Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

irishtimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 102 posts

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#61

Post by ninalanyon »

Amezarak wrote: post #17
sallveburrpi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A newspaper publishing the name/image of a suspected criminal is definitely "publishing an individuals name, photograph", without their consent, and can quite clearly cause alarm or distress. Cherrypicking your example: Newspapers shouldn’t publish names or images of suspects, so to me this specific example would be a very good thing. Not sure (IANAL) but I think in my country this is illegal already Otherwise I ag…

> Cherrypicking your example: Newspapers shouldn’t publish names or images of suspects, so to me this specific example would be a very good thing. Not sure (IANAL) but I think in my country this is illegal already Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't the government have to publicize the names and identities of people they arrest so we know they're not doing so illegitimately?

It' specifically illegal in some jurisdictions.

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#62

Post by ninalanyon »

orwin wrote: post #18
john-h-k wrote: post #12

> knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of and publishes ... an individual’s name, photograph ... without the individual’s prior consent ... and being reckless as to whether or not harm is caused to, the other person. > [harm occurs when someone] seriously interferes with the other person’s peace and privacy or causes alarm or distress to the other person This seems very widely worded. A newspaper publishing the n…

A newspaper publishing the name/image of a suspected criminal is definitely "publishing an individuals name, photograph", without their consent, and can quite clearly cause alarm or distress If the suspected criminal isn't a public figure, it's a good thing, isn't it?

In some European countries it's against the law to publish details of people who are merely accused.

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#63

Post by john-h-k »

allturtles wrote: post #44
john-h-k wrote: post #12

> knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of and publishes ... an individual’s name, photograph ... without the individual’s prior consent ... and being reckless as to whether or not harm is caused to, the other person. > [harm occurs when someone] seriously interferes with the other person’s peace and privacy or causes alarm or distress to the other person This seems very widely worded. A newspaper publishing the n…

AFAICT this is the actual bill: https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2025/11/eng/in... Your selective quoting is extremely misleading. The first section about publishing a name/photograph only applies in the context of "for purposes of advertising products, events, political activities, merchandise, goods, or services or for purposes of fundraising, solicitation of donations, purchases of products, merchandi…

Sorry, the example I had in mind was a politician and I don't know why I forgot to add that to the comment, else I'd edit it in.

The point is that "to influence elections or referenda" is incredibly vague! Almost any reporting on a person involved in the election, or even related to it (reporting on someone who's group looking bad helps a party) can be construed as "influencing an election"

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#64

Post by john-h-k »

sollewitt wrote: post #16
john-h-k wrote: post #12

> knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of and publishes ... an individual’s name, photograph ... without the individual’s prior consent ... and being reckless as to whether or not harm is caused to, the other person. > [harm occurs when someone] seriously interferes with the other person’s peace and privacy or causes alarm or distress to the other person This seems very widely worded. A newspaper publishing the n…

Your snipping is making it look broader than it is: you can’t misrepresent someone as being supportive of your product or cause, and you can’t distribute software that makes, or make yourself, likenesses of other people without their prior consent. It doesn’t constrain what you do in contexts other than where you use someone’s likeness to misrepresent their position. The harms are restricted to the scope above.

"or to influence elections or referenda" has quite a wide scope and was what concerned me. Publishing a political in a negative light absolutely could influence an election! But yes I should have included that part, not good by me, sorry.

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#65

Post by uyzstvqs »

0ckpuppet wrote: post #11
uyzstvqs wrote: post #8

This is a good way to regulate this. Criminalize people who abuse AI tools to cause harm. Don't try to impose censorship or mass-surveillance on AI tools. I oppose all pornography, but censoring nudity from a model both compromises the model's quality (example: SD3) and stops legitimate artistic value. Though the framing on Grok is highly duplicitous. It is against the ToS, and it's about a few abusers among millions…

who decides what is harmful? That's going to be like letting a Bible thumping Moral Majority zealot decide what's Art and what's pornography.

Nudity, including artistic nudity, is in itself the complete opposite of pornography. One is human nature, with art depicting its beauty and purity, while the latter is about the gratification of lust.

As a Christian, pornography is clearly sinful and harmful. But if you wish to use your free will to partake in it, then you do you. Non-consensual pornography (which is what this is about) causes harm to another person, which is why it cannot be tolerated.

This should be obvious IMO.

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#66

Post by gregbot »

piltdownman wrote: post #38
hiprob wrote: post #33

Ireland is just a copy of the UK, except it's a tax haven and a trojan horse of the EU. They have the same age requirement regulation online as the UK.

Nonsense. • There is ongoing discussion in the Irish parliament and policy circles about setting a digital age of consent or minimum age (e.g. 16) for social media access. This debate is driven by concern over youth wellbeing, although no formal law has yet been enacted. https://avpassociation.com/ireland/

>This debate is driven by concern over youth wellbeing

I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you actually think thats what is motivating this

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#67

Post by collingreen »

piltdownman wrote: post #41
miohtama wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existing fraud and advertising laws cover these kind of scams. Because the bottleneck is enforcement, adding new laws won't make the world safer.

Except they don't - enforcement is circumvented by psuedo-anonymous users pushing illegal ad campaigns that revert back to inoffensive content or a similar cop-out by the time Meta/X responds to the report https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/despicable-simon-harri... https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1i1shz3/anyo...

Does this require a belief that it isn't reasonable for meta to control or even be aware of ad content they are paid to show?

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#68

Post by brendoelfrendo »

joelccr wrote: post #43
rob74 wrote: post #27

"Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse" - now that's some strange capitalis/zation in that headline. I'm Ok with title case, but randomly capitalising just one word in a title looks strange. Or is this something specifically Irish?

I can't speak for Ireland, but in the UK it is quite common to refer to a Bill (before it has passed) or an Act (when it is passed) with a capital letter, rightly or wrongly, because its name would be capitalised (in this case The Protection of Voice and Image Bill, with Bill replaced by Act once it has become law). It is also a capitalised term within the text of the law itself.

I can't find a style guide for the Irish Times, but the Independent's style guide seems to agree with you: capitalize when used as part of the name of a bill or act, and use lowercase thereafter [0]. Perhaps because they are using Bill in the headline as a shorthand for the full-name of the bill (probably for space reasons), they saw fit to capitalize it? Regardless, this is one of those cases where it's not really a grammatical choice but one of style/convention.

[0] https://www.independent.ie/editorial/pdfs/stylebook23.pdf

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#69

Post by dmurray »

pjc50 wrote: post #49
miohtama wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existing fraud and advertising laws cover these kind of scams. Because the bottleneck is enforcement, adding new laws won't make the world safer.

This is only going to change if prosecution is brought against Meta itself, which it looks like the "recklessly" clause is intended to imply. I look forward to Meta facing criminal charges for profiting from fraud. What's the Irish equivalent of Hansard, by the way? Can we look up the debate?

There hasn't been a debate. The headline is not reflective of the facts. There hasn't been any agreement to fast track this bill, but the politician sponsoring it has said in a radio interview that (surprise!) he thinks it should be fast tracked.

The Dáil record can be found here, but there's nothing of interest in it:

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/search/?searchType=debates&deba...

Re: Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image misuse

#70

Post by BoxOfRain »

hiprob wrote: post #33

Ireland is just a copy of the UK, except it's a tax haven and a trojan horse of the EU. They have the same age requirement regulation online as the UK.

> Ireland is just a copy of the UK

That's certainly a geopolitically contentious take if I've ever seen one.

Post reply on HN