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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| On March 17, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, a law that regulates internet spaces, officially kicked into force. |
So what?
| The law means that online platforms must immediately start putting in place measures to protect people in the UK from criminal activity with far-reaching implications for the internet. |
Still so what?
| However, for some forums—from cyclists, hobbyists, and hamster owners, to divorced father support and more—the regulatory pressure is proving too much, and its myriad of rules are causing chat forums that have been operating for decades, in some cases, to call it a day. |
But why?
what the government calls “small but risky services” which are often forums, have to submit illegal harms risk assessments to the Online Safety Act’s regulator, Ofcom, by March 31.
Some of the rules for owners of these sites—which are often operated by individuals —include keeping written records of their risk assessments, detailing levels of risk, and assessing the “nature and severity of potential harm to individuals.” |
A question for t'management of this website.
| Have you done your risk assessment yet? | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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An excellent question. It will illuminate the larger problem which is
* Whether an online platforms will find it worthwhile offering their services in the UK if such admin work becomes too onerous
* Whether UK consumers thirst to use the online platform sufficiently for this to be an operable factor in government policy
* Since the vast majority of UK consumers are not affected by the problems that UK governments are seeking to mitigate, how is this balance to be kept in practice?
1. Hatty and I (hereinafter Admin) have to keep at bay the grosser trolls from time to time which is not arduous, does not need judgement, and is not a problem
2. Admin very, very occasionally has to take action against a member misusing the service. This is not arduous, does require judgement and is not a problem.
3. Admin has to go one step up the chain to our Boffin because there is some technical problem. This can be expensive but is not a problem.
4. When it comes to a risk assessment, the chief source of concern is one of the Admin (me) who can play fast and loose with various legal infractions viz libel, court reporting restrictions, racist and homophobic language etc. But we're too small for anyone to bother.
5. Ironically (or paradoxically) we would probably be only too pleased if they did. Short of closing us down. We'd be fairly relaxed if Hatty had to do a bit of gaol time. 'Free the Berkshire One!'
Moral: size is everything.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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There may be grim irony in what happens to some tiny forums (fora) that say it isn't worth the aggro and shutdown. But then move lock stock and two smoking barrels to places like FaecesBorg. With the naive expectations that it is more secure (wrong) or better protected (wrong).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is why I use Kaspersky. I am naive enough to believe the USSR has less reason to inspect my electronic innards than the USA and their running dogs, the British government.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I get it, it's going to be a morning's work to complete a RA but I can tell from your posts you and Hats have most of this covered?
You just have not written it down in the form of a RA.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Let's say I'm an Iranian spy and I have accessed a Defcon 3 round robin discussion of tonight's bombing raids on Teheran and points east, using my hacking skills (which are formidable, I can get into my bank account in two minutes flat).
But I have made that inevitable mistake and surging up my drive is what looks to be a full FBI SWAT team. "I'm no fly," I say, standing in my doorway cradling a bolt action Smith & Western. "The meeting wasn't even classified. So bug out."
"We haven't come about that, we're Yakuza."
"Japanese gangsters?"
"United Kingdom Online Safety Authority."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The March of Dimes
* If you've got a 20% VAT regime, all your domestically produced goods are 20% dearer than than they need to be.
* They cannot compete with the same goods produced abroad that do not have a VAT component.
* Therefore you have to put a 20% ad valorem tariff on these imported goods.
* If these goods are being exported by a country ruled by an orange-tinged billionaire, he (or she) will put a 20% retaliatory tariff on your exports to his (or her) country.
* You will then put an extra 20% retaliatory tariff on his/her goods.
* He (not she, she will have had a fit of the vapours by now) will put an extra 20% in retaliation to your retaliation.
* You will become the fifty-first/second/third state of that country to avoid tariffs (and VAT).
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| British Steel is launching a consultation that could see the closure of its two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, putting up to 2,700 jobs at risk out of a workforce of 3,500. |
No surprise there.
| The company said the blast furnaces were "no longer financially sustainable" due to tough market conditions, the imposition of tariffs and higher environmental costs. |
Only a tiny surprise there, they didn't mention fuel costs.
| The BBC understands British Steel was expecting a £1bn injection of government money to keep the business going, but was offered £500m. |
Rachel from Accounts is just doing her job.
| The Prime Minister's official spokesperson said the government had made a "generous offer" to British Steel and it would continue to work with the company and its Chinese owner Jingye to secure its future. |
Ah, at last. a real surprise.
The Chinese owner Jingye gets mentioned.
And there was me thinking all of British Steel was owned by Tata, the Indian firm.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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More.
