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Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

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Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#71

> In reality, this wouldn’t happen, because, generally, people understand that stabbings are a cultural issue, rather than a technical one Many UK MPs don't understand this. I've heard of MPs making (moronic) suggestions such as selling kitchen knives without the point on it. I've literally seen this advertised as a solution on the news. For whatever reason they don't seem to understand that literally anyone can make…

> I've heard of MPs making (moronic) suggestions such as selling kitchen knives without the point on it. I've literally seen this advertised as a solution on the news. As someone who is clumsy and easily distracted, I have such a kitchen knife. They are commonly available. It works absolutely fine and it has three times minimised an injury that would have been nasty because I am an easily-distracted tired old idiot.…

> The point of a knife is only needed in a handful of kitchen applications. Most knives do not need to be able to stab at all. Only cut.

But this isn't about what "most knives" need to be able to do.

This is about what everyone in the UK will be permitted to buy.

"I don't need to do X often, so why should I worry about it?" is a really, really bad attitude to take when your government is considering banning X for the entire country.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#72
post #69

> In reality, this wouldn’t happen, because, generally, people understand that stabbings are a cultural issue, rather than a technical one Many UK MPs don't understand this. I've heard of MPs making (moronic) suggestions such as selling kitchen knives without the point on it. I've literally seen this advertised as a solution on the news. For whatever reason they don't seem to understand that literally anyone can make…

"We believe that paedophiles are using an area of internet the size of Ireland, and through this they can control keyboards." – Syd Rapson MP in 2001. But really, with 650 MPs there's bound to be a few that are a bit silly at least some of the time. You can hear some wild takes at the local pub too (or nextdoor), but that doesn't mean everyone in your area is a moron.

I too have watched Brass Eye, and they literally had MPs telling people about the dangers of "cake" in a previous episode. It showed that MPs and TV celebrities would literally say anything Anchorman style if it was put on a teleprompter / script in front of them. They are nothing other than paid actors.

While I don't believe everyone in Parliament is a moron. I think more than enough of them are moronic, out of touch, malicious or home combination of the three for it to be a problem.

Generally the only solution presented for any issue in the UK is banning something. There is no other course of action that they can envisage. So you end up in a false dichotomy, discussing whether something should be banned or not. There is no discussion why the issue is happening in the first place, only whether should be banned or not.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#73
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard of MPs making (moronic) suggestions such as selling kitchen knives without the point on it. I've literally seen this advertised as a solution on the news. As someone who is clumsy and easily distracted, I have such a kitchen knife. They are commonly available. It works absolutely fine and it has three times minimised an injury that would have been nasty because I am an easily-distracted tired old idiot.…

> The point of a knife is only needed in a handful of kitchen applications. Most knives do not need to be able to stab at all. Only cut. But this isn't about what "most knives" need to be able to do. This is about what everyone in the UK will be permitted to buy. "I don't need to do X often, so why should I worry about it?" is a really, really bad attitude to take when your government is considering banning X for the…

No, it's not. At all!

It's about what everyone not old enough will be permitted to buy.

Nobody is saying that pointed knives shouldn't be sold; they are saying two things:

1) children shouldn't be able to buy them (they can't)

2) behaviour modification might suggest that fewer such knives even have to be made, because they aren't as important as they seem, and that might keep more convenient knives out of the hands of very young misguided children

The law has created a situation where I as an adult can:

1) buy a pointed knife if it looks like I am an adult (or it doesn't and I can prove I am)

2) buy a non-pointed knife without proving it.

This seems acceptable to me. I expect to be downvoted without a meaningful reply for saying so, because that is the way of things here.

I appreciate your policing my attitude but I don't know where you get the complete nonsense that the government is considering banning X for the entire country for this X or any other. Because they are not.

We in Europe try not to assume that Marjorie Taylor-Greene speaks for all Americans. There are 650 MPs in the UK Parliament, and some of them are silly or misinformed. One or two are as stupid as she is. Try to take that in.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#74
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what's the proper tool for cutting fruit or veg? I can't think of one.

Seriously? A "vegetable knife". e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genware-NEV-K-V4R-Vegetable-Knife-R...

Yes that's a knife, the suggestion was that a knife is not the proper tool for the job... somehow.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who is currently an adult and not geriatric could have had access to porn when they were a child. Is everyone fucked up? No? Why are you advocating for eliminating privacy for a made up problem?

I'm not! I know how easy it is to "discover" porn, but if sites adopted the RTA labelling system ( https://rtalabel.net/?content=howto ) and browsers obeyed that would go a long way to preventing those "accidental" discoveries. What my privacy concerns are were as per my post - no accountability from various global third parties and indiscriminate use of my PII.

What is the actual problem being solved here? The only problem I see this solving is that people who wish to exert control upon others can do so.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who is currently an adult and not geriatric could have had access to porn when they were a child. Is everyone fucked up? No? Why are you advocating for eliminating privacy for a made up problem?

This is my main frustration. Every teenager who wants to get porn will get porn regardless. VPN companies saw the writing on the wall years ago, and have been paying any YouTuber that will accept a sponsorship to shill for them. I think the Online Safety Act is just setting a precedent that will be used further down the line to ban personal VPN usage. "Children are using encrypted VPN tunnels to see porn online! Crim…

My real frustration is that it's just not a real problem. If it was we'd be seeing the negative effects of children having had access to porn today.

Instead it's clearly about control and being able to tiptoe their way to a totalitarian state.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#77
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? A "vegetable knife". e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genware-NEV-K-V4R-Vegetable-Knife-R...

Yes that's a knife, the suggestion was that a knife is not the proper tool for the job... somehow.

No I didn't. I said there was many different types of knives in the kitchen and they have different usages.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#78

It's mostly deliberate. Current petition to revoke it has half a million signatures, and the government have stated they will ignore that. Censorship is one of the advantages they like: https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-onlin...

I mean, this was in the manifesto for both the major parties - this is really not what the petition website is for, and it was never going anywhere. X flagging protest footage as adult content is not the endgame of some great british elitist conspiracy.

>X flagging protest footage as adult content is not the endgame of some great british elitist conspiracy.

No it is the prelude to a global elite conspiracy program to do anything they want with impunity.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#79
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's a knife, the suggestion was that a knife is not the proper tool for the job... somehow.

No I didn't. I said there was many different types of knives in the kitchen and they have different usages.

No he means me -- I probably did suggest this by accident by quoting all of one of your sentences but without replying to it all.

I personally do not find that the skin of fruit ever needs a particularly pointed blade, and I think that is usually an unsafe use of a knife.

I don't mean to suggest you don't need a knife for cutting things, but I would have thought that was an obvious bad faith interpretation.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Yikes - you crossed badly into personal attack here. That's not ok, regardless of what other commenters are doing.

Could you please review the site guidleines and stick to them when commenting? We'd appreciate it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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