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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

bbc.com

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#591

Post by pastage »

gargan wrote: post #566
llbbdd wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just do the same thing many governments the world over have done - adopt a version of the US constitution. Easy, clean, and only massively ironic.

Biggest mistake the Americans did was codify their constitution. I'll probably be pilloried for that but look at the evidence: - US is about to have military on the streets during peacetime with no terror threat within a codified constitution - UK has had military on the streets in response to terrorism in Northern Ireland (a real threat) and not for decades. The UK constitution is uncodified and spread over many (10…

While the US consitition is not agile a like a git log of a popular js project it does have over 10k declined PRs, I think the record is 100 years waiting for review. It does change, it has to change.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#592

Post by qcnguy »

RobKohr wrote: post #187
vaylian wrote: post #182

Wikipedia has been introduced as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Anyone can publish problematic material or false information. But it's also Wikipedia's greatest strength that it has been so open to basically everyone and that gave us a wide range of really good articles that rivaled the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia is a product of the free internet. It is a product of a world that many politicians still…

I feel that the left and the right are tag teaming on this topic. Both sides want to track who says what on the internet for their own purposes.

At the moments at least, it's Labour who are defending this law and implementing it, and Reform who are against it. So very much not a tag team.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#593

Post by novok »

verisimi wrote: post #553
hilbert42 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Wiki had the guts it'd leave the UK. Nothing will happen unless there's a backlash from the citizenry.

Wiki isn't the citizenry. And no one voted for this. When one votes in this so-called "democracy", one votes for a representative to represent 'you and thousands of others' on thousands of decisions. And even then, if both parties want to do something, as in this case, there is nowhere to go. This is force. If you can't say 'no', this is immoral, coercive force, even if the person or party doing the forcing says it i…

They are not, but they are central resource that the citizenry uses. If enough of the internet enters an embargo with the UK, they will probably capitulate because more and more of the citizenry will realize what is happening, be greatly inconvenienced, reduce the UK's GDP and complain. IMO I hope more big websites do block the UK.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#594

Post by clarionbell »

vkou wrote: post #562
llbbdd wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just do the same thing many governments the world over have done - adopt a version of the US constitution. Easy, clean, and only massively ironic.

[flagged]

Constitution is pretty clear on that question. The problem is that in order to persecute president you need congress to act.

The constitution simply doesn't account for a situation, when congress willingly ceases vital functions. To be fair, it took over 200 years for this edge case to occur.

If this was a software we would marvel at its stability.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#595

Post by Roark66 »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #517
monooso wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single Labour politician who voted on this bill voted against it. Peter Kyle was one such MP, and now he's making statements like: > I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he’s going to overturn these laws. So you know, we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence. Nigel Farage is on their side. It's maddening. The worst part is that they've somehow put me in…

> The worst part is that they've somehow put me in the position of defending Nigel Farage. I've come to believe that is the point of forcing people to choose between extreme polarizing positions. It makes disengagement feel like the only moderate move.

And that is exactly how someone like Trump could win (there are worse people than Nigel Farage). I'm amazed people have not thrown out these two parties in the UK already. Yes, the voting system makes it hard, but not impossible. It happened before.

However, I think the key reason why Conservatives and Labour are so entrenched is that people make their voting habits a part of their identity. I had a number of face to face conversations about politics with people born and raised in the UK. Every single one agreed with me about many stupid things the back then conservative govt pushed (the idea to ban encryption and more). And every single one of them said they will continue voting Conservative. Why? Because this is who they are. It's a part of their family identity (being quite well off financially, having expensive education etc). And they only see two choices, with the other being much worse.

This is how democracies die. They even agreed with this being far from optimal, but they see no other option.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#596

Post by madaxe_again »

hilbert42 wrote: post #552
autoexec wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments do seem to hate weakening their power over the population.

If Wiki had the guts it'd leave the UK. Nothing will happen unless there's a backlash from the citizenry.

