a source of objective information which they hate. They would rather warp public opinion through paid for media and social accounts.
This doesn't seem accurate to me - Gambling sites legally operating in the UK already have strict KYC requirements applied to them via the Gamling regulator.
Visiting a gambling site isn't restricted, but signing up and gambling is.
If age restriction technology is now being introduced to prevent kids *viewing* "inappropriate" websites, then why are gambling websites being given a free pass?
They’ve already found a loophole for that: If you gamble with fake money (acquired through real money and a confusing set of currency conversions) and the prizes are jpegs of boat-girls (or horse-girls, as I hear are popular lately) or football players, you can sell to all the children you want.
But in that case it'd be easy for supporters of the law to argue it was just performative and clearly not really needed since they're otherwise accessible.
They are free to do that, but what of it? Sanctions and boycotts are "performative" in the same sense, and yet they continue being a popular tool to compel voters and politicians of other countries to act or refrain from acting in particular ways.
Wikipedia is a popular website that many people depend upon; denying access to UK users would not only create a massive inconvenience along with the temptation that it could be avoided if the law were rolled back, but would also encourage more UK users to adopt VPNs, which would subvert the law's effectivity along with that of a plethora of other authoritarian measures that the UK has in place.
I think the risk is that it becomes framed as extortion, and would cause some proportion of voters - who at least right after the OSA was put in place remained relatively in favour of elements of it (though the polls have been wildly flawed) - to double down.
Hence, I think a total block would be better than a partial block, because that can be framed as legitimately risk mitigation and would be a lot harder to attack.
That said, some pressure would be better than no pressure, so if the alternative is no block, I'd prefer a partial block.
That could drive users to LLM services to fill in the gaps. I know a lot of people who just use LLMs instead of good ol internet searches because they are that lazy.
Many MUDs/BBSes operate via Telnet/SSH rather than HTTP, potentially creating a technical gray area in enforcement that highlights the law's poor adaptation to the diverse technical landscape of the internet.
In fact that would likely devastate Labour’s already slim chances of reelection. And would make the argument for repealing that idiotic law wholesale something else than “let my constituents watch porn”
It's the Online Safety Act 2023 and was going through parliament from 2019, I'm sure the moment it becomes sufficiently unpopular in the wider public we'll see the "2023" part gain more prominence. Starmer won't be able to say it's a bad idea, because he and his party have been supportive of it since, but there'll be the usual political maneuverings. I can't see people switching to vote Green because they suggested a digital bill of rights.
Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.