EpicQuest_246

The online communities don't exist within the borders of a nation state. They have their own social norms and rules. You can see this on forums, message boards, online games etc. Therefore a nation state trying to enforce its will on those communities is completely asinine.

I don't like that it that American companies enforces it language policing on UK residents, I also don't like that fact that the UK wants to force it language policing world wide (the UK state acts as if it has an empire).

The reason people are unwilling to consider an alternative viewpoint, is that in the past they have been more moderate and what has happened has been a complete erosion of civil liberties under the guise of "stopping the terrorists". I was arguing the same thing I am arguing essentially over 20 years ago.

Ironically many of those groups that we went to war to stop (Al-queda/ISIS) are now being presented as moderate because foreign policy has shifted again.

I don't really understand how many people on here (I've been lurking for a while), essentially pretend everything is backwards. You don't level the playing field by making it more difficult to do business, you make it easier.

BTW, I get btw a threat letter from another UK quango (I forget the name), which basically says "if you have any user data you need to pay us £60 a year". Yes you need to pay a levy for a database in the UK. It is basically a TV license for a database. I did work as a freelancer in the UK (made impossible now because of IR-35 regulation) and have a dormant company because freelance/contract is dead, so I have to inform them I don't have user data. It is just another thing to worry about when creating an online app.

> But in any case, original point also brings up the question: why is the UK allowing foreign companies to violate laws that it would prosecute British businesses for violating?

Because then we don't have any alternatives and people already use it. I also don't think the laws should exist in the first place, so I don't care if a US company is violating them.

I would love the UK to actually require IP blocks of twitter/Facebook etc, because it might actually force people to think about the issues.

> If you allow a foreign domiciled business to break laws in your country, then how the heck do you expect to ever have domestic industry? It’s strictly less risky to always be foreign domiciled.

You don't make it more difficult to do business. Many of the US tech successes were people starting up in a garage. The UK micro business did extremely well (until PC/Macs came on the scene) and that had almost no regulation or gov interference (other than standard stuff for electronics).

> This bill aims to stop that regulatory arbitrage and as such is hopefully a leveling of the playing field for the UK tech scene.

No. It is to try to censor the internet. It been going in this direction for ages. I am quite honestly fed up of people telling me that it is nothing to worry about. The UK politicians complained about replies to their tweets, after one of their colleagues had been stabbed to death. I found it honestly sickening. There is no crisis they won't use as an opportunity.

There are so many issues with stripping anonymity. TBH I will probably end up 100% either using a VPN or the darknet.

It wouldn't be anonymous then if it was in my work place.

Social media does not cause harm in of itself. People can use social media in a way that can be harmful, but you can say that about absolutely anything. Plenty of people that are not tech people manage to use social media to promote themselves, their business etc. People use it as a place of business. It is a mixed bag, like most things are. You are (like the government) pre-supposing that is the case and basing your whole argument upon that.

As for Offense speech/Free speech. What constitutes what is and isn't offensive is subjective. That is why people argue for a free speech standard. Pretending that it is right to restrict unpopular speech (this is what is really meant by offensive) because the majority agree is completely asinine, as things that were offensive in the past may not be offensive in the future and vice versa.

The reason we don't have a decent tech industry in the UK (the tech industry here sucks) is because we don't have things like a Section 230 protections. Imposing legal responsibility will make it more difficult for anyone to make anything interesting in the UK.

> I don't recall the Online Safety Act regulating the financial industry - could you point out which parts of the legislation relate to that? I do, however, agree that we do have excessive restrictions on access to certain financial services.

You completely misunderstood the point. The point is that we can predict from similar laws in another industry (somewhat related industry) what the effect maybe.

The definition of hate speech used to be centered around terrorism and was initially sold to the UK public as stopping "Islamic hate preachers and stopping terrorism". This has now expanded far past that and people are being investigated and arrested for simply opposing immigration (which is often conflated with racism disingenuously), or criticising the actions of Israel, teenagers posting rap lyrics on facebook, and numerous others that I have forgotten about.

If you are not bothered by the expansion of these powers because some people have said things you disapprove of there is nothing I can say to convince you.

I am a software engineer in the UK. One of the reasons I want to move from the UK is because so many of our populace has attitudes such as yours. The online safety act won't solve the problems you think it will and will create a whole new host of issues.

What is amusing is that you even admit that you solved the problem of online scammers with your grandparents through education (I've seen the videos you mentioned as well). This is how people stay "safe" is to be educated on the dangers, not for overbearing regulation.

> To anyone who thinks that regulating social media is some sort of prelude to a totalitarian state, I suggest you watch Britons at a traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing.

The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related offences (I guarantee it is more now). I've seen videos of the police arresting disabled pensioners over spicy tweets, journalists have their homes raided in the UK regularly if they criticise UK foreign policy over Israel (doesn't get reported on btw). We are already in a form of a soft totalitarianism. You just haven't noticed because you haven't been looking.

Which kills any sort of online anonymity as all social media posts will be directly linked to your ID. This will make it much easier to go after anyone that is a dissident in the UK.

Many these awful laws such as one being discussed are sold to us under the guise of protecting the children. The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related crimes in the UK (and I checked a while ago).

Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.

It may not have been but it seems that any dystopian piece of literature will be used as one.

People say as a pithy answer and it is very frustrating. Unfortunately it is utterly unrealistic that voting will solve this situation.

1) The majority of the UK's populace are onboard with the vast majority of these laws. Even if all the people that opposed this voted for another party, due to how the constituencies work, your vote will be effectively made moot.

2) Both major UK parties essentially agree that these laws should be implemented. The only solution to any problem that UK government can envisage is banning something. You can look into the Lotus Carlton ram raids of 40RR, they were singing the same tune back in the late 80s/early 90s.

3) There is no realistic pro-liberty / anti-censorship movement at all in the UK

This has been going for longer than I have been alive in the UK (I am now in my early 40s). I am not an anarchist, but I've heard the phrase repeated by anarchists of "You cannot vote yourself free". The only way to resist such laws is to subvert them via technology.