Ex-minister Predicts 'Huge Battleground' Over UK's Plan To Set Internet Content Rules (techcrunch.com) 46
The former UK minster of state for what is now the digital and culture department, DCMS, has warned of the looming battle in parliament over the exact shape of incoming online safety legislation. From a report: In an interview with TechCrunch, Ed Vaizey -- a former Conservative Party MP, now Lord Vaizey of Didcot, who was head of the culture, comms and creative industries department, as it was then, between 2010 and 2016 -- predicted a huge tug-of-war to influence the scope of the Online Safety Bill, warning that parliamentarians everywhere will try to hang their own "hobby horse" on it. The risk of over regulation or creating a disproportionate burden for startups vs tech giants is also real, Vaizey suggested, setting out several areas that he said would require a cautious approach.
"In theory it's just going to be the big platforms that will be regulated," he said of the scope of the Internet Safety Bill, which was published in draft form back in May -- and which critics are warning will be catastrophic for free speech. "Some platforms that should be regulated could potentially not be be regulated. But you're right that people are concerned that, in effect, there's a paradox -- that it could help the Facebooks of this world because the regulatory hurdles that get going might be too big. And if anyone is capable of being regulated it's Facebook, as opposed to a startup. So I think that's something we have to be very careful of. "Secondly, although I support the principle of legal but harmful content being regulated I have no doubt at all that that is going to be the big battle in parliament. The balance between legal but harmful free speech is going to be a huge battleground. And it will be interesting to see in what form it survives. And thirdly -- I think, paradoxically -- everyone is going to try and hang their own particular hobby horse on this piece of legislation."
"In theory it's just going to be the big platforms that will be regulated," he said of the scope of the Internet Safety Bill, which was published in draft form back in May -- and which critics are warning will be catastrophic for free speech. "Some platforms that should be regulated could potentially not be be regulated. But you're right that people are concerned that, in effect, there's a paradox -- that it could help the Facebooks of this world because the regulatory hurdles that get going might be too big. And if anyone is capable of being regulated it's Facebook, as opposed to a startup. So I think that's something we have to be very careful of. "Secondly, although I support the principle of legal but harmful content being regulated I have no doubt at all that that is going to be the big battle in parliament. The balance between legal but harmful free speech is going to be a huge battleground. And it will be interesting to see in what form it survives. And thirdly -- I think, paradoxically -- everyone is going to try and hang their own particular hobby horse on this piece of legislation."
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Right wing loonies and religious loonies are by themselves already entertaining, but if you mix the bullshit, that's where the real entertainment is. But it's a bit like watching a school play written by the kids themselves. A touch charming-naive and a touch amusingly surreal since no sane adult mind could come up with something as bizarre, but at the same time boring as all fuck because after only 5 minutes you already know how it's gonna end.
This is fine. (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh believe, they're still blaming the EU and migrants.
This was my assumption, that, if nothing else, at least one good thing coming out of the UK's departure from the EU is that it meant they could no longer blame the EU, and Britain's political class, and vermin underclass who blame their own laziness and failings on migrants would finally have to accept some fucking responsibility for their own lives and actions.
How wrong I was. Even now we've left the EU and taken control of our borders everything is sti
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In the past they could blame such things on the "typical EU overreach". But now?
They will always blame the EU, one way or the other. They already are. Taking the blame has never been a British thing to do.
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The UK does currently have a right to freedom of expression, which is basically the same as the expanded definition of speech in the US.
It's from the European Convention on Human Rights. The government has been talking about getting rid of it for years, and now brexit has happened it might just do it.
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Their constitution isn't worth the paper it isn't written on.
Foot-gun (Score:5, Insightful)
This bill is getting more pointless by the day, because the UK's influence and relative GDP is shrinking. All it will do is drive sites overseas where they can safely ignore any onerous UK rules. The market just isn't big enough to bother with, compared to the EU and US.
We have been here before with age restrictions on porn sites.
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And what did it accomplish?
"Oh gee, I can't get what I want on this .uk site. But look, that $(country_tld) site has it. Guess the .uk site is useless. Bye."
That's it.
Oh, I can't access that site in $(country_tld) anymore because it's a nono according to some politician? Guess what, I don't give a fuck. I'm from Norway now. Or Finland. Or Iran. Welcome to the internet.
