Backdoors: UK Online Safety Bill Update
Back Doors in the Online Safety Act
The sneaky payload of the UK Online Safety Bill is active. The British cloud industry is quaking in its sheds. We discuss the UK government's senior moment with technology (again).
More on the episode "Backdoors in the Online Safety Act"
Two worlds collide.
It really is the case that children are at great risk from manipulative technology and the predatory companies that make it. We've long supported a ban on US platform social media and smartphones for young people, especially in schools. Our governments have made great, very welcome progress on furthering this principle.
It really is the case that governments use child safety as a disingenuous excuse to push the boundaries of authoritarianism, intrusion, state over-reach and social control. Our governments have disgraced themselves with awful legislative implementations and technically impossible goals in pursuit of noble aims.
The UK Online Safety Act is the finest example of a bill that leveraged popular support for much needed social change, and used that to betray liberal and democratic standards. Using child safety as a shim for technofascism is a very low moral position.
The excuses that this is a "difficult problem" and that "government people don't always know what they're doing with tech" are unacceptable. The influences of secret lobbyists, advisors, and the secret diplomacy, antagonism and back-room deals happening between big-tech and government amounts to technofascism and is a threat to democracy.
Where is informed public discussion on just what our government think they're doing to regulate harms, without collectively punishing the population, inviting fascism, excluding young people from useful information and internet access, and cynically using the opportunity to increase state surveillance for no good reason?
Where is the serious examination of harebrained quack technical proposals to meet nearly impossible law-enforcement asks? Where are the investigations into the outsourcing of core UK state apparatus to untrustworthy foreign corporations like Google, Amazon and Palantir? What do we do when our own goverment sell UK citizens private data to foreign firms without our consent? And then offer dangerous, dishonest advice to weaken civil cybersecurity in order to facilitate profitable collection?
How do we increase transparency and renew democratic control of what data our governments try to collect, how and why? How can be sure that what our governments do actually meets the civic security needs of the people, beyond "just trust us, we're clever?"