🇷🇺The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced that the single-entry e-visa will be launched on August, 1st.

This electronic visa allows a single entry and stay in the Russian Federation on a guest or business visit, as a tourist, as well as to participate in scientific, cultural, socio-political, economic, sports events. It can be used for 60 days starting from the date of issue and permits a stay for up to 16 days. The visa will be available for the citizens of 55 countries.

🔴 @DDGeopolitics

⚡️UK's Online Safety Bill Close to Passing
@takebackourtech

This 4 year old bill started off as a whitepaper on Online Harms. It applies to any website or service which hosts or shares user-generated content. That could be interpreted as a blog that accepts comments, vs a encrypted chat application with millions of users. Public forums, video sites, instant messaging - pretty much everything.

There's two categories of providers, 1 and 2 - Category 1 having the largest userbase and risk and Category 2 consisting of all other websites. Category 2 need to act on illegal content and activity.

Category 1 would bear the brunt of the scrutiny and is required to:
- publish transparency report on the steps they're taking
- implement ways to verify identities on their platforms
- protect children from harmful content such as a pornography
- regular risk assessments
- age checks
- take down offensive content such as terrorism, child abuse, other offenses
- take down scams

Read the Online Safety Bill (Official UK Gov Website) - Section 5

Once passed into the House of Lords, the bill will be read and debated about multiple times, eventually passing into the House of Commons, where the process is repeated.

While the EFF and larger messaging providers like Signal, Element, and WhatsApp encourage people to email their representatives, I'm not convinced sending an email will do much, although I wish people the best with their efforts.

This comes down to mass non-compliance and free software. If the bill passes, the UK would need to fine a large portion of a billion websites, in and out of their jurisdiction.

Can a group of lawmakers who barely understand encryption really enforce a bill that attempts to pry into the user data of every website? If larger providers truly are committed to their user's privacy they will need to reject compliance and move into a safer jurisdiction. Otherwise we're left with companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google who are more than happy to implement these scanning & identity measures on their platforms.

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