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IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

prestonbyrne.com

401–410 of 418 posts

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#401
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a fallacy since there is nothing special or noteworthy about the UK. If every other country sent out such letters, then you'd have to block every country except your own. That's a fact. There are 195 countries in the world, no law office could possibly ensure you're complying with the laws of all of these countries within your own country. The laws are not even consistent, for example you violate the EU's GD…

What’s your company? Perhaps you have an ethical obligation to your users and should have these regulations in place. We’ve seen what happens when companies are underegulated (Facebook, etc etc) And here’s why your argument is a fallacy: “This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fearmongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience” [1] 1. h…

I don't have anything major to add to what I've already said. We have indeed an ethical obligation towards our (future) customers, that's exactly why we couldn't fulfill Ofcom's demands - that would literally be illegal in our jurisdiction. Sovereign countries have their own laws (not the UK's), and in addition to these we also provide strong moderation tools. So for now we have to block the UK. We're in closed alpha stage and have a long way to go so this is purely a matter of legal prudence.

By the way, I've worked closely together with argumentation theorists at university for many years, so I know quite well what a slippery slope argument is. You should know that not all of them are fallacies.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public sentiment in the Uk is actually pretty supportive of this law. I wouldn't be surprised if the firewall did happen eventually, but with support from the public instead of outcry.

their funeral.

Sure about that too? ;)

I think it'll be depressing as hell, but I don't know if "an internet with borders" is really as big a death sentence as I'd like it to be, or if we just got unusually lucky with the internet lasting as it has so long and the other way will be what people 200 years from now consider the sane approach leading to the most success. Time will tell, in the meantime the only thing I know is it's depressing for me to think about.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#403
post #80

Isn’t compliance just as easy as asking where the visitor is from (or more specifically if they are from or in the UK), perhaps even just once per IP they visit the site from? Yes, they may lie, but that’s their problem not the site operator’s.

IDK but I'm more concerned with the principle that a foreign government is claiming to have jurisdiction far beyond its borders, especially on a matter which is considered a fundamental human right in the United States.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#404
post #165
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the IP location criticism at all. At least for my experience across Europe all locations that are being reported by the common databases are within 250km of the actual customer.

Maybe this is very european of me but 250KM is outrageously far. Dublin to Belfast is like 130KM. If it says they're in Seville (in Spain) within Comedically far.

It's short by Australian standards. I was born 1000km away. It's a 12 hour drive. I've done it numerous times. It was a regular thing when I was young.

Uni students have been know to drive for a drink at the pub at the next Uni north (at the time) over the weekend for a lark. That's 2000km, one way.

A serious undertaking by Australian standards is a drive to Perth. That's 5000km in a straight line, but of course you can't drive in a straight line to Perth.

I met a guy once who was the last leg of circumnavigating Australia on his push bike. It had taken him years, and it looked like it. I've never seen someone so wirey, so obviously fit. Yet he rode at a slow measured pace. That was no doubt a habit forced by the trailer his bike towed. I guess the trip was around 15,000km.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#405
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because crypto is a liability itself and nobody normal likes interacting with it.

Is there no way to improve the user experience for this? Company A sells cryptocurrency in country A. Company B is a payment processor in country B. You in country A go to the country B merchant's website and enter your card info to buy something. Your card gets charged by company A to buy cryptocurrency, the merchant gets the money through company B and the transfer of cryptocurrency from company A to company B happ…

You are right and HN has no answer other than “crypto is bad”.

We are building exactly this at Intercoin. I hate that most of crypto is zero-sum games. https://intercoin.org/currencies.pdf

Also Stripe is launching Tempo blockchain, USDC is launching Arc blockchain. Cool things are coming!

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#406
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is clearly [...] about controlling American corporations Not exactly. On the surface, it's about kowtowing to pearl-clutching UK NGOs that are empowered by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's hysterical tabloids; and underneath, the real agenda is about restricting the influence of unsanctioned sites that could influence UK discourse - influence that established UK press barons (like the Murdochs, Lebedev, etc) want…

> could influence UK discourse Is 4chan attempting to unfairly or unduly influence UK "discourse?" Or are they just _contributing_ to it as members of the public on an anonymous forum? > Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's hysterical tabloids Which actually are an attempt to influence UK discourse. The framing errors are interesting.

> _contributing_ to it as members of the public on an anonymous forum

Your naivete is endearing. Every general-purpose public forum, these days, is heavily manipulated by bots.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#407
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn't been true for at least 20 years. The tabloids have routinely attacked Conservative/Labour policy for a long time now, and nobody in Westminster even noticed let alone cared. They're much more sensitive to being attacked by the BBC or the Guardian because that's what they, their staffers, friends, colleagues and to a large extent their voters are consuming.

