Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#791

Post by Macha » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

qcnguy wrote: post #583

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. The next government will take great delight in removing this law as an easy win. As a rule of thumb, governments don't take actions which reduce their power.

They do if they are libertarian governments. Although it's popular to pretend they don't exist, there are plenty of examples of governments reducing their power over history. The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power. And Britain has in the past gone through deregulatory phases and shrunk the state. Unfortunately at this time Britain d…

Ah yes, the “Center-left” party that wants to:

- eliminate taxes on farm inheritance and private education

- reduce benefits spending by stricter eligibility criteria

- reduce immigration by making legal immigration more onerous while also blocking asylum

Per the top policies on their prospectus: https://www.conservatives.com/our-policy-prospectus

I’m surprised anti-trans stuff isn’t in there with how much airtime they’ve given it, but I guess they feel there’s not enough distance between them and Starmer’s Labour.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#792

Post by hilbert42 » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:30 PM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #636

drawfloat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government (which, by the way, there is still a non zero chance could be Labour) will necessarily reverse this. Maybe Reform would tweak the topics, but I’m not convinced any party can be totally trusted to reverse this.

> The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. Unless a law is a mortal threat to the current party in power, it will not be repelled. Even so most likely they will try to wash it down instead of actually abolishing it.

"Unless a law is a mortal threat to the current party in power, it will not be repelled."

Trouble is, like the frog in warming water, the UK is by a series of steps falling into ever-increasing irrelevancy on the world stage. By the time it wakes up to the fact it'll be too late.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#793

Post by imtringued » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

hopelite wrote: post #656

Ray20 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think politicians are idiots? Yes, many of them are really stupid people. But they are not idiots. I think 95 percent of them are perfectly aware of why the laws they pass are really needed. And they pass them EXACTLY FOR THIS, and not at all for protecting children and internet safety.

There irony is that people who call politicians stupid are generally not very smart people themselves in my experience, regardless of various forms of advanced degrees they believe disproves that. They may be puppets, they may be manipulators, they may be con-artists, they may be liars; but what does it say about oneself if an “idiot” managed to become one of a few hundred most powerful humans on this planet and in a…

Considering the average age and net worth of American politicians. I certainly know that it is almost exclusive to rich old men.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#794

Post by qcnguy » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:48 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #780

mathiaspoint wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes if the best thing you can say about the deal is that you don't have to have much of it that's an argument for not doing the deal.

The UK "didn't have much" of all the things it didn't want. But plenty of the things it did want. That is a great deal, Trump would be proud. Plenty of Brits too dumb to understand that though.

The UK didn't want unlimited immigration from the EU, and the EU refused to even consider the possibility of an exception, so the UK left.

It's not complicated, it's old history, and the fact that people are still describing this as "brits dumb hurhur" is racist and abusive. The idea that it could have got an exception, by the way, is yet more federalist lying. Cameron did a tour around Europe directly visiting member states, begging them to grant such an exception, and they refused. He returned with his "deal", presented it to the country and never mentioned it again during his campaign because it was an insult to the concerns of the voters.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#795

Post by qcnguy » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:52 PM UTC

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #761

qcnguy wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do if they are libertarian governments. Although it's popular to pretend they don't exist, there are plenty of examples of governments reducing their power over history. The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power. And Britain has in the past gone through deregulatory phases and shrunk the state. Unfortunately at this time Britain d…

>The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power Since its foundation, has the US government ever actually reduced its powers? It established itself with limited power.. But since then, its power has only increased via amendments, to the point where the President is effectively an uncontested emperor type figure.

If you define the US as the federal government then yes it has rolled back its powers several times:

- The Prohibition was implemented and then ended, i.e. the state gave up its power to ban alcohol.

- The Bill of Rights itself post-dates the founding of the USA. Those amendments were limiting the power of the state!

- Income tax rates were once much higher than they are today. Of course you could argue that this isn't a reduction of its power given that once upon a time there was no income tax. But it has nonetheless fallen from its once great heights.

- The federal government gave up its power to regulate abortion quite recently.

- In the 60s (or 70s I forget) the US government deregulated the airline industry and has never gone back.

- The War Powers veto. One could argue that it's not been effective because POTUSes have ignored it, but in theory Congress took away the ability for Presidents to declare war.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#796

Post by qcnguy » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #675

qcnguy wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do if they are libertarian governments. Although it's popular to pretend they don't exist, there are plenty of examples of governments reducing their power over history. The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power. And Britain has in the past gone through deregulatory phases and shrunk the state. Unfortunately at this time Britain d…

> The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power. This is not an example for an existing government reducing its power. It's rather an example of revolutionaries recognizing this very problem and attempting to prevent it. As we have found out since then, their solution isn't as foolproof as they had hoped.

