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UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

bsky.app

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Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#291
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact I miswrote: I understand it is about presenting a document to access webpages. In the equivalent proposal in Australia, they spoke about presenting a document to access search engines. Surely my mention of "forums" was rushed on the spot and reductive. So, what did you mean? Have I fell into some confusion in legislations?

The problem here is there is a big bit of legislation and people are focussed on one outcome of it, which is what you will have heard. It’s a bill about safety online. The onus is moved to the provider to mitigate harms or decide they don’t apply/are low risk. For porn providers the outcome is fairly clear, to check your users are of age. This was kind of always the case but “are you over 18 yes or no” is not enough.…

Consider the source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/no-uks-online-safety-a...

I understand from that source that the legislation "mandates that any site accessible in the UK - including social media, search engines, music sites, and adult content providers - enforce age checks"; all accessible sites that could contain """harmful content""" (so basically a dramatically high amount of sites of importance - with particular regard to search engines, which link to the controversial).

Now: how will, say, a search engine conduct age verification without identifying the user.

Because the issue here is that of anonimity online (i.e., the disappearance of the "online" - the end of the Web).

> That’s one outcome for one set of sites

We understand from the article that the set, as said, includes the basics...

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#292
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/11/internet-provi... > Two internet providers are tracking and collecting the websites visited by their customers as part of a secretive Home Office trial, designed to work out if a national bulk surveillance system would be useful for national security and law enforcement. > Home Office sources indicated that it was taking advantage of abilities in the Investigatory Powers…

Again, this refers to the domains, not the full URL. As a factual point, ISPs do not retain full browser history, and the IPA does not require them to do so for all customers all the time. It's true that we do not know how much data ISPs are in fact recording. I agree that this is concerning. I am opposed to the IPA. However, I also think that we should take the time to get the facts exactly right when criticizing it…

All this is a bit moot and a distraction when we know Tempora, Karma Police etc exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#293
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this refers to the domains, not the full URL. As a factual point, ISPs do not retain full browser history, and the IPA does not require them to do so for all customers all the time. It's true that we do not know how much data ISPs are in fact recording. I agree that this is concerning. I am opposed to the IPA. However, I also think that we should take the time to get the facts exactly right when criticizing it…

All this is a bit moot and a distraction when we know Tempora, Karma Police etc exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...

I am just correcting some possible misconceptions about what UK ISPs are required to do by law. If you are worried about surveillance by intelligence agencies, then you might be right to be worried, but that's a separate issue.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#294
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What people like you seem to miss or maybe simply lack the sophistication (if I may say so) for, is understanding the nature of the ruling system and how far it will go to achieve its aims, which are also hidden from you. The ruling class are obviously a rather small group, so they inherently and by necessity rely on extreme manipulation, gaslighting, lying, deception, etc. to keep everyone off balance and not lookin…

Hi hopelite. I typed out a decently detailed response to your message, but decided to cut it short. I think we probably have a profoundly different viewpoint and set of experiences which would be too much to try and reconcile here. I'll say this: history, certainly British history, shows that bad actors are real and that power is simultaneously unavoidable, useful, and deeply dangerous, particularly for those who see…

Thank you for that measured response. I was unsure of whether I should use "sophisticated" as it was not mean as an insult or "put-down", than rather more of an indication that the vast majority of people simply do not have an understanding for just how complicated, intertwined, and complex that system is.

I can somewhat agree with the sentiment of "rather live here...", even though in many ways it seems likely we are very much on the tail end of an experience that would evoke such sympathies.

One of those challenges that many have today, largely because they very much have been conditioned, trained if you like, to not see those who do them ill, those who harm them as evil, or even enemies; setting aside "inferiority" as that is an unrelated matter.

It is a rather odd condition that has befallen what appears to be all of the western world for reasons that are too deep to go into right now, suffice it to say that they resemble the very kinds of sentiments and perspectives that one expects of any "spoiled" population, be it the Beautiful Ones of Calhoun's mouse population experiment, or the detachment captured in the "Then let them eat brioche (usually mistranslates as cake)". It is the same kind of ill that is befalling our societies all over the western world as the "democracies" have become not only non-responsive to the very people who are presumed represented by those they vote for, but in most cases they have even become not just hostile to their own populations, but they have become actively aggressive towards and against their own populations, which by any measure and standard would qualify such a person as an enemy.

So what do you do with that, when you objectively have enemies (from the latin inimicus, an anti-friend), but you and many if not most people are conditioned to oppose seeing the enemy, seeing the harm, presuming that the proverbial foreign horde streaming through the front gates may in fact not want peace and to live in harmony with you from imaginary endless resources?

It invariably causes conflict due to the waning diligence and order wrought. They are very likely not out to "get you" or us in a manner that is common in the public imagination, which is partially the their tactic and the commoners challenge. People are conditioned with movies to imagine that "get us" would entail all the sort of sudden and compounded actions that one can fit into a formulaic Hollywood format, when in fact they "get us" on such a long trajectory, plans devised by men long gone, maintained, adjusted, and kept on course by men multiples or ages.

The designs against major civilizations are rarely happenstance any more than anything today happens without it being acted upon, whether with intended or unintended outcomes. It is what the multitude does not have a perspective for, that basically nothing in their lives is actually their doing any more than a child is the master of their life.

The challenge is also to see, recognize, and accept the disguised trap prior to entering it, but surely before it snaps shut with fatal effects.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#295
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cite examples of someone being jailed for offending someone (that doesn't include incitement to violence).

Held for eight hours + other abuse: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-o...

So, not jailed then. No more examples of people actually been sent to prison?

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#296
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 arrests per day and increasing https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

Arrests != Jail. Read the original comment.

Of course arrests = jail.

What do you think happens when you are arrested? You are taken to jail. At least for a few hours, or overnight, or even several days depending on the court schedule. And then there are the mountain of legal fees and dread of your fate hanging in the balance.

Sure, it’s not necessarily long term incarceration, but it’s enough to scare most reasonable people into submission.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#297
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this is a bit moot and a distraction when we know Tempora, Karma Police etc exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...

I am just correcting some possible misconceptions about what UK ISPs are required to do by law. If you are worried about surveillance by intelligence agencies, then you might be right to be worried, but that's a separate issue.

> If you are worried about surveillance by intelligence agencies, then you might be right to be worried, but that's a separate issue.

A childish and pathetic comment

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Britain is people are being actually arrested for “offensive” speech This isn't actually new though. The difference is that they'd normally be nicked for breaching the peace, which is loosey goosey enough to be used for most things. ASBOs are far more totalitarian as they can legally stop people from doing legal things. (ie stop a child playing in a park) But to tackle your main point, Yes people are being arrested…

I think you mean broadcast TV. Broadcast radio is similar. The legal justification is something about the limited supply of public airwaves. Those regulations wouldn't fly in the US for any other medium.

It was about morals.

Hence the hollywood code, and all that sort of stuff.

The US really loved censorship, but just not in overt ways. Sure you could publish anything, but it'd never get syndicated by radio, newpaper, TV or cinema.

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