[HN Gopher] Online Safety Act: What went wrong?
___________________________________________________________________
Online Safety Act: What went wrong?
Author : olyellybelly
Score : 45 points
Date : 2025-08-01 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (therectangle.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (therectangle.substack.com)
| croes wrote:
| What went wrong?
|
| For complete safety you need complete surveillance which
| contradicts complete safety.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Because it's not actually about safety.
| Havoc wrote:
| >Solving problems in the online world is no longer a technical
| issue
|
| Unfortunately I have zero faith in UK government having a moment
| of introspection here.
|
| Instead of realizing it's not fit for purpose they'll double down
| on the broken approach. Fully expecting the "solution" here to be
| more regulation, more punishment, more cost, more killing small
| sites, more inconvenience, more technically unfeasible things
| (vpn ban).
|
| Have written to my MP about it and unsurprisingly zero response.
| Useless government
| arp242 wrote:
| I don't really understand Keir Starmer on this. Or well, on
| anything really. The public has been pretty clear what they
| want most of all is a competent government that will take care
| of basic core tasks like cost of living, NHS, etc. Instead he
| takes a massively unpopular Tory culture war bill and
| implemented it as if it was his own idea (in addition to a
| number of other unforced baffling choices over the last year).
|
| I understand Boris Johnson. I understand Tony Blair. I even
| understand Liz Truss, mad as she may be. I just don't get
| Starmer at all. I almost suspect he's somehow in league with
| Nigel Farage to make him the next prime minister.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Yes, exactly.
|
| You do in fact understand Starmer. You just hope you're
| wrong.
|
| The UK's aristos have decided that Farage should be the next
| PM, which is why he's been all over the media.
|
| Starmer is wholly owned by business interests which exist for
| the benefit of said aristos, and his job is to pander to
| those interests. He is absolutely indifferent to what the
| public wants, and he is willing to force through incredibly
| unpopular pointless abusive policies to make that point.
|
| The end game is similar to the one in the US - the end of
| democratic accountability and public service government, an
| AI-administered online surveillance state run for oligarchs
| and corporations, all marketed with rhetoric that combines
| fake patriotism, violent hysteria against outsiders and
| noncomformists, the illusion of personal responsibility, and
| religious grift.
| amoe_ wrote:
| The knife crime analogy is a bit off, as we already have age
| restrictions for buying knives in the UK.
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| Politicians listened to the "smart" guys from
| Google/Apple/Microsoft/Whatever who were there with their own
| ulterior motives.
| exasperaited wrote:
| This adds little to the debate.
|
| A really interesting question would be to ask Aylo -- the world's
| largest pornographer -- why they are _complying with_ the UK law
| and working with the regulator (population ~70M), but blocking
| whole states in response to the French law (population ~70M also)
| and Texas (population ~30M).
|
| Because there obviously is _some_ nuance and realpolitik here,
| when Aylo could very easily just block the UK too.
|
| Has anyone done this journalism?
| rokkamokka wrote:
| Perhaps they earn more from the UK market? Or decided it was
| easier to comply with that specific law.
| exasperaited wrote:
| It was a partly rhetorical question.
|
| They have an age verification business.
|
| But they also have a policy position about this and I'm not
| sure anyone has asked them to talk about those three
| decisions in the same sentence, as it were.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| You can just go to their press releases [1].
|
| > For years Aylo has publicly called for effective and
| enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online,
| while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users. The United
| Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities
| demonstrably.
|
| At least according to their release, the UK worked with them on
| it.
|
| They also have an updated statement on France [2].
|
| [1]: https://www.aylo.com/newsroom/aylo-upgrades-age-assurance-
| me...
|
| [2]: https://www.aylo.com/newsroom/aylo-suspends-access-to-
| pornhu...
| exasperaited wrote:
| I mean, in the second or third round of this with the tories
| in 2016, Aylo (Mindgeek) were offering up their own solution
| for age verification. So they are not exactly unconflicted.
|
| But the fact remains here that the world's largest porn
| company is not presenting this as a big civil liberties
| issue; they have moved on from that.
|
| I think it's important to understand that Ofcom isn't just
| imposing nonsense policies without any consultation with the
| very people they are trying to regulate.
|
| They may not be succeeding, and people can disagree with the
| policy outcome, but there's a huge amount of misinformation
| suggesting that this is simple thoughtless autocratic
| censorious wishful thinking, when it is in fact an attempt at
| a policy of industry self-regulation backed by penalties,
| which is how the ombudsman system is meant to work.
