(C) Alec Muffett's DropSafe blog.
Author Name: Alec Muffett
This story was originally published on allecmuffett.com. [1]
License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.[2]


Asking #ChatGPT: Please cite a few things which are legal online but illegal offline. #OnlineSafetyBill

2022-12-03 13:48:31+00:00

This is an issue which has peppered debate on the Online Safety Bill, for example:

The noble Baroness is right: what is illegal offline should be illegal online, and it is very clear that the social media companies should remove that content. Where there is harmful but legal content, they need to have very clear systems and processes to make sure that it can be removed quickly. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2021-03-23a.724.1#g725.4

The question from campaigners like me has always been: what actual things are legal online but not actually legal offline?

So I asked ChatGPT:

Response from ChatGPT

Please cite a few things which are legal online but illegal offline.

There are several things that are legal online but illegal offline. One example is online gambling, which is legal in many countries, but illegal in some. In the United States, for instance, online gambling is only legal in a handful of states.

Another example is the sale of certain drugs, such as marijuana, which is legal in some states for medical or recreational use, but illegal under federal law. Online sales of these drugs are therefore legal in some states, but illegal in others.

Additionally, the sharing of certain copyrighted materials, such as music or movies, is legal online through services like Spotify or Netflix, but illegal if done without permission from the copyright holder.

Overall, the legality of certain activities online can vary depending on the laws of the specific country or state.

Summary

All of these things are already sorted; or they actually constitute business models for megacorps like Netflix. It’s rather worrying that the measures proposed in the OSB may be brought to bear upon (say) copyright infringement, in addition to the existing measures. It would be like using a hammer to crack peanut butter.

Moreover none of the UK Government’s preferred talking points regards things which “need to be made illegal, online” are mentioned.

Where is the “legal-online” child abuse? Where is the “legal-online” hate speech?

Perhaps they are missing from ChatGPT’s analysis because they are already illegal?
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[1] URL: https://alecmuffett.com/article/16457
[2] URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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