Antipodean fruit growers 3 - Is the Kiwi a Dodo or a Phoenix?

[Bosky]

Continuation thread from Antipodean fruit growers 2 - Canary in the internet coal mine
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4632616-antipodean-fruit-growers-2-canary-in-the-internet-coal-mine

Front row seat on the seemingly eternal battle between Jersh (aka Suzi Quatro's Fat Nan) and his Merry Band of Farmers against the Transpowered Forces of Internet Censorship.

1st Thread - Antipodean fruit grower statement
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4620584-antipodean-fruit-grower-statement

As Mumsnet? You sure?

Once again Marge, KF does not exists to dox, index, or do anything else to transpeople. KF is not about transpeople. It exists to laugh at people who do stupid things and put those stupid things online. Not everything, on the internet or in the world, is about transpeople. Sorry.

Errrmmmm.... this is on a par of next doors little Johnny's best friend proudly announcing they've done a poo in big potty.

I don't care (enough). It doesn't interest me. I have zero energy or headspace for it. Go tell your mummy so she can give you a pat on the head. Ta.

Wtf, is Christinapple MargaritaPie?

Probably.

So you are spreading the word, to what… boost popularity? Signpost normies towards the awfulness?

LadynameFoodname.

In a weird (and worrying) twist to this saga

From @ripx4nutmeg / The Glinner Update

They're finally closing the door on freedom of speech in the UK.
Ofcom have gone full-Orwell

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/theyre-finally-closing-the-door-on?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=67309&post_id=159977025&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1rghty&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

”This should be massive news but won't be. You cannot access Kiwi Farms in the UK now unless you use a VPN or the Tor browser because Ofcom has said anyone from the UK who visits the site could be at legal risk unless Kiwi Farms implements the Online Safety Act to keep users safe. Totally Orwellian."

And see Nitter for the Ofcom letter.

https://nitter.poast.org/KiwiFarmsDotNet/status/1904960870972571772#m

Kiwi Farms@KiwiFarmsDotNet
Mar 26
The Kiwi Farms has received a letter from @Ofcom informing us of our duties under British Law ... for some reason.

As you can imagine, there’s a thread on KF.

That just sounds so dumb!

Like has Ofcom got any idea how the Internet works? If the likes of the RIAA backed by the biggest media companies in the world couldn't shut down file sharing, how do they think half a dozen bleary UK civil servants are going to fare against the legendary savvy KF userbase.

”This should be massive news but won't be. You cannot access Kiwi Farms in the UK now unless you use a VPN or the Tor browser because Ofcom has said anyone from the UK who visits the site could be at legal risk unless Kiwi Farms implements the Online Safety Act to keep users safe. Totally Orwellian

i am coming from a place of complete ignorance

but what is the problem with the online safety thing? Is it cos it will make it easier for users to be tracked by 3rd parties?

Ofcom has started flexing its muscles over online this week.

The government are giving Ofcom a lot of power and where companies were forced off of TV due to Ofcom censorship, Ofcom now have powers to force them off the internet too.

TRAs who are usually highly active internet campaigners are no doubt firing off massive amount of complaints to Ofcom and now looks like it's starting to work.

Ofcom like most quangos has become too big and a waste of taxpayers' money.

I assume they've done Reddit then, absolute cesspit that it is?

Of course not! Reddit has literal rape fetish forums and image sharing. KiwiFarms has free speech. People may not like some of the speech there but it's not a site where sexual abuse images are traded.

Anyway, a little summary of the current situation which might be of use / interest to some. I'll keep it short.

Ofcom sent a letter to Null (Josh, site owner) the other day as part of their new policy and powers. Copied below.

Null replied the following, which is unusually short and civil compared to previous attempts to take down his site:

"Hello,

I am pleased to inform you that I am American and nobody cares about your wretched, dying nation - including the people living in it.

Kind regards,
Joshua Moon"

After some further consideration he decided to do something on his end though to protect British citizens. Anyone visiting from a UK IP address will now be greeted by a message (you can try this) explaining the situation. To proceed to visit the site itself a UK user must either use a VPN (which actually isn't hard though the good ones have a small cost) or use the TOR network. Which is a sort of sub-Internet which works quite well. Sometimes people try to describe it as some sinister "Dark Web" but in fact it's pretty easy to use and has legitimate uses.

So this is a sort of self-censorship, but on balance I think this is good because it makes people aware of the situation and nudges people to understand the tools they can use to get around censorship.