|
| Also I think a lot of US commentators don't understand that
| mobile phone providers in the UK block adult content by
| default and have been moving to that position over the long
| term because it is the _only_ practical parental control
| mechanism that exists in a market of devices with different
| operating systems, menus, and often absence of on-device
| parental control mechanisms at all.
| _joel wrote:
| Seems as though, if anything, the government are doubling down on
| it. I swear Labour are speedrunning "How to become the most hated
| party". I thought it'd take a bit longer than a year, but here we
| are.
| XorNot wrote:
| They're not though. These types of policies are very popular.
| HN users come out in favor of them or some variant and you'd
| think they should recognize the dangers.
|
| People will happily demand these policies in the abstract, and
| then _some_ will be unhappy with the implementation but not
| all.
| _joel wrote:
| Have you seen the recent polls?
| alexisread wrote:
| 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...
| crimsoneer wrote:
| 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.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| > both the major parties
|
| The uniparty strikes again.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > X flagging protest footage as adult content is not the
| endgame of some great british elitist conspiracy.
|
| No indeed, but it might be the beginning of a political
| campaign.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| >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.
| implements wrote:
| Any device with a Government service (eg NHS) or a Banking app
| knows who and old the primary user is, so seems the obvious
| technological solution is some kind of securely anonymous
| attestation that websites can request from the OS.
| exasperaited wrote:
| This appears to be what Aylo think, essentially:
|
| https://www.aylo.com/assets/files/age_verification_fact_shee...
|
| And I think this is right. If Apple and Google can add a thing
| that lets us track Covid exposure they can surely figure out
| secure age attestation.
|
| As it is, you can use your mobile phone for simple age
| attestation in the UK anyway, since mobile phone companies
| block adult content by default until they are unblocked, as a
| parental control measure.
| fidotron wrote:
| Absolutely nothing about it has gone wrong.
|
| They have collected some personal data from law abiding
| pornography consumers: obvious perverts who should know better
| anyway. If their information gets released it will be their own
| fault. Some other stuff got hidden, but that's no problem as the
| BBC will tell you anything that you need to know anyway.
|
| They can, and will, readily ban VPNs later, since those have no
| legitimate purpose for individuals, and will only be allowed for
| licensed operators like banks, hospitals, and defence
| manufacturers.
|
| If you think this is sarcasm you haven't been paying attention to
| what the people pushing these laws actually say.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > They have collected some personal data from law abiding
| pornography consumers:
|
| Who is "they"?
| vaylian wrote:
| > obvious perverts who should know better anyway.
|
| Why are these perverts obvious?
|
| > They can, and will, readily ban VPNs later, since those have
| no legitimate purpose for individuals, and will only be allowed
| for licensed operators like banks, hospitals, and defence
| manufacturers.
|
| This is not true. All kinds of companies and private people use
| VPNs to safeguard their computer infrastructure.
| trallnag wrote:
| This is a red herring. Obviously corporate VPNs will not be
| banned. Same goes for your personal use of something like
| ZeroTier or Tailscale. The gov will simply learn from China
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I really hate this statement: Until
| we start thinking about the true test of any policy:
| implementation and enforcement.
|
| The true test of policy should be the desired outcome behind that
| policy.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| You're saying the true test of a policy is its stated
| intentions? This attitude is exactly why we get so many
| terrible, unworkable policies with terrible unintended
| consequences (though often the consequences are so obvious that
| the claims that they are "unintended" are incredible).
| hexis wrote:
| Why would the desired outcome be a more true test than the
| actual outcome?
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| If the desired outcome is world peace and the means of which is
| murdering every human then I don't think the desired outcome is
| all that relevant.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Let's include who is pushing for the new policy right up to the
| head of considerations, because these "child protections" are
| not child protections, they are using children as fear vehicles
| to make political careers and to generate new revenues for
| their tech security company backers. Calls to "protect the
| children" rarely are about children at all, but are almost
| universally a vehicle to usher in some Orwellian fear-laced
| perspective forced on the public.
| azalemeth wrote:
| An obligatory link for either anyone living in Britain or with
| British citizenship:
|
| https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
|
| More people have signed this than the membership of the labour
| party(!)
| VikingMiner wrote:
| The whole country could sign that petition and it will be
| ignored. There is no legal/political solution to this. The
| sooner people accept that the better.
