Comment by al_borland | Hacker News Reader

Comment by al_borland | Hacker News Reader

As much as I'd like to see Apple fight this, shouldn't the blame be placed on the governments for compelling this, rather than on Apple? What is the alternative, pulling out of the UK?

While I'd love this hard-line approach, as it might make other countries think twice, the stockholders probably wouldn't love it.

> Laws like the Online Safety Act 2023 apply to websites and online services — not to entire phone operating systems.

Doesn't this go back to companies like Meta lobbying to push the responsibility to the OS instead of taking it on themselves? I read they did that in the US, I can only assume they did it in the UK as well.

Frankly, I'd rather have Apple qualify me as over 18 one time, and pass a simple boolean to a site vs having to upload proof (an ID, photos...) to every website I want to use. This may be the lesser of two evils.

Law doesn't require Apple to do it.

It's simple as that.

This is a VOLUNTARY act from Apple side but will be without doubt exploited by the overreaching, authoritarian country UK is now.

How would Apple possibly fight a valid law of any country it operates in?

So this is interesting. Apple's an incumbent, not some new disruptive company. What I mean to say is this isn't like a rideshare company that goes in burning money to build public sentiment while lobbying the politicians.

Everyone knows who Apple is. I'm certain UK gov has been in constant communication with Apple on how this is to be rolled out. They would have communicated intent and received feedback from Apple as to how they'll ship it. It's within their capability to lobby/advertise opposition to laws like this but logical option in Apple's position is to insist on a common framework countries could use so they don't need to build a different verify for every country.

I really do think Apple's primary opposition to not having E2EE is they didn't want to deal with the cost of complying with requests and the liability of hosting illegal content. That's the real pushback, because it's ongoing cost/liability to them.

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