This situation is still quite new and developing. The "Risk Assessment" process that the UK govt. is now requiring sites to comply with has a few problems to it. Whilst there may be some positive intent behind it (or not depending on how conspiracy minded you are), it has the effect of creating significant barriers to entry in that big players like Reddit can afford the paperwork and duties but smaller sites cannot. So it's good for Big Tech. It also, depending on how you read it, can make site owners legally responsible for what their users post. I'd be interested to know if MN has received a notification yet! And finally there's the issue of what the government considers "risk". Which currently seems to include things like calling a man a man.

Hope this very short summary of the situation is useful.

EDIT: The images I pasted in seem not to have appeared. Not sure why. You can find them on the Farms easily - the thread on this is currently featured there. If anyone is uncertain about VPNs and TOR, I'm sure someone can help.

Not everyone has the same level of technical knowledge so a (VERY) brief primer might be of interest if anyone is curious what the terms mean.

TOR stands for The Onion Routing which refers to the way its network is structured. That's not really important though. It was developed to allow people in oppressed countries to access information their government wished to censor (I guess Britain counts, now?). You use it by either installing Tor software on your phone / computer and then all your Internet connections go through it. Or more simply you can install the dedicated Tor browser (easy to find) which will leave the rest of your computer alone and just access websites using the Tor network. This gives you anonymity but more importantly here, lets you access "Onion" sites. These have a different address format than regular addresses like "mumsnet.com". They're longer and messier but they refer to sites on the Onion network. If you go to the Kiwifarms URL you'll see the Onion address offered to you.

All this takes a little longer to explain than it does to actually do. All you'd really do is install the TOR browser and use that to visit Kiwifarms instead of your regular browser. Takes about two minutes.

The other technology that can be used is VPN (Virtual Private Network). The term tends to get conflated between the actual technology and companies that sell you VPN services. I wont go into this because far more people will be familiar with VPNs than with TOR. Essentially connect to the VPN and your Internet requests come from wherever the VPN server is rather than your own Internet. So your requests can come from "America" or wherever and you wont see the blocking page, you'll just see the site as normal.

So that might be a little long but what I'm essentially trying to cover is that despite the change, it's actually fairly easy to still access the site from the UK. Possibly this whole thing may backfire as regular ordinary people suddenly start learning how to use tools like Tor or buying VPN services. Once you've used them you go "oh, that's pretty easy actually" and Daily Mail articles about "the hacker known as 4chan used a secret tool called Tor" start to look incredibly silly.

Again, hope that's helpful context for what is being talked about.

TOR took ages to get in but once in it's fine. I'm only annoyed I've lost where I was up to on all the threads I read!

Yes, installing a separate browser to visit the Farms is annoying (if that's the route you chose) but it proved pretty easy on my laptop. Had less success on my phone, though. Not sure why.

I use the Orbot app on my iOS devices to access TOR, or there is an option in Brave browser to open private windows that use TOR. Brave browser is compatible with iOS, Mac, Android and Windows.

As for VPNs, PIA (Private Internet Access) is a good VPN - nothing fancy but it’s easy to use, covers the basics well, has good tech suport, and has a strong commitment to user privacy. There are often join up codes available for PIA from tech YouTubers to get you a deal on an annual subscription. Or you can try it for a month or so on a monthly subscription first and see if you like it.

As for this OFCOM online safety malarky, the Farms is not the most important place for them to start brandishing their new powers. There are awful sites out there that merit their attention far more, whereas sites that allow free (and sometimes unpleasant) speech should not be their priority.

Hope this very short summary of the situation is useful

very useful, thank you

I've been casually following the KF saga for a while now but this overstep by Ofcom is truly alarming. Is it just KF they've targeted, or have they tried blocking access to genuinely harmful websites?

As a suggestion to Ofcom, if they're so concerned about online safety, they could perhaps begin by taking down literally every porn site?

They'd need to do like Mumsnet a few weeks back and prevent the display of images. Which couldn't happen.

FFS.

Is that at me of at Ofcom?

Ofcom. I don't visit the farms often but it's the best place to catch up on Dylan M and Hollie D.

They've also blocked GabAI
it's really shocking, I guess they waited until Adolescence was televised to get some support?

This is targeted.

It's in the letter Jersh received from Ofcom: 'These services have been selected because Ofcom considers that the size and/or nature of it's service is such that it may present particular risks of harm to UK users from illegal content'.

Not like Reddit presumably, or OnlyFans, which are tiny and very unlikely to have any illegal content anywhere . The Take That Off The God Damn Internet! board on KF has identical Ofcom letters sent to sites called Torba and Gab - I've never heard of either of them.

And it's all so embarrassingly British - 'please email us your written risk assessment in order to comply with the law in a country you're not from and aren't based in'. Does Ofcom not understand how the internet works?