| vaylian wrote:
| Nonsense. Promoting the petition and keeping talking about
| the law is one of the most effective things that can be done
| to make life uncomfortable for the politicians who are
| responsible for this mess. More pressure is needed and
| politicians will have to face journalists asking unpleasant
| questions when people continue to complain.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| > Nonsense. Promoting the petition and keeping talking
| about the law is one of the most effective things that can
| be done to make life uncomfortable for the politicians who
| are responsible for this mess.
|
| They frequently ignore these petitions, especially when it
| comes to privacy, freedom of speech, surveillance etc.
|
| When you do get a response back from these petitions, they
| are frequently either don't address the issue properly or
| you get some gaslighting response back.
|
| My pessimism has be undefeated thus far.
|
| > More pressure is needed and politicians will have to face
| journalists asking unpleasant questions when people
| continue to complain.
|
| I am sorry this is utterly naive. Have you've seen the
| responses from Politicians so far? They basically call
| anyone that opposes them a paedophile.
|
| I wouldn't put any faith in the journalists either. Most
| either work for the state directly or they have corporate
| masters.
| randallsquared wrote:
| The author's main point is that the law isn't authoritarian
| _enough_ to accomplish its aims. Sigh.
| FerretFred wrote:
| For me personally, I agree that wanting non-adults to be able get
| at online porn is commendable, and the fact that the tech
| industry is scrambling over itself to comply is evidence that
| this Act has teeth. However, what bugs me personally is that 1)
| The Government had nearly 2 years head start to set up a
| centralised ID repository, hopefully basing it on the same model
| as the DVLA and Passport Office sharing photo and other data.
| They did not. 2) Verification sites are not UK based, and
| therefore subject to the same mistrust with handling PII - which
| obviously can't be replaced. 3) There are no Goverment-created
| apps that can/should handle ID verification despite the fact that
| these would probably solve 95% of the problem. 4) Feature
| overreach: if you want to surveil your citizens, be honest for
| once and don't use the knee-jerk carrot of it "being for the
| kids" - we're not as stupid as you think (unfortunately).
|
| That is all.
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| 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?
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| 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!
| Criminals also use those same VPN networks!"
|
| Let me guess... There will be a law requiring ISPs to block
| VPN traffic if the VPN server's hostname isn't registered to
| a business and approved by the government.
|
| UK: "Do you have a license for that VPN?!"
|
| Anyway, download i2p, or Hyphanet/freenet
| john01dav wrote:
| China has been trying for decades to ban VPNs and they have
| failed. It's just an infinite cat and mouse game. There's
| no reason to think that the UK could succeed where China
| has failed.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| Yes, I agree with you. But the average person would no
| longer use a VPN if VPNs were outlawed. The people who
| are clever enough to evade detection like you and I are a
| tiny percentage of the population, and we don't really
| matter.
|
| People like you and I don't truly matter in the grand
| scheme of things, because if the government ban VPNs, we
| will use i2p or TOR, or Hyphanet/freenet.
|
| Surveillance states care about numbers. The more people
| who lose VPN access, the better (from their POV).
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| 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.
| FerretFred wrote:
| 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.
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| 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.
| XorNot wrote:
| There is no possible way to achieve this goal without 4
| happening though: or moreover, without it being possible.
|
| Your prior 3 ideas all end up at "potential government
| surveillance of the people".
|
| There is no way to implement verification like this without
| surveiling everyone, even if you don't plan to use the data -
| the possibility will always be there.
| FerretFred wrote:
| Yes, and this is one reason why we (Brits) have resisted
| Government ID cards for so long.
| ok123456 wrote:
| One of the positive side effects is that this will normalize the
| everyday use of Tor and Tor services. It won't just be for "those
| people" who are paranoid.
| Zak wrote:
| > _a statement like "we should stop young kids watching porn" is
| so agreeable that only the nuttiest amongst us could even begin
| to disagree with it_
|
| I mostly disagree with it. I don't want prepubescent children
| watching porn of course, but the vast majority of them aren't
| doing that with any regularity, nor do they have any desire to.
| It isn't a problem that demands a robust solution with serious
| downsides.
|
| I do think an HTTP header saying "no adult content" that can be
| turned on via both simple browser settings and password-protected
| parental controls is a good idea. That would reduce accidental or
| casual exposure to porn and have no meaningful downsides.
| john01dav wrote:
| I'd prefer the HTTP header be on the response. That way, it
| can't be used for fingerprinting and can easily put the website
| in a more fine grained category (e.g., porn, gore, political
| extremism) and the user agent can be configured to filter based
| on this. You could then create limited but present liability
| for mislabeling.
