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

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#351

Post by JamesBarney » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #218

mu53 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you search slang for anorexia and bulimia (ana and mia, respectively), it comes up. The slang helps remove the stigma and feels more friendly/cool. Thinspo/thinspiration is another term used by that community. "Help me love ana". With that search, there are sites that come up [1]. These terms are also used on reddit, instagram, etc for people to share tips (to be better anorexics/bulimics). [1] https://strongerina…

Thanks for the example. > This website is for support for those with an eating disorder who feel alone and by themself with this issue. Where are people with anorexia and bulimia supposed to get support/information if forums about the topics are untenable? Many can't beat the condition, and there's potential benefit in learning to accept and live with it. I'm not saying the site is unequivocally good, just that it's…

I don't believe in banning websites but that website is unequivocally bad.

It's a website that reinforces all the cognitive distortions of anorexia. It's the equivalent of a website for depression that says "You know how you feel like life isn't worth living, you're right it isn't, everyone who tells you that with treatment it will get better is lying to you. Here's a bunch of inspirational blog posts about how wonderful suicide is and 10 ways to kill yourself."

Anorexia is not a very stable condition, you can't really just accept it and live with it. Anorexia is built on a positive feedback loop. Obsession with thinness drives low body weight, and low body weight increases the obsession. Most anorexics get worse when not being treated. This is one of the reason it has such a staggeringly high mortality rate.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#352

Post by benj111 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

bilvar wrote: post #342

benj111 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, lets replace this with murder. MPs are getting murdered, so they introduce a new law to prevent murder. Is the parents comment acceptable?

Murder is already illegal, and threatening to murder someone is already illegal. Any further legislation, the burden of proof is on them not on me or the parent poster. Otherwise one day they might claim that me taking a shit will lead to their murder and have my toilets removed.

Im not saying the burden of proof is on you. I'm not saying murder is legal.

I'm saying that making sarcastic comments suggesting that MPs deserve to be murdered or threatened isn't acceptable.

Its a completely separate issue from the law theyve introduced, which as I said, I'm not in favour of, and I agree they need to make the case before they remove your toilets, I've already made such a comment elsewhere in this thread.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#353

Post by benj111 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #346

benj111 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You can disagree with the position, whilst accepting that MPs have been murdered, and MPs do get threatened online. What specific level of power hunger makes a threat to life acceptable? Further, I wasn't in favour of these proposals, but if you have people on HN of all places thinking its acceptable to threaten people, maybe we do need this law.

Every law that the MPs create is itself a threat against the people. A prescriptive law can only be described as "Do what I say, or I will hurt you." Agents of the state create laws, and then take your money and pay that money to men with guns to come after you if you fail to comply. Law === Threat

"If you don't do X, I won't do Y"

That is a threat in the broadest sense.

the more useful comparisons are

law != violence || threat of violence threat != violence

unless youre just equivocating the 2 meanings of threat to construct an argument?

So as law isn't equivalent to violence, why is it acceptable to bring violence into it?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#354

Post by aguaviva » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

pjfin123 wrote: post #340

aguaviva wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're estimates but I've seen some numbers May we ask where?

My guestimate. The whole above thread is litigating the number of people in the U.K. arrested for speech crimes. It's hard to put an exact number on it but it seems like low single digit thousands (1k-5k). The numbers from Russia are even more murky but it appears they're arresting a few hundred people a year for speech crimes (150-600). - https://apnews.com/general-news-0274242811894097a9d79f789002... - https://www.…

So you're wildly exaggerating, then.

Both by equating the number "imprisoned" (which suggests an actual conviction and jail term) with the number simply "arrested". The distinction is important, because when I did check a source, it suggested that the vast majority of convictions under existing statutes resulted in fines rather than jail sentences.

And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make of it, is essential non-political, and covers forms of communication that most people would agree are basically "harmful" even though they would be opposed to a ban on them) with the restrictions in Russia, which are of course highly political (as indicated by the article you linked to), and not related to protecting anyone from harm in any meaningful sense.

That is: the UK's idea of harmful speech is that which promotes "terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide". Whereas in Russia, per one of your articles, it's stuff like this:

    Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

Do you not see a major, categorical distinction here?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#355

Post by adolph » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

nomilk wrote: post #227

jackvalentine wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s that combativeness again.

No more combative than “2+2 isn’t five”. If trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence is perceived as combative, it’s a canary for that individual - to become better at handling trenchant dismissal of claims unsupported by evidence.. challenging dubious claims is the default , most rational approach. We should all do it, all the time. Sorry if it seems combative. Maybe it is, but it’s optimal and normal.

