Why US tech giants are threatening to quit the UK::Some tech giants feel they might have reached a “tipping point” due to new legislation.

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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Aimed at protecting children, it lays down strict rules around policing social media content, with high financial penalties and prison time for individual tech execs if the firms fail to comply.

    One clause that has proved particularly controversial is a proposal that encrypted messages, which includes those sent on WhatsApp, can be read and handed over to law enforcement by the platforms they are sent on, if there is deemed to be a national security or child protection risk.

    The NSPCC children’s charity has described encrypted messaging apps as the “front line” of where child abuse images are shared, but it is also seen as an essential security tool for activists, journalists and politicians.

    Microsoft reacted furiously when the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) chose to block its acquisition of the video game giant Activision Blizzard.

    Also, we shouldn’t confuse “pro-innovation” with “pro-Big Tech” warns Professor Neil Lawrence, a Cambridge University academic who has previously acted as an advisor to the CMA.

    Professor Alan Woodward is a cyber-security expert at Surrey University whose has worked various posts at GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency.


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