The way this works is that the backlash would be directed at Wikipedia.

Your average citizen neither knows nor cares about the legislative landscape - they just know that the daily mail says Wikipedia hates the U.K. and is staffed by communists.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#597

Post by bell-cot »

Jolter wrote: post #585
ozim wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels utterly demoralizing when you have to vote for lesser evil and not for someone you feel will be better for the future.

”The lesser evil” is the essence of any two-party system. Which I would somewhat facetiously classify the UK system as. Abolish ”first past the post” and introduce proportional representation now!

Disagree. If the society is essentially "broken", with little sense of everyone working together to build and secure a positive future, then two-party systems can degenerate into "but they're even worse!" races to the bottom.

But in better circumstances, there is enormous social pressure (at least on mainstream parties) to be much higher functioning, and willing and able to lead the nation toward a positive future.

(Yes, I think that political reform could be of some use in the UK. Some. The underlying problems would mostly remain.)

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#598

Post by Sateeshm »

deepsun wrote: post #323

Going to be downvoted, but I support the move to make Wikimedia (and other websites that distribute user-generated content) to verify identities of their users (editors). It is ok to be responsible for what you're posting. We are living in the age of global irresponsibility. And it doesn't mean Wikimedia must make the identities public. Same as any other website -- real identity to be provided only to authorities fol…

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#599

Post by shit_game »

jchw wrote: post #118

The correct time for major service providers to shift their weight and start pulling out of any jurisdiction necessary to get their point across has already come and gone. The second best time would be as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the Internet world we live in today isn't the one I grew up in, so I'm sure things will just go according to plan. Apparently a majority of Britons polled support these rules, even t…

I remember my mother watching a news segment on TV about the subject of online identity verification several months ago, and she commented that she supported it because "kids shouldn't be looking at these things." I asked her if she believed it's a parents responsibility to parent their children and block childrens' access to unsavory things, or if she felt it might be dangerous to tie a persons legal identity to what they do on the internet, and her face kind of glazed over and she said "no?"

The average person is not thinking about the ways in which legislation can be abused, or in how it oversteps its "stated purpose", or how it can lead to unintended consequences. I remember the news segment saying something to the tune of "new legislation aims to prevent children from viewing pornography", which is a deliberately misinformative take on these kinds of legislation.

The current political atmosphere of the western world is edging towards technofascism at an alarming rate - correlating online activities to real-world identities (more than they already are via the advertisement death cult (read: industry)) is dangerous. A persons political beliefs, national status, health status, personal associations, interests, activities, etc. are all potential means of persecution. Eventually, the western world will see (more) TLAs knocking on doors and asking for papers and stepping inside homes. They're going to forensically analyse computers belonging to average people (which government agencies are already doing at border checkpoints in the US) to weed out political dissidents or people targetted for persecution.

Things are going to get exponentially worse for everyone, and nobody is trying to stop it because the average person is uninformed, uninterested, and - worst of all - an absolute fucking idiot.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#600

Post by gambiting »

qcnguy wrote: post #586
mathiaspoint wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right of course every state has a "constitution" but the contemporary connotation of the word means an enforceable law that meaningfully constrains the state's power.

The UK has had many such laws and still does. During its time of EU membership the British constitution effectively gave up most of its power to a foreign government. The echr still binds parliament and the courts, again to rulings of a foreign Court. The most likely outcome by far at this point is the continuation of disconnection from European institutions by leaving the echr. In effect this would mean the rolling…

>> During its time of EU membership the British constitution effectively gave up most of its power to a foreign government

It's nonsensical statements like this that lead to brexit.

Some(very very very few) rules were delegated to EU institutions. UK retained full autonomy in almost every area, it could have always limited immigration or how bananas are shaped if it wanted to. To say that "most of the power" was given to a foreign government borders on Russian trolling, it's just so extremely untrue.

>>And this position is very popular.

Which one? And with whom?

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