Wouldn't it be strange if solving a problem didn't affect elections?
But it's becoming increasingly clear how badly compromised the whole thing is with fake opinions and enemy propaganda.
I don't like either of the options. I don't like control by the state, and I don't like control by mad billionaires. I don't like the far right cesspool of 4chan, but can't disagree with their position that they shouldn't have to care about OFCOM.
While I agree with this statement, I thought there was some kind of requirement that OFCOM goes through a process like this before being allowed to ask for a domain to be blocked in the UK?
The latter is, I think, something OFCOM should be allowed to do with a restriction that it can only come after other options fail.
Imgur have gone the other direction: they have voluntarily blocked the UK (!), which is very irritating when trying to browse Reddit.
There's certainly a process, but not a good one.
(separate from all this, the Internet Watch Foundation maintains a blocklist which ISPs voluntarily follow, of actual CSAM.)
Until the process is complete, that's not evidence of inability, that's just the process:
Where appropriate, if a provider fails to comply with its safety duties, we can also seek a court order for ‘business disruption measures’, such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block a site in the UK.
> There's certainly a process, but not a good one.
Indeed. There does seem to be a mutual non-comprehension of how the internet functions amongst lawmakers and enforcers in both the UK and the USA; both seem to act like they have more sovereignty over the internet than is possible without reaching much faster for a block order for sites outside their respective jurisdictions.
The governments themselves are "dumber, sadder, and more scared". They are worried because social media puts regular people talking on equal footing to official propagandas (being able to reach everybody else). That's what they fear, because they have the lowest approval ratings and legitimization in over half a century, and they're also making everything shittier and shittier to the benefit of their corporate overlords.
The problem is the algorithm and the "explicitly suppressed and censored" and that's on the governments and corporations. So that's the worst argument for giving the government more control.
That argument seems easily debunked by pointing at the effectiveness of propaganda, which is in its essence indistinguishable from bots.
People have control over their government, at least in democracies that are functioning to a basic level (see Hungary recently). But they have zero control over social media, in fact the only organisations that can control global billion dollar tech companies are nation state governments...