Someone, somewhere, who lived through the 70s, would believe this is real and say he remembers them.

OK so basically if they lose, the law will just stay in place. There is an example of a (less controversial and) more major site going to court against the OSA and losing.

The Wikimedia Foundation recently lost a case against Ofcom placing them in the highest level of regulation based on how many people from the UK visit Wikipedia. Basically Wikipedia tried to argue that the following:

1. They cannot divulge the identities of it's contributors because some of them come from regimes where if the authorities knew who they were, they'd get killed.
2. They do not have the money and resources.
3. Considering they are an encyclopedia, maybe they shouldn't be subject to this because they aren't a porn or social site (although their search feature means they are subject to the OSA).

The court basically ruled on the side of Ofcom (the UK's version of the FCC who were arguing against Wikipedia) but said to Ofcom that they should consider exceptions for Wikipedia considering their position as the Prime Encyclopedia on the internet. Whether OfCom will take that on board is a whole other thing.

I also don't see how they could win because what they could say "If you cannot comply, Geoblock", and on top of that I think Kiwifarms or 4chan, the former hosting members who tried to commit offenses under the terrorist act against a Northern Irish Streamer, or 4chan, a site that is the source for a lot of far right ideologies that lead to terror attacks, would get a fair hearing over this. Like this is a bit like if a far left group tried to fight KOSA in the US. If Kiwifarms and 4chan win this it would be both a major shock to the system and basically the government pinning their colours to the post in favour of the far right while stopping things like tweets about palestine or access to educational resources on sensitive subjects.

Also, the main argument put forward to pass the OSA was basically target sites like 4chan and Kiwifarms (even though we know now it doesn't just target those sites, but also all social media, blogs, search engines...). The bill does cover...

• Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide.
• Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of deliberate self-injury.
• Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an eating disorder or behaviours associated with an eating disorder.
• Abusive content against the characteristics of Race, Religion, Sex, Sexual orentation, disability, or Gender Reassignment.
• Content that incites hate for the above
• Content that encourages, promotes, or provides instructions for acts against a person.
• Bullying content.
• Content encouraging stunts.

All of which are things 4chan and Kiwifarms are notorious for. So basically it's like if the KKK challenges the UK government against the Terrorist act because it covers them.

However the question they are putting forward is that "Since we're not in the UK, we should not be beholden to UK laws", which is a little bit of a problem because, say, if someone from the Netherlands accesses a childporn site hosted in Canada, it doesn't matter if someone in the Netherlands is not beholden to the laws of Canada, they can still be arrested for kiddyporn. Just because you are in one country and you are using a service in another doesn't mean you can't be arrested.

The OSA puts all the onus on instituting the law on the service provider, which I'm not sure if that is due to absolute arrogance of how the internet works (people in the Lords didn't even know what a VPN was) or something more Machiavellian (forcing medium to small sites to give money to companies MPs and Lords and their allies have invested in).

I think the ruling would be something like "no, it still applies, we wrote it specifially for sites like you, you can either age-gate or Geoblock the UK, your move."

But yeah, the OSA is a stupid fucking law that doesn't work in any sense and is being used to censor everything from Wikipedia to fucking shitposters in the name of the children. Any law that requires fining people in other jurisdictions isn't going to fucking work.

I have no idea how precedence works in the UK.

So what you need to understand about the UK is that Parliament is Sovereign. We don't have a balance of power like with the US with the President, Courts and Congress.

Our version of 1776 was 1649, when England beheaded Charles the First. After the restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the line was that Parliament called all the shots, not the Monarch, Prime Minister or the Courts. It's why the 13 colonies were all "no taxation without representation", because they knew this.

Anyway, The Supreme Court of the UK can strike down a law if it goes against another law. For example, during Brexit, Brexiteers argued that the Referendum alone meant that the UK can just leave the UK, but because the UK joined the EU through an act of parliament, they had to go through parliament. This led to a major newspaper calling judges "Enemies of the People" for (checks notes) following the law, but my point still stands.

Do I think KiwiChan/4Farms can overturn or make an exception to the law? No, especially since they are literally the boogiemen the government hold up as the reason for the law. What I do think will happen is that they will be told "comply, geoblock the UK or we'll block you". Ofcom blocking a site that isn't a CSAM would defo be a step in the wrong direction and a dangerous president, but I also suspect 4chan and Kiwifarms would do something like promote VPNs or something, but they don't need to do that because VPN use is sky high right now.

tl;dr: The OSA doesn't break any other law afaik, and this law was basically designed to target places like 4chan and KiwiFarms. They're not going to win this, Even Wikipedia didn't win their case, and the courts are just going to say something like "Age-gate, Geoblock, or GTFO".

Do you think the UK government even considered that? Do you think the Tories, who passed this law, or labour, who are full-throatedly supporting this law, even considered this?

They didn't even consider vpns. We literally have a member of the House of lords talking about VPNs as if they were some obscure technology. She literally said "Have your heard of VPN", one referring to it as if it was some sort of singular service.

Kiwi farms? You mean the website that harrasses people online, Swats people, and basically does shit that is illegal in the UK anyway?

Next you'll tell me child porn sites are suing the UK. Fuck the Online Safety Act, but yeah, they're not the people who should be suing the UK over this.

L I B R E O F F I C E

So basically he's forcing people to pay extra to a private company to file their fucking taxes.

Same reason the UK has the Online Safety Act: People who don't know shit about fuck being convinced by people who do know shit about fuck but want to make money from them being sold a big shiny solution that they are convinced will work.

I mean, am I wrong? France bankrupted itself in the war and in funding the American revolution. The American Revolution produced and popularised a lot of ideas that found their way to France and inspired ideas in the French Revolution (as well as a rebellion in Scotland but let's not get ahead of ourselves).

The French Revolution gave rise to the idea of the Modern Nation State and Napoleon's invasions of places like Italy and Germany implanted this idea in those places which eventually lead to the Nationalist revolutions in Germany and Italy in the 19th century.

If the American revolution failed, we'd might not have the French Revolution we know of today. If that is the case, there's no rise of the Nation State and no Napoleon to spread it, ergo, no Germany or Italy, as well as a lot of other countries.

Ok so here's the thing: If America lost the war, America would likely be akin to Australia. The UK used it's North American colonies like they did Australia (that is, a place to transport convicts) so you'd basically be like Australia in that regard. You'd likely be like...cold weather Aussies.

Also:

• Australia would be...different? Maybe Dutch?
• We might not have had a French Revolution, or it may have been different, because a lot of the ideas from the American Revolution inspired the French Revolution.
• Since the French Revolution have rise to the idea of the modern nation state and Napoleon, we'd not have a lot of countries.

BASICALLY YEAH

Welcome to Linux, here's your thigh highs. We expect a post on UnixSocks soon.

left spotify and started downloading all my music from [COMPLETELY LEGAL AVENUES] and bandcamp. It's good to have music that Spotify cannot take away from me.