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New Zealand becomes a domino

Over the weekend the UK's Online Safety Act came into effect.

"Won't someone think of the children" is the catch-cry of legislation that is really a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Although it purports to be an Act that serves only to protect children from the darker side of the internet, the reality is that it does far more and actually penalises sites that pose no risk to under-18-year-olds.

Here is a useful "explainer" that presents the UK government spin designed to put the public at ease in the face of overwhelming censorship and loss of online privacy.

Let's take a look at what this act really represents.

Firstly, there's a great deal of use of the word "children", yet the act seems to be designed to protect those under 18 years of age. Is a 17 year-old really a "child" in the 21st century?

Well other recent changes by the UK government would see to suggest that 16 and 17 year olds are far from "children" -- because they've just been given the right to vote in general elections.

Anyone with half a brain (so I guess most politicians are excluded) can see from this that the essence of this online protection act is not so much to ensure children are protected from harm on the internet but more to ensure that the government maintains control and surveilance of information.

Another key phrase used is "harmful information". Just what constitutes "harmful" and who gets to decide that?

Why it's the UK government of course.

If the UK government decides that harmful information is anything that dares to challenge their ideology then you can see where this leads.

Of course I'm sure that right now many are saying "but they would never do that" -- to which I would respond: and I'm sure they would never imprison people for simply saying hurty words or voicing an opinion -- but they are doing exactly that right now in the UK.

So perhaps we can hope that the UK is just an anomoly, that no other free democracy would be so stupid as to try and pass such draconian legislation that strips their citizens of the right to free speech and stifles the flow of information. We'd be wrong.

As I've mentioned previously in this column, Australia is rolling out its own online safety Act which very much mirrors the UK legislation but is even worse. It's looking as if Australians will have to apply for and use a digital ID to gain access to the internet when their legislation is passed.

And... of course, it's all to protect the children, right?

Fortunately we would never be so stupid as to ankle-tap New Zealander's freedoms in the way that the UK and Oz are doing.

Wrong again, there is already a strong push for New Zealand to also introduce age restrictions on internet access and I'm pretty sure that this will also come to pass.

There is nothing politicians love more than having the ability to shape what we see and restrict what we say. By shouting "won't someone think of the children" they seem to be able to invoke draconian restrictions that would never otherwise be considered reasonable. They rely on the fact that nobody wants to be seen to be suggesting that children should have access to pornography, in order to strong-arm outrageous restrictions on our freedoms.

I mentioned that this sort of legislation has nasty unintended consequences on many websites. Take Wikipedia for example.

Given that it's not a part of "big tech" and doesn't have billions of dollars in the bank, Wikipedia may have to simply stop providing service to UK internet users because it doesn't have the resources or the money to introduce an effective age-restriction system. Rather than risk the huge fines that can be imposed under the Act, Wikipedia's only real choice may be to geofence UK users and lock the door to them.

How wonderful it is that the UK government denies its children (and adults) access to what has become one of the most useful repositories of human knowledge on the internet. How does that save them?

Even more farcical is the fact that this "protection" is a smokescreen. I doubt that any determined UK child or teen would have any problems circumventing the age-check. The Financial Times reports that VPN use has soared since the new Act came into force. Are we suprised?

Only politicians would be naive and stupid enough to believe that this Act would really do anything to stop determined youngsters from accessing forbidden fruit. What a waste of taxpayers' money and I wonder how many of the MPs behind this have shares in VPN companies perhaps?

The dominoes are falling and it would appear that unless *WE* push back, New Zealand will be the next in line. Former MP Trevor Rogers tried this back in the 1990s, please don't let his ghost succeed in the 2020s.

Be prepared, be vocal, be vigilant. If we hand off parental responsibilities to the government then we deserve to lose our freedoms.

Late update: Watch this video out of the UK and see how bad it has become there.

Carpe Diem folks!

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