On one hand I wish politicians would finally figure out that their local laws don't mean jack shit. On the other hand, I'm kinda happy to kee
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Gee, really? Media demand that a competitor gets regulated?
No, you don't say!
Re: Foot-gun (Score:2)
These will be just like any other regulations (Score:5, Insightful)
The giants will capture the regulatory process and regs as implemented will provide two things:
1: Shield from liability for those who can afford the overhead: "All our documentation is in place; you can't touch us."
2. A barrier to entry for those who can't afford the overhead.
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Not only that, all the trolls will migrate to the new services if they are exempt or their tech isn't good enough.
Anybody from the UK here? (Score:2)
How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!
Are the shortages just a hickup on the way to a glorious new age without the EU or are things going sideways?
Curious EU citizen slashdot user wants to know. Thanks for any feedback.
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How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!
Are the shortages just a hickup on the way to a glorious new age without the EU or are things going sideways?
Curious EU citizen slashdot user wants to know. Thanks for any feedback.
There are shortages of various kinds worldwide right now. Are those all magically due to Brexit?
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How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!
Are the shortages just a hickup on the way to a glorious new age without the EU or are things going sideways?
Curious EU citizen slashdot user wants to know. Thanks for any feedback.
Things are more or less fine. I've not seen any shortages that weren't linked to Covid; our local petrol stations never even had queues.
I had expected things to be worse, but Covid redefined "bad" and it's hard to filter out the noise. For example: I was talking to a cafe owner yesterday about the lack of staff and she said that she though people had just left the industry during lockdown and were now doing something else. I've seen some ex-lorry drivers say that they discovered that they just don't want to
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It's what the Americans would call a dumpster fire.
There are shortages of various things because all the European lorry drivers have gone home.
Many of our European export markets have disappeared because of customs problems.
Our mobile phone providers have gone back to fleecing us when we are abroad because European roaming laws no longer apply.
The prime minister wants to break international law because the NI border is different to what he's promised.
The UK might break up because Scotland, and perhaps NI, a
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How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!
No problems where I am. My supermarket had run out of caramel trifles last week so I had to eat a chocolate one instead. Does that count?
Glad to hear there's a shortage of foreign lorry drivers, the roads are safer without those bastards, and neither lorries generally nor their drivers pay their full dues here. I pay more vehicle tax per mile in my car than they do. In the longer term, I'm hoping the railways will pick up more long distance freight, where it should return to.
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How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!"
They wanted EU citizens out and so they went home, they are still going.
Now there are not enough lorry-drivers, doctors, nurses, cooks, maids, waiters, hospitality specialists, construction workers, veterinarians, ...
The lorry-driver problem is so massive that there are empty shelves in the supermarkets, no gas in the gas-stations, everybody hires wildly around, so ambulance workers and lorry-bin (trash truck) drivers quit and work as l
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"But they finally tried to give away temporary visas for 5000 (sic) lorry-drivers.
27 people expressed interest, 15 had no license."
Forgot, Boris went on vacation now, in this crisis, in a villa belonging to a billionaire, where else.
Perhaps he'll get new orders?
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How is this Brexit thing actually going? ... That's an honest question!"
They wanted EU citizens out and so they went home, they are still going.
Now there are not enough lorry-drivers, doctors, nurses, cooks, maids, waiters, hospitality specialists, construction workers, veterinarians, ...
The lorry-driver problem is so massive that there are empty shelves in the supermarkets, no gas in the gas-stations, everybody hires wildly around, so ambulance workers and lorry-bin (trash truck) drivers quit and work as lorry drivers, so the trash stays on the streets, bus-drivers were hired away as well, so bus lines are scratched.
They sold their gas reserves a couple of years ago and now gas has risen fast and 12 electricity-providers couldn't pay that and went belly-up, the electricity-price is capped for households, so no way to make a profit.
No lorry-drivers also mean that container-ships can't get emptied and delivered, so the ships lose money by the millions per day, empty containers can't get back... Some container-ships destined for the UK are already redirected to Rotterdam and France which will not help the supply crisis.
But they finally tried to give away temporary visas for 5000 (sic) lorry-drivers.
27 people expressed interest, 15 had no license.
The parts of that that are true - and there's not many - are not or related to Brexit, or only partly. The price of gas in Spain has tripled; is that because of Brexit?