I profoundly disagree. Politicians might despise the tabloid press, but they are still very much susceptible to it - because their barrage inevitably seeps into broadsheets and the general press. A simple example: the likes of the Guardian despise Farage, whereas he's an absolute darling of tabloids. Was he invited to BBCQT a billion times because broadsheets wanted him there? Obviously not.

BBC couldn't care less about conservative tabloids and certainly excluded Farage as much as they could for the longest possible time. He gets invited regularly now because of his polling numbers, not because of some sudden sea change in tabloid coverage.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#408
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s one thing to be talking about suicide or assisted suicide because you’ve decided it’s right for you and your situation. And that's what the site is for. They could improve by blocking all countries where there's free access to assisted suicide though. > It’s another to be dealing with depression from trauma, unable to get help and have no support system, and then be coerced by individuals on forums with ulteri…

> THEN, not before. If they could get help, they would. But they can't so they end up there. This is honestly disgusting and exactly the problem. You don’t know why they couldn’t get help. There are many possible reasons and instead they should be continued to be encouraged to find proper mental health counseling, not feed into a mental health crisis talking about suicide. And it’s not your place to decide what is su…

> There are many possible reasons and instead they should be continued to be encouraged to find proper mental health counseling

There are many possible reasons, that's why they should be PROVIDED with help, not "encouraged to somehow find it" as if they didn't know that something was wrong already..

> And it’s not your place to decide what is suffering or not for them. That is exactly the problem. The fact that you checked on this persons profile and decided based on that he’s continuing to suffer is exactly the issue.

It's not my place to decide, but it's THEIR place to decide. I don't need to be a trained mental health provider to see that that person is TELLING the world that they suffer, posting and interacting with other people who also suffer.

> You are not a trained mental health provider I’m sure.

No, but I am the person who used to suffer, and that makes me more qualified to talk about these problems than a trained+qualified+certified+award-winning "mental health provider" (which.. did not help me btw, others from the community did).

> Encouraging someone in that place to commit suicide is exactly the problem

I'm not encouraging anybody to commit suicide.. where did you even get this idea? My stance is to not prohibit that last resort solution.

> What if in 10 years that person has a child and finds true joy and meaning, glad that they went through what they did in the previous years. There are many such cases.

It doesn't delete these 10 years of suffering which you apparently see no problem subjecting people to. It was his decision and that decision was not respected. Should it not be interrupted, that person would not suffer ever again and we'd not need to have this discussion.

> with some kind of self satisfaction and sense of control over another’s life that you took away an individual’s suffering by helping them kill themselves.

I did NOT encourage them to do that. It was their decision and it was interrupted. The people who interrupted that have that "self satisfaction", I see things as they are. Those people didn't care about that person at all, just called the police and forgot about him. It's not that they could pay his bills or anything, they didn't care.

> AND they need to be in a healthy mental state to make that decision. Depression is not a healthy mental state, it’s a period of delusion.

Disagree, if someone decides that it's enough suffering for them, that decision should be honored. If you can't cure that person instantly, prolonging this "unhealthy state" is what I'm against.

> and anyone who knows someone who contemplates suicide and came out the other side living a fulfilling life with joy and happiness would understand exactly why.

Nothing bad would happen to that person should they not be interrupted. This search for "joy and happiness" is absurd and it blinds you so that you accept that you might subject someone to literally years of suffering.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#409
post #195

Interesting that it's the existence of the suicide discussion forum that's too much to bare for the UK. Really drives home the point that in the state's eyes: your self, your body and ultimately your life, don't belong to you.

The state shouldn't intervene in suicide is quite a take. Maybe you consider it "Gubbbermenntt overreach" but I kind of consider suicide prevention as a reasonable function of state.

At first blush, you might think a suicide discussion forum would cause people to commit suicide, and thus banning them would prevent suicide, and thus be a reasonable thing for a state to do.

However, some random clicks on sasu found people who had been forum members for over a decade. Possibly not entirely mentally healthy - to be fair - but evidently still very much alive.

If the primary effect of participation was to increase the rate of suicide among its users, the forum would act as a sieve. While it might attract new members, the retention of long-term members (as observed) would be statistically improbable. The fact that a stable, long-term user base exists is evidence that for many, the forum serves a different function—likely as an outlet to manage and process ideation, not just to escalate it.

The state banning this outlet could, perversely, remove a coping mechanism and inadvertently have the opposite of the intended effect.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like the same thing, with extra steps.

The extra steps are the thing that convinces the other countries to go along with it.

Bullying is not convincing.
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