| chasd00 wrote:
| You'd have to come up with a technical spec on the category
| definitions though. For example, what is porn and what is
| political extremism? That has always been the struggle.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > I mostly disagree with it. I don't want prepubescent children
| watching porn of course, but the vast majority of them aren't
| doing that with any regularity,
|
| This genuinely needs qualification and I suspect, based on
| discussions I have had with friends who are teachers and
| teaching assistants, that you would be horrified by how often
| _very_ young children (seven, eight, nine years old) are
| viewing material that only a couple of generations ago would
| not have been seen in _any_ legal publication in the UK.
|
| > It isn't a problem that demands a robust solution with
| serious downsides.
|
| This is an opinion, not a fact. I think I disagree, but I also
| disagree that websites asking you to verify you can access a
| particular link on a mobile device is a particularly serious
| downside (since that is one of the valid ways of age
| attestation in the UK -- it requires only that your mobile
| phone provider knows you are an adult, which they can establish
| in a number of ways).
| arp242 wrote:
| Since gambling laws have been relaxed in a number of countries
| over the last few years, there has been a rather concerning
| rise in teenage gambling addiction.
|
| This is perhaps a better example than porn. I'd be much more
| worried about my 14-year old spending all of their (or my)
| money on gambling than having a wank every once in a while.
|
| That said, I have accidentally landed on porn sites over the
| years (including in a demo in front of the entire company
| haha). I'm not part of the hyper-prudish American contingent
| where any form of nudity does irreparable trauma to a child,
| but ... there's some pretty wild stuff out there. It's not like
| when I was young and stay up late to sneakily watch a soft-core
| porn at midnight.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| > 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 a shiv.
| fidotron wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2019/03/14/yes-a-poli...
|
| For anyone doubting the veracity of that.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > 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.
|
| And combined with rules on the sales of longer blades that do
| have a point, this idea could genuinely be part of reducing
| knife crime (especially among the very youngest).
|
| Because it does reduce access to knives that would be useful
| for stabbing, and it reduces the severity of injuries caused by
| the youngest in knife crime incidents. Without meaningfully
| affecting the kitchen usefulness of most small blades at all.
|
| If I go to a supermarket and buy a long enough knife with a
| point on it, in theory I am asked to prove my age (in practice
| they laugh at the idea that I might not be young enough). The
| same is true for many (not all) products on Amazon, in fact.
|
| The knife without a point on it did not trigger age
| verification. Nor does a boxcutter type thing, in practice;
| only retractible blades that don't snap off are on the list,
| AFAIK. (And only flick-knife-type mechanisms are banned).
|
| I anticipate being downvoted for simply writing about this, but
| harm reduction through knife sales controls is not something
| that just stupid MPs think: it is supported by expert opinion.
|
| Knife crime in the UK is a problem. It is still not a problem
| as severe per-capita as it is elsewhere, but we are trying
| measures to dissuade it.
|
| Behaviour modification is not always stupid or evil; cultures
| do it all the time.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| [flagged]
| exasperaited wrote:
| [flagged]
| VikingMiner wrote:
| [flagged]
| exasperaited wrote:
| I didn't say that at all. You've totally the legal right
| to use knives in a dangerous way in your home.
|
| It's completely compatible with age restrictions on long
| pointed blades, though, isn't it?
| crtasm wrote:
| Then what's the proper tool for cutting fruit or veg? I
| can't think of one.
| exasperaited wrote:
| I have a small-ish flat-cut paring knife that has a non-
| pointed blade. It is very sharp, and even the squared off
| end is enough to pierce a tomato, say.
|
| I can't think of any application where the point of the
| knive is particularly essential for fruit or veg, and I
| can think of several veg where using the point of a tool
| is actually quite likely to cause an accident. Sweet
| potato being one of them.
|
| There is one true application: deboning or filleting. But
| most people simply don't do this in a kitchen anyway,
| because they are buying deboned and filleted meat.
|
| I don't see a particular problem with asking people who
| do want to cook to that level to prove they are adults
| before buying knives that have such obvious dual use as a
| weapon. Because you're asking people who already know
| they should be responsible with knives (and not for
| example use kitchen knives to get into plastic packaging,
| like an idiot).
|
| You really don't need the point of a kitchen knife all
| that much in a kitchen, and the fact that the
| counterexamples raised are misuse (stabbing into
| packaging etc.) is pretty illustrative.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| Seriously?
|
| A "vegetable knife".
|
| e.g.
