UK's Online Safety Act comes into force • Hacker News Board

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#201

Post by richbell » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:23 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #13

My problem with all of these sorts of things is the idea of who determines “harmful.” Because that’s a term of such ambiguity that it could literally mean anything. “Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’” “Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest. “Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because…

> “Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest.

Incidentally, someone tried to edit the Wikipedia article to instead be about "moral panic".

https://archive.ph/VnXtV

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#202

Post by lmm » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:26 AM UTC

protocolture wrote: post #50

red_admiral wrote: post #21

The UK has a thing called non-crime hate incidents ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-in... ) where the police records alleged complaints about discrimination, even if they are not a crime (otherwise they would be hate crimes). This could be used to direct policing resources sensibly ("lots of incidents recorded at such-and-such a place, maybe we should patrol there a bit more") or to build a…

>waste police time. I dont know if you intended it but "wasting police time" is a pretty good book on the subject of administrative detections.

It's not. It's a bunch of nonconstructive old-man-yells-at-cloud complaints. While it identifies a somewhat deep problem with crime metrics (what should you do when a reported crime was a real incident, but not something that warrants actually bringing charges or otherwise following up - something where "a policeman had a word with the guy" is actually the right solution that all parties are happy with) it contributes nothing to solving that problem (and, as the follow-up more or less acknowledged if you read it carefully enough, in fact made it worse).

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#203

Post by scratchyone » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:27 AM UTC

> Hash-matching tools link known images of CSAM from police databases to encrypted digital fingerprints known as “hashes” for each piece of content to help social media sites’ automated filtering systems recognize and remove them.

I know this is a little bit of a nitpick, but I really feel like it hurts the credibility of a news organization to make a mistake this obvious that also shows they completely misunderstand the entire concept they're explaining.

That's fundamentally a wrong definition and implies that that these social media sites could simply decrypt the hash to access the source material. The entire purpose of hashing as a cryptographic tool is that it isn't encryption.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#204

Post by nomilk » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:28 AM UTC

jackvalentine wrote: post #198

nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

> What content promotes eating disorders? There are numerous sites and social media pages on all the major platforms that literally promote anorexia. That you’ve never heard of them should perhaps encourage you to take a more curious and less combative approach to this topic.

> encourage you to take a more curious ..

But:

> Is there a single site ... ?

is asking for a tiny bit of evidence (this is gentle curiousness; the antithesis of combative). Earnestly, are you able to provide one site that 'promotes eating disorders', so I can be educated?

If the answer is 'any site with charismatic too-slim people', isn't that extremely difficult to administer, and possibly become horribly discriminatory, for example if a site has a user profile of a beautiful but illegally[1] slender person, doesn't that 'promote eating disorders'? Would a site admin be legally compelled to block that user, or at least censor their profile pic?

I literally don't know what's legal vs illegal in this sphere, and suspect 99% of others are the same, and that probably includes the legislators themselves. Those claiming to know precisely what's il/legal in this context are probably overconfident.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#205

Post by TacticalCoder » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:32 AM UTC

jackvalentine wrote: post #198

nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

> What content promotes eating disorders? There are numerous sites and social media pages on all the major platforms that literally promote anorexia. That you’ve never heard of them should perhaps encourage you to take a more curious and less combative approach to this topic.

> There are numerous sites and social media pages on all the major platforms that literally promote anorexia.

Although probably a just cause I'd say that the western world does have an obesity problem though, not an anorexia one. So a better example would be all the sites encouraging people being lazy and fat and eating junk while labelling anything criticizing the unhealthiness of obesity as supposedly engaging in "fat shaming".

I mean: even using the term "fat shaming" is encouraging fat people to stay fat. And that's promoting eating disorders IMO.

So: fighting anorexia, sure. But we got bigger fishes (literally) to deal with if the (laudable) goal is to fight eating disorders.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#206

Post by xyzzy4747 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:34 AM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

This forum site for example actively encourages and supports people who want to commit suicide: https://sanctioned-suicide.net/

Many of their members have died after encouraging each other to take the next step. They used to be on Reddit but got banned there a few years ago.