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"The parts of that that are true - and there's not many - are not or related to Brexit, or only partly. The price of gas in Spain has tripled; is that because of Brexit?"
The EU has gas-reserves that the countries can dip in, the UK sold theirs in 2017 with the land they were on.
Every change in price immediately crashes companies, like the 12 gas-powered Power-plants that went tits-up the last 2 weeks.
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"The parts of that that are true - and there's not many - are not or related to Brexit, or only partly. The price of gas in Spain has tripled; is that because of Brexit?"
The EU has gas-reserves that the countries can dip in, the UK sold theirs in 2017 with the land they were on.
Every change in price immediately crashes companies, like the 12 gas-powered Power-plants that went tits-up the last 2 weeks.
So, no, it doesn't have anything to do with Brexit, then. Just standard Tory greed.
Also, you're confused about what "gas reserves" means. You're talking about gas storage.
Harmful content? There is no such thing. (Score:2)
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Only actions can be harmful.
Semantics and utopian dreaming. I'm guessing you don't get out much.
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Oh you mean laws like "intellectual property" and "copyright". :)
In that case I agree.
In the case you seem to actually mean: Neural input causes neurons to fire, that cause memories to be remembered, including painful things. If I know your backstory, I can give you sensory input that causes neural input that triggers all your most painful things and then literally measu
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The whole thing is basically about censorship, not about "protecting" anybody.
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It is BOTH:
1. Yes, there is harmful content. I can easily create neural input that will trigger painful memories that cause you physical pain that can be measured in an MRT. So words *can* hurt you. Such measurements have been done. Paracetamol literally does numb them! (In high dosages, suggesting that the pain is very much higher than that of a wound to the body.)
2. But, no, it is not the speaker's job, to pussyfoot around everyone's triggers. It's the job of those with triggers, to fix them, or not leave
Ex-minister (Score:2)
I'll wait for the ex-priest and ex-rabbi to remark on this.
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Twas said, Brit citizens are lions ... ruled by donkeys. Must now be said, Brit subjects are sheep ... ruled by OxBridge Stalinists. Take note, that the WOKE Rawlsian spew frequently circulated on SLASH-DOT points to the same sheep-pen.
British citizens seem to have swapped faith in a divine being who oversaw a large part of life, for belief in a government(state) who are now supposed to oversee almost all of life. Alas the wisdom and resources of the former considerably outweigh the wisdom and resources of the latter, just as the 'law' of the former is considerably briefer than that of the later. So, maybe the words of 007 may prove to be prophetic "History isn't kind to men who play God".... ?
SD
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Twas said, Brit citizens are lions ... ruled by donkeys. Must now be said, Brit subjects are sheep ... ruled by OxBridge Stalinists. Take note, that the WOKE Rawlsian spew frequently circulated on SLASH-DOT points to the same sheep-pen.
British citizens seem to have swapped faith in a divine being who oversaw a large part of life, for belief in a government(state) who are now supposed to oversee almost all of life.
Oh, just fuck off you twat.
Senator Palpatine (Score:3)
Dictators agree! Outlawing speech the masses can be stirred to outrage over is a wonderful vector to power.
"So this is how liberty dies, with thundrous applause." - Senator Princess Padme, George Lucas modeling it on all-too sad occasions in history.
Anyone who tells you censorship can be safely wielded because democracy is the person doomed to repeat history from not having learned it.
And this is perhaps the biggest lesson of all to learn from history.
"harmful free speech"... Love it! (Score:1)
Well, whatever, without free speech protections in their law books, they can do what they want. Nobody of any real consequence will raise a fuss
"Online Safety" is false pretense (Score:1)
They haven't provided any statistics or evidence to show what harm the internet is doing. As there's no scientific evidence the internet is causing harm, how can they claim to be improving safety?
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There's some statistics about how Facebook is harming people especially teenagers. Although I can't see how UK is going to fix that unless they force facebook to increase the age limit for being allowed to have a facebook account to something around 22-25 which is when the brain have stopped growing. Guess they could apply that to all social media sites and block those who refuse.
When they talk about safety they could mean scamming, nasty ads, misinformation, etc. I'm sure they're keeping it vague because t
"Internet Content Rules", said China. (Score:2)
Isn't that the Chinese term for censorship?
I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
I guess we'll all become "shiny happy people" soon.
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