News websites are specifically exempt. Ofcom will collect fees from any company that wants to operate in the UK. They think they'll need £40 million to regulate the internet. It also sounds like the smaller operators (e.g. Gab, Parler & Bitchute) because they contain more problematic content will be leant on more heavily. Facebook is 95% of the way there apparently.
Listen to the Regulate Tech podcast on Podbean. Someone who's worked with Ofcom said that may well be the case. He said if a service provider decides they don't want to conform to UK law, then they won't be allowed to operate here. It was hard to tell if he was a fan or not, but he did say that imagine if dozens of countries decided to impose competing regulations on the various tech companies. You'd end up with dozens of national internets rather than a worldwide web. But that does seem to be the current direction of travel.
The service providers (Google, Facebook, etc.) are expected to fund Ofcom's expansion. Not just through fines apparently either. Plus they'll do the actual work.
The likely outcome is age verification for most, if not all websites. Either the government hasn't really thought this through, or they have & don't care about the result.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Michael.
Re:
News websites are specifically exempt. Ofcom will collect fees from any company that wants to operate in the UK. They think they'll need £40 million to regulate the internet. It also sounds like the smaller operators (e.g. Gab, Parler & Bitchute) because they contain more problematic content will be leant on more heavily. Facebook is 95% of the way there apparently.
Re: Re:
Listen to the Regulate Tech podcast on Podbean. Someone who's worked with Ofcom said that may well be the case. He said if a service provider decides they don't want to conform to UK law, then they won't be allowed to operate here. It was hard to tell if he was a fan or not, but he did say that imagine if dozens of countries decided to impose competing regulations on the various tech companies. You'd end up with dozens of national internets rather than a worldwide web. But that does seem to be the current direction of travel.
Re:
The service providers (Google, Facebook, etc.) are expected to fund Ofcom's expansion. Not just through fines apparently either. Plus they'll do the actual work.
Re:
The likely outcome is age verification for most, if not all websites. Either the government hasn't really thought this through, or they have & don't care about the result.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Michael.
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