Would you want your children or young adults spending time there?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#207

Post by defrost » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:38 AM UTC

EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #197

defrost wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try: https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/cps-data-summary-quarter-... and: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-stat... In the UK there were 11,767 prosecutions (referred by police, whether or not a conviction was found) in the past year flagged as "Hate Crime" (the category that a speech prosecution would fall under?) Of those many were robbery, homicide, assault, etc .. not simply "speech". Here i…

When I said “alarming number of” I was specifically referring to journalists being harassed by the UK state. I am aware of at least 3 or 4 this year. Non-speech related offences I don’t care about in relation to this topic. I believe the 3000 a year number was banded about for speech offences. I do think it is likely that this number is roughly correct as it matches up with what I previously heard. I btw believe one…

I'm not telling you it isn't happening - I linked to the current UK summaries of all the cases referred by police to the CPS for prosocution.

The 7 cases a day to which you referred to above will be in there and quite likly flagged as Hate Crime related.

> I believe the 3000 a year number was banded about for speech offences.

( Bandied ? ) Sure, I dare say it was, the real question was that a reliable bit of infomation or something spread about?

If you're interested in pursuing the matter then I dare say you can contact the civil servents that maintain the UK CPS stats pages and ask them for speech prosecution numbers.

My stance on such things is that almost all figures "bandied about" with respect to contraversial subjects ( crime, immigration, free speech, climate, et al ) are forms of iterative improv by vested parties. *

I'm genuinely interested in actual figures from authorative sources for all manner of things in the world.

* https://theconversation.com/how-right-wing-media-is-like-imp...

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#208

Post by nomilk » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:39 AM UTC

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #206

nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

This forum site for example actively encourages and supports people who want to commit suicide: https://sanctioned-suicide.net/ Many of their members have died after encouraging each other to take the next step. They used to be on Reddit but got banned there a few years ago. Would you want your children or young adults spending time there?

I hadn't seen this site but will check it out. Thank you for providing some evidence! (really dislike the idea of boogymen! - so seeing a real site is refreshing).

> Would you want your children or young adults spending time there?

Suicide is a difficult topic. I'd never want anyone (related or otherwise) to be in a position where ending their life is their best option, but then I support euthanasia (a subset of suicide), so I certainly support people obtaining information that could help their situation, even if their situation is difficult, dire and worthy of enormous compassion.

Thanks again for sharing.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#209

Post by xyzzy4747 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:43 AM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #208

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This forum site for example actively encourages and supports people who want to commit suicide: https://sanctioned-suicide.net/ Many of their members have died after encouraging each other to take the next step. They used to be on Reddit but got banned there a few years ago. Would you want your children or young adults spending time there?

I hadn't seen this site but will check it out. Thank you for providing some evidence! (really dislike the idea of boogymen! - so seeing a real site is refreshing). > Would you want your children or young adults spending time there? Suicide is a difficult topic. I'd never want anyone (related or otherwise) to be in a position where ending their life is their best option, but then I support euthanasia (a subset of suic…

The problem is it’s become an entire of subculture of people, almost cult like, who are not only accepting of euthanasia but are actively pro-suicide. I think a lot of people would still be alive if this community didn’t exist. Most of them seem to have mental issues rather than being terminally ill. Also young people are especially vulnerable to being brainwashed by these sorts of things.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#210

Post by jackvalentine » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 2:44 AM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #204

jackvalentine wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What content promotes eating disorders? There are numerous sites and social media pages on all the major platforms that literally promote anorexia. That you’ve never heard of them should perhaps encourage you to take a more curious and less combative approach to this topic.

> encourage you to take a more curious .. But: > Is there a single site ... ? is asking for a tiny bit of evidence (this is gentle curiousness; the antithesis of combative). Earnestly, are you able to provide one site that 'promotes eating disorders', so I can be educated? If the answer is 'any site with charismatic too-slim people', isn't that extremely difficult to administer, and possibly become horribly discrimin…

If you come from an angle of ‘I’ve never seen it therefor it’s just whack a mole’ don’t be surprised if people read it as simple rejection rather than curiosity. Using language like ‘Is there a single site?’ doubles down on it.

This article describes social media groups, on the major platforms, that encourage eating disorders https://rollingout.com/2024/10/08/eating-disorder-groups-on-...

Young children being treated for eating disorders as inpatients in hospitals almost always have been in contact with some kind of eating disorder glorification.