(re) the company's chief commercial officer Allan Bell speaking to the Business & Trade Select Committee.:
''We have concluded that the only viable option for British Steel moving forward to decarbonise is to move to 100% electric arc furnace steelmaking," he said. |
Note that this is the same move being made by Tata Steel at its Port Talbot plant.
Downgrade it from a primary producer of new high-grade high-value steel to a processor of cheap scrap steel shipped in from elsewhere.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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What nobody seems to understand is that Britain is the most mature industrial country in the world--on account of being where the Industrial Revolution happened. The life-cycle of industrial states is quite well-known
* agriculture and primary products dwindle
* to be gradually replaced by 'simple' manufacturing e.g. cotton goods
* which is gradually replaced by complex manufacturing e.g. motor cars
* until manufacturing itself gives way to the 'knowledge sector'.
Among the first industries when starting up is iron & steel. As more and more countries industrialise, among the first to go in mature economies will therefore be iron & steel. The final stage is abandoning huge blast furnaces for the making of raw steel. But there is still (just about) room for electric arc furnaces to make special steel from local scrap iron.
All countries resist these changes for social and political reasons by a combination of tariffs and subsidies but there comes a point when it is pointless. Guess where we've reached:
1. The new Scunthorpe works will cost two billion pounds.
2. The Chinese say they will build it if HMG gives them a billion pounds.
3. HMG has offered half a billion.
4. This to save a few thousand jobs for not very long in the east Midlands.
5. HMG is in desperate straits because Rachel Reeves can't find a few billion to balance the books.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | The life-cycle of industrial states is quite well-known
* agriculture and primary products dwindle
* to be gradually replaced by 'simple' manufacturing e.g. cotton goods
* which is gradually replaced by complex manufacturing e.g. motor cars
* until manufacturing itself gives way to the 'knowledge sector'.. |
This is correct and valid.
The 'knowledge sector' might well include "financial services" as trading in the intangible.
Trouble is, it's even easier to outsource and export the 'knowledge sector' than any of the previous stages.
And/or the speed at which things can be outsourced and exported accelerates as we go through the stages.
We're now entering into a Stage 5.
As the 'knowledge sector' can move rapidly to wherever data centres and electricity are cheapest.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Trump administration is setting standards we didn't even know existed. Take the latest (and by latest, I mean today, this afternoon, teatime... there'll be another one at supper): the Signal snafu. It's been called Signalgate but hasn't achieved that status because
| the whole thing was a big round nothing. |
Less than nothing. Somebody clicked on somebody's name but clicked the next name down by mistake. (That's my guess anyway.) It required that somebody--or maybe that somebody's Rosemary Woods--saying sorry. But the rule in this White House is Never Say Sorry.
| So the whole of the American body politic had to be convulsed instead. |
But the question is: Is that good or bad? That's what I mean by standards we never knew existed. We thought political uproars were bad, in themselves. But maybe not. We've been here before. Remember Boris Johnson? His pitch was:
| "I'm going to be caught with my hand in the cookie jar constantly but you're not going to care because I'm changing everything, everything needs changing and I'm the only person around who's prepared to do the changing. All you have to do is to think, 'It's OK, it's only Boris being Boris.' Now do we have a deal?" |
And we said 'yes'. Eventually we said 'no' but we have removable First Ministers. The American don't.
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Pete Jones
In: Virginia
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Less than nothing. Somebody clicked on somebody's name but clicked the next name down by mistake. (That's my guess anyway.) |
I want to know who the next name down was. This should be easy to tell us. Who is the person next door to Jeffrey Goldberg in Mike Waltz's contacts?? Just tell us and end the controversy. Let's hope that person is an appropriately cleared and confirmed member of the national security apparatus as opposed to the single most neoconservative Israel-hawk in America's "respectable" journalism scene.
Because it can't be the equivalent of a butt-dial, given that adding someone to a Signal group text requires the following actions (I know, because I use Signal every day):
1. Click the Group Name
2. Scroll Down to the "Add Members" button (note: scrolling is necessary, as the button appears below a bunch of other stuff)
3. Click said button
4. Scroll down to the contact/member you want to add. Signal alphabetizes by first name, so presumable a J that was NOT Jeffrey Goldberg was intended.
5. J being about a third through the alphabet, some considerable scrolling will be needed. For someone with lots of contacts, this is even relatively MORE scrolling.
6. Click their name
7. At the bottom of the screen, click "Done" button Butt-dial is impossible, given this proliferation of necessary clicks and scrollings. So I'm hoping economic advisor "Jeffrey 'Goldbug' Doe" will soon step out of the woodwork.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Pete Jones wrote: | | I want to know who the next name down was. This should be easy to tell us. Who is the person next door to Jeffrey Goldberg in Mike Waltz's contacts?? |
Jeffrey Epstein?
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