2025-11-19 17:17:20
2024 Australia: In November, the eSafety commissioner announced draft standards that would require the operators of cloud and messaging services to detect and remove known child abuse and pro-terror material “where technically feasible”, as well as disrupt and deter new material of the same nature.
Key Concerns Raised by Experts:
1. Flawed ‘voluntary’ AI Chat Control Creates Dangerous False PositivesThe experts warn that unlike the previous Council’s proposal, the new text expands scanning of private communications to include automated text analysis, using AI to identify ambiguous “grooming” behaviours. They argue this will create a dragnet that ensnares innocent people. “Current AI technology is far from being precise enough to undertake these tasks with guarantees for the necessary level of accuracy.”
2025-11-19 15:46:50
Chickens coming home to roost:
Sky News has obtained a bombshell letter from a US House of Representatives committee chairman and ally of President Donald Trump accusing eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant of being a “zealot” and “direct threat” to the free speech of American citizens and requesting she testifies before Congress within two weeks.
Via:
2025-11-17 19:39:43
US regulation is binary: FDA permits 9ppm of rat droppings in flour, realising it’s inevitable. You are within limits, yes or no? UK regulation is analogue: banning any & all poop in expectation that this will drive ever-cleaner processes of food handling, so any (rare) cases can be dealt with by individual investigation.
Guess which…
Guess which doesn’t work for the internet, doesn’t scale, doesn’t travel, is gamed by those who face it, & inflames activists? Not to mention: in the world of food the rats are not actively attempting to circumvent restrictions on where they can poop.
Also:
Father of teen whose death was linked to social media has ‘lost faith’ in Ofcom
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/15/molly-russell-family-social-media-ofcom
2025-11-10 22:34:26
Quote Patrick Breyer:
A perfidious trick? The EU Council Presidency wants to introduce mandatory #ChatControl through the backdoor: An Art. 4 amendment would MANDATE “all reasonable mitigation measures,” including scanning, enforced with sanctions!
2025-11-10 22:01:54
A quick run through the archives reminds us that Mr Ahmed’s CCDH recently called for Ofcom to be able to appeal for powers of direct censorship in times of crisis, whilst elsewhere downplaying the consequences of the Online Safety Act lest it get a bad reputation.
And now the Americans are considering kicking him out? This might be the start of genuine consequences for the “Duty of Care” OSA.
Quoth the Telegraph: (archived)
In 2021, the group named Mr Kennedy, the current Health Secretary, as one of its “Disinformation Dozen”, a list of 12 people it claimed should have their accounts removed from social media for posting anti?vaccine content.
Leaked documents, thought to have been drawn up by the CCDH, also reportedly listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” as one of the group’s annual priorities last year.
The non-profit published a series of highly critical reports linking Mr Musk’s takeover of the platform, now known as X, to rising misinformation and hate speech that was “spreading like wildfire”.
and:
The move is part of an American campaign to “step up pressure” on Britain’s Online Safety Act. The law, which regulates online speech, allows the UK Government to levy massive fines on US companies such as Apple, Truth Social, and X if it finds that rules on hate speech have been broken.
Those in the president’s inner circle see the potential penalties as an unwarranted foreign intervention into American free speech.
Since the law came into effect this year, Ofcom, the UK’s online regulator, has written to several US firms ordering them to conform to the act.
It has sparked outrage from Congressmen and legal experts in the US, who say the overreach is a threat by the UK to silence America’s companies and citizens if they refuse to comply with the British Government’s view of what is acceptable to post online.
“The one thing everyone [in the Trump administration] agrees on is the need to dramatically pressure the UK over the Online Safety Act,” the source said.
2025-11-10 21:35:52
If kids can’t use WhatsApp, will parents have to use SMS?
Will the EU not ban SMS?
Denmark’s update to the EU “chat control” plan shifts to “voluntary” scanning, but ex-MEP Patrick Breyer warns it still sidesteps Parliament’s court-order safeguard, would ban under-16s from messaging apps, and could effectively end anonymous communication.