I gave some examples of reductions in power post-dating the founding of the US in a reply to someone else above.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#797

Post by qcnguy » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #791

qcnguy wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do if they are libertarian governments. Although it's popular to pretend they don't exist, there are plenty of examples of governments reducing their power over history. The American government is a good example of this having originally bound itself by a constitution that limits its own power. And Britain has in the past gone through deregulatory phases and shrunk the state. Unfortunately at this time Britain d…

Ah yes, the “Center-left” party that wants to: - eliminate taxes on farm inheritance and private education - reduce benefits spending by stricter eligibility criteria - reduce immigration by making legal immigration more onerous while also blocking asylum Per the top policies on their prospectus: https://www.conservatives.com/our-policy-prospectus I’m surprised anti-trans stuff isn’t in there with how much airtime th…

Every party says they want to reduce immigration. Labour says they will "stop the boats" etc. Neither have done so, of course, it's all lies.

The Conservatives don't want to reduce spending on benefits. They always defended the triple lock that makes their pensioner base so happy, of course. They are merely slightly more willing to admit that huge cuts are inevitable than Labour is. Labour also tried a tiny reduction in benefits - there's not much difference between them really - but their MPs are in total denial of the scale of the problem and blocked it.

UK benefits are going to evaporate, it doesn't matter who is in power. Tweaking eligibility criteria is rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic at this point. It's become a financial inevitability post-COVID, just look at the charts. The austerity that's coming will show the 2010s era as the weak sauce it truly was.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#798

Post by imtringued » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

yupyupyups wrote: post #523

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents have plenty of capacity to exercise control over their children. For example, how about a law that says websites have to restrict access to pornographic content if the client's user agent sets an HTTP header indicating they don't want to see it? Now you don't have any privacy problems because the header contains no personally identifying information -- you don't even have to be under 18 to opt into it. But th…

Porn peddlers would probably pinky-promise not to disobey the user-agent and expose the kids to the content (and get them while they're young). However, as we have already seen, asking nicely in the HTTP headers doesn't actually work, it may even help porn peddlers better target children. We also know from recorded interviews with these predetors that they don't seem to actually mind exposing kids to porn. https://x.…

Your argument is bullshit. There is no content filter on this planet that will prevent children from seeing blocked content. The children that know how to circumvent the protections will circumvent them. The providers of blocked content will figure out a way around them too.

Content filters only affect law abiding users and providers. The hallmark of an effective policy is to make it as easy as possible to comply with it. Setting a header is pretty damn easy to implement and enforce by the government. It also displays trust in law abiding citizen, who will comply with the law, because they know that it serves their best interests, rather than being shoved down their throats against their will.

The alternative will have exactly the same or - far more likely - worse results, because the cost of verifying every user's age is far too high to be implemented by the vast majority of sites on the internet. It's more likely that when law abiding citizens are faced with laws that are impossible to implement that they just throw up their hands up and close up shop or move somewhere else.

In the second scenario their services might still be accessible in the UK and need to be blocked by the UK government, the online safety act achieves essentially nothing in this scenario.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#799

Post by Lio » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

phatfish wrote: post #784

Lio wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but all the other parties are currently saying that they 100% will not reconsider this stupid law[1]. I don’t like Farrage. At all. He’s also currently the only MP questioning this law and he’s making fair points about it. The government response is not a clever rebuttal but Jess Philips and Peter Kyle making ad hominem arguments comparing him to one of the nastiest people in our country’s history. This is gover…

Spotify has my PI already. Wikipedia I was using today as normal. The only people moaning about this are the ones ashamed of jerking off. Just own it, and this issue goes away. Who cares if a random company has your mug shot to do an age estimation, they know you jerk off, so what? Just keep porn away from your kids please and let's hope we do better for the next generation.

> The only people moaning about this are the ones ashamed of jerking off. Just own it, and this issue goes away. Who cares if a random company has your mug shot to do an age estimation, they know you jerk off, so what?

Sorry but that misses the point. This isn't about porn or being embarrased about it. It's about having to present identification to gain access many different types of site.

We now have the situation where a site, any kind doesn't have to be porn, can look legitimate and ask for required personal identifcation but actually be a run fraudsters.

You might personally have an issue identifying sites like that many adults will and once they're handed over a copy of their passport or drivers licence they are in for a lot of trouble.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#800

Post by Chris2048 » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #612

gambiting wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 give…

> UK retained full autonomy in almost every area, it could have always limited immigration or how bananas are shaped if it wanted to. And not only that, but within the EU it is no secret that the UK had the very best seat at the table. The UK had so many carve-outs and exemptions, far more than any other member.

> the UK had the very best seat at the table.

> The UK had so many carve-outs and exemptions

The EU had many things that didn't benefit the UK, which happens when you don't share a mainland with the rest of Europe. e.g. Schengen area didn't make as much sense for UK,

The UK got to not adopt the euro, but then it's currency was particularly strong in the first place. The Rebate is usually what is spin as the great advantage given to the UK, but was mostly justified by the fact that the UK didn't benefit as much from agricultural subsidies.