> challenging dubious claims is the default, most rational approach

I would bet ignoring dubious claims is the default. Challenging and questioning any claims is a better default but I don’t think it is a common default reaction by many people.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#356

Post by michaelt » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 6:06 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #345

scott_w wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Aren’t such threats already covered by existing laws? The Online Safety Act isn't about making these things illegal. It's about making it more difficult to do the illegal things in the first place. To take an analogy: money laundering legislation exists to make it harder to use the proceeds of organised crime in legitimate life. Being a drug dealer is already illegal, yet we don't use that as an argument against…

"The purpose of the system is what it does." 99% of people are not drug dealers, yet we still experience the deadweight loss of KYC and AML. Therefore AML exists because agents of the state like to screw with us, waste our time, and steal our cash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

What a confusing quote.

My bicycle recently got a puncture. Is the purpose of my bicycle to get punctures?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#357

Post by pc86 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 6:07 PM UTC

vogon_laureate wrote: post #275

pc86 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it inevitable that we should continually erode one's right to privacy?

Because pedophiles and terrorists exist and this is why we can't have nice things.

And things get nicer when you kill those people.

99.999% of the population of Earth will never be directly affected by either of those two things, so at the very least you're going to have to expand on how eroding the privacy of those 8 billion people will make their life better.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#358

Post by scott_w » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #345

scott_w wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Aren’t such threats already covered by existing laws? The Online Safety Act isn't about making these things illegal. It's about making it more difficult to do the illegal things in the first place. To take an analogy: money laundering legislation exists to make it harder to use the proceeds of organised crime in legitimate life. Being a drug dealer is already illegal, yet we don't use that as an argument against…

"The purpose of the system is what it does." 99% of people are not drug dealers, yet we still experience the deadweight loss of KYC and AML. Therefore AML exists because agents of the state like to screw with us, waste our time, and steal our cash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

So your position is that we should allow criminals to launder the proceeds of violent and organised crime (with all the victims it causes) into the legitimate economy because…

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#359

Post by EpicQuest_246 » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 7:13 PM UTC

aguaviva wrote: post #354

pjfin123 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guestimate. The whole above thread is litigating the number of people in the U.K. arrested for speech crimes. It's hard to put an exact number on it but it seems like low single digit thousands (1k-5k). The numbers from Russia are even more murky but it appears they're arresting a few hundred people a year for speech crimes (150-600). - https://apnews.com/general-news-0274242811894097a9d79f789002... - https://www.…

So you're wildly exaggerating, then. Both by equating the number "imprisoned" (which suggests an actual conviction and jail term) with the number simply "arrested". The distinction is important, because when I did check a source, it suggested that the vast majority of convictions under existing statutes resulted in fines rather than jail sentences. And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make…

The point is that Russia is supposed to be a "totalitarian state". The UK is supposed to be a modern Western democracy with "freedom of expression" (which isn't freedom of speech). The whole point is that there really shouldn't be any speech related offences at all. These arrests should not happen in the first place. Many of these arrests do end up with prosecutions as well.

> And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make of it, is essential non-political, and covers forms of communication that most people would agree are basically "harmful" even though they would be opposed to a ban on them) with the restrictions in Russia, which are of course highly political (as indicated by the article you linked to), and not related to protecting anyone from harm in any meaningful sense.

They specifically say that certain forms of speech are prohibited, that includes political speech that you and I might find detestable. That speech you may find offence but it is still political speech. Some of it includes opposition against Israel's military campaigns in Palestine.

What most people agree is "harmful" isn't objective measure.

> That is: the UK's idea of harmful speech is that which promotes "terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide"

Terror and hate are nebulous terms that are entirely subjective. Pretending that they are somehow objective is what everyone does when they side with the UK government on this issue and they use the same nebulous terminology as the UK government such as "harmful". Speech cannot be harmful in itself. The vast majority of adults outside of mentally disabled have their own agency. People choose how to react to speech.

Also notice you also groped speech related offences with things that should be banned like CSAM material and things that are already illegal (fraud).

> Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

That isn't actually fundamentally different to what happens in the UK. So no I don't see the difference. It so funny that you think it is a gotcha and it really isn't.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#360

Post by jfengel » Tue, Dec 17, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #205

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.

> 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 "…

The anorexia problem is part of the obesity problem. Young girls (and increasingly, young boys) see all the pressure to be skinny and at the same time are surrounded by food designed to make them fat. They respond by swearing off food entirely. They are terrified of becoming fat, and literally see their bodies as fat even as they are about to die of starvation.

Fixing the numerous causes of obesity would definitely help. But it's not made easier by the existence of "pro-ana" social media which encourages young anorexics to reinforce each other's dangerous attitudes to food.