Internet News

Ofcom writes:

Today we are publishing our first major policy Statement for the Online Safety regime.

This decision on the Illegal Harms Codes and guidance marks a major milestone, with online providers now being legally required to protect their users from illegal harm.

Ofcom published proposals about the steps providers should take to address illegal harms on their services shortly after passage of the Online Safety Act in October 2023. Since then, we have been consulting carefully and widely, listening to industry, charities and campaigners, parents and children, as well as expert bodies and law enforcement agencies. With today's publication1, online providers must take action to start to comply with these new rules. The result will be a safer life online for people in the UK, especially children.

Providers now have a duty to assess the risk of illegal harms on their services, with a deadline of 16 March 2025. Subject to the Codes completing the Parliamentary process, from 17 March 2025, providers will need to take the safety measures set out in the Codes or use other effective measures to protect users from illegal content and activity. We are ready to take enforcement action if providers do not act promptly to address the risks on their services.

Analysis to follow but there are over 1000 pages to get through first!

ReclaimTheNet has likened Meta's regime for punishment of transgressions against its rules to the re-education camps run by repressive regimes. The group writes:

Like law enforcement in some repressive virtual regimes, Meta is introducing the concept of re-education of 'citizens' (users), as an alternative to eventually sending them to 'jail' (imposing account restrictions) for first offences.

The same community standards now apply across Meta's platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads ,while the new rule means that instead of collecting a strike for a first policy violation, users who go through an educational program can have it deleted.

There's also probation...those who receive no strike for a year after that will again be eligible to participate in the remove your warning course.

Meta first introduced the option for creators last summer and is now expanding it to everyone. In announcing the change of the policy, the tech giant refers to research that showed most of those violating its rules for the first time may not be aware they are doing so.

This is where the short educational program comes in, as a way to reduce the risk of receiving that first strike, and Meta says the program is designed to help better explain its policies.

The re-education takes the form of an online training course allowing errant users to own up to their crime, explain why they did it, and no doubt promise to do better next time.

British counter-terror police have blocked a video game that allows players to recreate Hamas's Oct 7 attacks on Israel.

The police have ordered Steam, an online video game marketplace, to remove Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque from its UK store.

The game drew the attention of terror police because it included scenes of players paragliding into an Israeli army base and killing soldiers. Although the game does not refer to Hamas directly, a trailer displays Israeli soldiers being shot in the head by terrorists wearing green Hamas-style headbands.

Nidal Nijm, the game's Brazilian-Palestinian creator, said in a statement on Steam's website:

The request to block my game in the UK came from the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU). So this is clear that UK authorities consider my game as 'terrorist' propaganda.

Despite being blocked in Austria, Germany and the UK, the video game remains on sale in the US for $14.99 (£12).

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: The Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) is a national Counter Terrorism Policing unit based within the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, which is dedicated to the assessment of potential terrorist and extremist material found online by the public.

The UK government has launched the Office for Digital Identities and Attribute (OfDIA), a group within the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, tasked with encouraging the growth of the digital ID market under the leadership of chief executive Hannah Rutter.

In fact the Labour government is continuing with a Tory idea that was first announced by the previous government in 2022.

Rutter claimed that digital identity can make people's lives easier, and unlock billions of pounds of economic growth.

Rutter made sure to address one of the criticisms regarding the security of such schemes -- centralization -- by saying that the system her office is working on does not have a centralized digital database.

Currently, OfDIA is working to create a trusted and secure digital identity market and this work focuses on five areas, starting with developing and maintaining the digital identity and framework, and then being in charge of a register of accredited organizations that meet the framework's requirements.