Online Safety Act goes Live

 

The above is what you will see if you try to access the Kiwi Farms website from the UK. This is because the "Online Safety Act 2023" is now law. Starting off as the "Online Harms Bill" this monstrosity has been grinding its way through Parliament for several years. It was blocked by the House of Lords over the "legal but still harmful" clause; but I knew they wouldn't give up. (I won't hear a word against the House of Lords, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-starmerlution-continues.html!) As I predicted, the rise of Starmer would lead to a rereading of the bill and it did. They've changed the name, but it still has the same basic message and the same effect. Obviously the government don't give a toss about the public's safety or any harms we might come to. This is simply their excuse; they could hardly admit the truth and call it the "Internet Censorship Act" could they? The act compels online platform to accept a duty of care in which they take personal responsibility for content posted by their users and will face a massive fine if it breaches a set of parameters under the headings of: "child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme sexual violence, extreme pornography, fraud, racially or religiously aggravated public order offences, inciting violence, illegal immigration and people smuggling, promoting or facilitating suicide, intimate image abuse, selling illegal drugs or weapons, sexual exploitation, foreign interference, terrorism, hate offences." What strikes me about that list is that most of what is on it is already illegal and there are already laws in place to deal with them. The exceptions being "intimate image abuse" which I take it means what is known as "revenge porn", publishing private images of somebody during a miscarriage of romance which were meant to be kept secret. As for "illegal immigration and people smuggling", the government themselves are the worst offenders of that. And what does "foreign interference" refer to? Russians I assume; but they are already being blamed for everything anyhow. The key point is "hate offences" because, as we've seen, that could mean almost anything. I've seen very benign phrases such as "white people are not evil" being designated as hate speech. The emphasis on protecting children has been repeated again and again throughout the media, for example it's in the title of this BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68225707. If the government gave a damn about children it would do something about the nonces in its own ranks. Obviously this is meant to head off any dissent at the pass with moral blackmail: "What? You oppose this? Don't you care about children then?"

It's telling that the big social media companies have been behaving for many years now as if this law were already in place. I myself have fallen foul of it, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/video-banned.html and: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2022/08/you-know-what-portal-banned.html. It's as if somebody had a word in their ear to say: "Hang in there. This will all be in black-and-white soon." OFCOM will not use this law to keep anybody safe. It will be applied selectively to silence outspoken critics of government activities. So far no perverts have been arrested or shut down. All that has happened it that forums for cycling and hamster keepers have had to close; I kid you not! Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STi8t2OWkr0. This could affect HPANWO. Certainly I am the kind of user who threatens official narratives. I'm not sure how I would access websites in such a scenario. Logging in normally identifies my location in the world. I hope there is a way round that or else I won't be able to add new content to my alt-tech pages, Substack, Minds, Odysee etc. The good news is we still have our beloved alt-techies who are the best in the world; and they now include Elon Musk. He is opposing this, as is Andrew Torba of Gab, see: https://x.com/BasedTorba/status/1904947417637634176. Sites filtered off the UK web can still be seen using a VPN; I find the Tor browser a very good option. I expect there will be some way to remain a content creator even under this tyranny. I'll continue in any way I can. This is an IT arms race and the bad guys have made an advancement, but the good guys will catch up.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-hpanwo-fake-news.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/05/ive-been-zucked.html.