Russ Beeby

@Loingirder Try the "Act against Unlicensed and Scandalous Books and Pamphlets, and for better regulating of Printing" of September 1649.

Britain introduced paper taxes to stop the spread of cheap radical newspapers in the 19th century, a little remembered event in British history.

@BBCr4today The Government has been saying "we've got to get this right" routinely for about 3 years now, and everytime it says it, it gets it wrong again.

"It's not really a question of if we are going to act on these issues...we will act on them." The government has issued guidance on screen time for under 5s. Children and Families Minister Josh McAllister says that there are still 'choices' to be made when it comes to the strategy for under 16s.

@prestonjbyrne Watch out for the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Kidron is throwing in hundreds of (Lords) amendments to cover things she gave up trying on the OSA.

I wonder what comes after this.

@AlecMuffett I'm confused. I thought META had just announced it was terminating E2EE.

Moxie Marlinspike, of Signal fame, announces partnership with Meta to bring end-to-end encryption to Meta AI Chat

@prestonjbyrne 'toothless' would have been a better word than powerless.

@prestonjbyrne The OSA does not explicitly require platforms to know the age of their child users. The OSA does not empower Ofcom to require platforms to enforce their entry age restrictions. The OSA does not mandate any age gating at 13 years old. Google et al should know Ofcom is powerless.

I am amazed that the Eye of Sauron finally turned to Google and the first thing Google said was "wait, you guys should be going after 4chan!" Don't you guys get it? Ofcom was *always* going to come after Google. 4chan was just in the way. Google needs to fight, like 4chan has.

@impression_ists 1796!

@BBCr4today Ofcom is resorting to making demands beyond the requirements of the Online Safety Act. In part, this is a recognition that the OSA is failing. The OSA is dead in the water in the US courts.

“Regulation is definitely working but the job is obviously immense” Dame Melanie Dawes, Chief Executive of Ofcom, explains the regulator’s decision to demand greater protections for children from several tech platforms.

Love the way Ofcom issues 'demands' but fails to mention they have no basis in law. Government however regards that as a minor inconvenience, and has planned a way round it. (Starmer's "we can move really fast".)

@SpeechUnion Congratulations, but the closeness of the vote indicates the forces of darkness are still battling, and of course the amendment still has to survive the Commons.

Bye bye NCHIs. 👋 Our General Secretary Lord Young of Acton just won a tremendous victory in House of Lords when his amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill scrapping non-crime hate incidents — cosponsored by Lords Hogan-Howe and Strasberger — was passed by 227 votes to 221. 👊

@CommonsSITC Throughout this session, there was a continuous problem in tackling scope, i.e. defining what 'social media' is. The discussion was exclusively through a lens of the larger platforms.

Our session on social media age restrictions has started. Watch live on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=QAMtAW…

@HansardSociety Was the Government's 'amendment in lieu' to the Child Wellbeing & Schools Bill agreed, or is it still to be voted on, and if so, is there a date for that vote?

NEW BRIEFING | The risks of consigning online safety law to delegated legislation Our latest briefing examines two late-stage government amendments, giving Ministers significant powers to reshape online safety legislation. 🔽 hansardsociety.org.uk/publications/b…

@AlecMuffett I'm not sure what the current status of the Government's 'amendment in lieu' is.

@RussBeeby It looks like they've got multiple numbering schemes going on at the same time

@AlecMuffett 92?

@RussBeeby Was amendment 92 up for voting? There is some weird negative logic regarding the word "agreed" but there was approval for a block of amendments 45 through 101 : bills.parliament.uk/bills/3909/sta…

@AlecMuffett Amendment 37 was the proposed VPN ban. The SM ban was Amendment 38.

It's hard to express how utterly maddening it is that the #LibDems, rather than actively defending our right to private internet usage, entirely abstained from voting on the #SocialMediaBan #notr" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/…[…]

The u16 Social Media ban has failed. Reform and the Greens were silent in the debate on this matter.

The Child VPN Prohibition has failed.

@prestonjbyrne The LBC headline is actually an improvement over BBC and Sky etc, who never mention that Ofcom's fines have not been paid.

That’s because they’re fining Americans, and Americans have a constitutional right to free speech which means Ofcom will never enforce those fines. If you’d asked Ofcom tough questions about this a year ago, this might not have happened

Commons will discuss Lords' amendments to the Children's Wellbeing & Schools Bill today, including VPN and u16 SM bans by no-scrutiny secondary legislation. Tune in to discover how ignorant and misinformed your MP is.