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UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

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Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#181

Post by BoxOfRain »

pas wrote: post #61
BoxOfRain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one political change I could make to the UK it'd be the adoption of the single transferable vote. There's massive amounts of political alienation in the UK which have complicated causes (often related to the 'managed decline' policies of governments past) but a big contributing factor in my opinion is how many votes are completely wasted under first past the post, if you're in a safe seat voting often fee…

are there term limits for these seats?

No, term limits aren't really a thing in the UK for elected officials in general and the longest-serving MPs today have been there since the early '80s. Even Prime Ministers can stay in their position for as long as they have the support of their party and can command the confidence of the House of Commons which in some cases will be for over a decade, although it's normal practice in the UK for a governing party to change their leader and therefore the Prime Minister mid term.

Some appointed positions have term limits (some 'machinery of government' kind of functions, some quangos and public bodies etc) but a few are for life or retirement such as members of the House of Lords.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#182

Post by jimnotgym »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #179
notreallyauser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for that? People may have said words to that effect in addition to inciting rioting, but no one has been send to jail for saying that.

Okay upon further investigation it does appear I was incorrect about that case. I'm glad to have been, that was very concerning and scary. My mistake. However there are still some concerning cases - a girl was punished for posting song lyrics: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

A song lyric containing an offensive racial slur?

"She was given an eight-week community order, placed on an eight-week curfew and told to pay costs of £500 and an £85 victim surcharge."

Not really the same league of punishment as the jailing you made up in your earlier post

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#183

Post by starspangled »

thih9 wrote: post #157
pc86 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you think this is a gotcha but you're seriously advocating for the banning of advertisements of certain kinds of food? Based on the fact that what, some people aren't smart enough to read an ingredient label?

It is already quite popular to regulate ads about certain edible substances. Nicotine, alcohol and drugs are some examples. Looks like certain ratios of sugar, sodium and saturated fats will qualify too, at least in the UK.

Apparently not gambling though, because the gambling lobby has greased the correct pockets.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#184

Post by rangestransform »

threeseed wrote: post #82
contracertainty wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right, and you have indavertebtly hit the nail on the head. This legilsation is supported by parents who would like their children to be able to use the internet, all of it, without any effort on their part to police their children's online habits. There are many parents who give their kids smartphones at 10 years old, or younger, and create Google and Facebook/Insta accounts with fake ages for the…

> As a result everyone else suffers Welcome to life in a society. We pick winners which by extension creates losers. So you would be arguing that we shouldn't protect children from social media which is causing significant harm to them because it might inconvenience a minority of adults.

A liberal society should be the polar opposite of “stupid people can’t handle _______ so nobody gets ________”

I think it’s perfectly acceptable, even laudable, that people with superior intelligence have better outcomes than people with lower intelligence

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#185

Post by TheFuzzball »

systemstops wrote: post #159
jahewson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone else will make a joke about police officers investigating tweets. That practice - which was put to an end a couple of years ago This claim is 100% false. We’ve seen multiple people jailed for tweets this year alone. > I have much greater faith in my government to protect my freedom of speech You don’t have free speech. The U.K. has no such general right. That’s why people are in jail for tweets.

You're right - they have no free speech. They can't even speak freely about the horrible crimes being committed in their nation by grooming gangs. Many US companies won't capitulate to these regulations. The UK is going to simply be cut off from many social media services.

> The UK is going to simply be cut off from many social media services.

Oh no! Anyway...

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#186

Post by EpicQuest_246 »

herghost wrote: post #178
w4der wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when I go and buy booze, I just show my ID and that's it, it isn't stored in a database with what I bought and then leaked on the internet.

The card you might have paid with is though. I can’t remember any instances of a card hack revealing transactions of customers though (I might be wrong, just doesn’t ring a bell). It’s not a given that digital record must lead to compromise.

They could have paid with a cash, crypto, store credit. You are trying to salami slice the point being made.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#187

Post by jimnotgym »

EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #160
UberFly wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's this: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241018-uk-police-raid-ho...

Yes it was that. Thank you. I couldn't remember the name as it was an unusual name.

Great. It is very troubling that police raided this journalists house.

That is rather less sensational than the 'daily' raids you mentioned though, isn't it?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#189

Post by MiddleEndian »

frikskit wrote: post #75
Lanolderen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be the "kool aid of their employers"? My employers would surely love to track every single click I make on the work and even personal PC. If the government tracks it that's also fine. Still less risk for them if I'm a nutter and the checks get outsourced to the government. Once the data leaks they can check what I was doing anyway.

Social media companies don’t want any kind of regulation because it adds cost to them. Their PR bangs the drum of free speech and people economically tied to the industry gobble it up while trying to ignore the self serving nature of their new beliefs.

>Social media companies don’t want any kind of regulation because it adds cost to them. Their PR bangs the drum of free speech and people economically tied to the industry gobble it up while trying to ignore the self serving nature of their new beliefs.

Disagree here. If it is legally onerous for me to start a forum, I am more inclined to use a large social media site like Facebook, since they will handle the legal part for me. They are fine with that, they already have legal teams.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51518773 "Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook boss urges tighter regulation"

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#190

Post by EpicQuest_246 »

herghost wrote: post #180
EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I choose to buy alcohol or cigarettes and I look over 25 in the UK I do not have to show any ID. If I do need to show ID, it doesn't get tracked by the government. It is only seen by the whoever is serving me at the checkout. I don't honestly believe that you don't understand how this is different. > It's illuminating that your post is both "tech can't solve it" and so brazenly pro-tech with manifestations of its…

The problem is you’re simultaneously arguing two points and relying on whichever point gives you the most leverage at each juncture. If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or…

> The problem is you’re simultaneously arguing two points and relying on whichever point gives you the most leverage at each juncture.

No I am not.

> If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or I worry you’ve been sold a scary story by social media algorithms.

You are pretending as if one would need perfect op-sec (which is impossible). If you have a throwaway email, a sim paid for via cash and a VPN/Tor will make you much more difficult to track down and most of this can be learned via watching a few YouTube videos. You don't even have to do the more crazy stuff like running Tails.

Having an ID requirement will make it much more difficult as I suspect other regions will soon follow suite in implementing something similar.

There are also benefits to pseudo-anonymity. I want to keep my online life and my real life separate. This will mean that they can never be separate.

> On the other hand, the idea that this is an impossible tech problem to solve is also disingenuous. My point is that it could be solved. And quickly and easily too. If the incentive model were there. And whilst I’ve not given the solution a huge amount of thought (I’m not actually that interested in solving it) I’m certain that an authenticated assertion could be made that wasn’t directly attributable to an individual - i.e., a mechanism could be developed that would solve for both problems.

I never said that the tech problem was impossible to resolve. Again that is your assertion. I simply stated what I believe is most likely to happen in the near to medium term.

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