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by AJRF 2 days ago
Am I right in thinking that the EFF doesn't launch any legal campaigns inside the UK (but they offer support to those who do)

Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.

3 comments

It’s overwhelmingly supported action.

The technical incoherence doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to say “you can’t use Snapchat” and then they say “my friend xxx uses it” you can say “xxx’s parent are delinquent”

This isn’t about blocking as much as setting societal expectations.

Totally agree. Setting the tone is so important. It’s so bad it’s “illegal” is a lot more convincing than saying to your kid, “well the research shows…”
Totally. The next step is a national campaign explaining how apple screen time and android family works. In the Uk we had a lot of shock adverts for drinking driving. The same thing with online harms would go a long way.
> Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.

The government looks likely to introduce the ban as regulation through secondary legislation (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9824zvpz9po).

That is open to judicial review.

If primary legislation was instead passed, that's a lot harder to challenge - Parliament makes the law, so whatever Parliament said applies.

Politics is very different in the UK than in the US, especially when the governing party has such a large majority.

The banning of under-16s from social media has widespread support across the parties in Parliament.

If its primary legislation (Acts of Parliament) like Online Safety Act, the courts cannot strike it down. If its secondary legislation by ministers and other agencies, it could be contested in courts.