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genware-NEV-K-V4R-Vegetable-
| Knife-R...
| exasperaited wrote:
| You could use this, yes. And buy it, as an adult. I have
| not suggested you could not. (I just don't think the
| point is necessary, myself, and I am glad of options
| without it)
|
| But you quite possibly cannot buy it on Amazon or in any
| UK shop already without _proving_ you are an adult if
| your age is in doubt. Do you have a problem with their
| terms on that page?
|
| "Age Verification Required on Delivery: This product is
| not for sale to people under the age of 18. To confirm
| the recipient is over 18 years, valid photographic ID
| with a date of birth may be required upon delivery. The
| driver will input your year of birth into their device
| and may then require an ID check to complete the age
| verification process. The driver will not be able to
| access your information once the delivery is complete."
|
| _(The "may" here is crucial. I've never been asked to
| prove I am an adult this way either, because I look like
| one)_
| crtasm wrote:
| Yes that's a knife, the suggestion was that a knife is
| not the proper tool for the job... somehow.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| No I didn't. I said there was many different types of
| knives in the kitchen and they have different usages.
| exasperaited wrote:
| 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.
| dang wrote:
| 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
| dang wrote:
| > You are believing in the same stupid delusion
|
| Please edit out such swipes from your comments. This is in
| the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| It isn't a swipe. He is literally engaging in the same
| thinking. What else am I supposed to say?
| dang wrote:
| You'd supposed to not tell people they're believing in
| stupid delusions. That's just name-calling, in the sense
| that the site guidelines ask you not to do.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| AndyGravity wrote:
| The poster thinks that knife crime can be reduced by
| making knives not pointy. An idea that is rightfully
| mocked by anyone with two brain cells to rub together. It
| is ridiculous on the face of it. Anyone believes in it is
| believing in something ridiculous. Believing in things
| that are obviously ridiculous is delusional. Therefore it
| is not name calling. It is a statement of fact.
|
| Repeatedly sending someone a link to the rules do not in
| anyway stop this from being a statement of fact.
| exasperaited wrote:
| It's your opinion.
|
| This guy (a chef and a long-serving royal marine) has a
| different opinion, for instance:
|
| https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2025/may/commando-
| chef-...
|
| This former circuit judge who now works for a knife crime
| unit:
|
| https://www.fightingknifecrime.london/news-posts/the-
| need-fo...
|
| This research unit proved that they are less dangerous:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rounded-
| knif...
|
| Quite a lot of research is being done on this, quite a
| lot of police forces support it, and more to the point,
| British retailers already distinguish between these
| knives in terms of what young people can buy.
|
| So it's not just one MP and one guy on HN is it?
|
| But I am delusional, for sure, because I believe that
| experts deserve a hearing.
| danaris wrote:
| > 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.
| exasperaited wrote:
| 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.
| AngryData wrote:
| A tipless knife may prevent accidents, but if you
| purposefully tried to stab yourself or someone else with one
| of those knives, do you honestly believe it wouldn't tear
| right through your flesh? Neither my butter knives or bread
| knives have tips, and yet I could easily stab people with
| them.
| arp242 wrote:
| _" 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.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| 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 <thing> should be banned or not.
| k1t wrote:
| Some sites (eg Google) offer child friendly versions where safe
| search is enforced, by accessing the site using a different set
| of IPs. Some DNS providers (eg Cloudflare 1.1.1.3) automatically
| resolve to those safe IPs when available.
|
| The government should require sites with "unsafe" content to make
| "safe" versions available (eg force safe mode, readonly, no
| signup). Sites that are wholly inappropriate for children should
| self-report so they can be made unresolvable by child-safe DNS.
|
| I'm not saying this specific implementation is the one true way,
| there's alternatives and ways to work around it. My real point is
| that the government should have forced sites to implement a
| _consistent_ method of enforcing child safe mode, that can be
| easily set in a _blanket_ fashion by the parent.
|
| I'm sure whatever approach will be "too technical" for many
| parents at first, but once a consistent safe-mode method becomes
| clear, I'm sure UIs and parental controls will evolve to make it
| easy to enable.
| gushie wrote:
| By default for me (in the UK) it still seems possible to view
| porn in a Google image search in an incognito browser tab. I
| don't think non technical parents can be expected to change
| their DNS settings to something safe to block it. I'm a bit
| unclear as to what the online safety bill is solving if Google
| can ignore it.
| betaby wrote:
| UK now cached up with Russia of 2015. One may even say Russia is
| 10 years ahead!
| arp242 wrote:
| > I mean, there are already a raft of tools available to stop
| children accessing harmful content online. There are filters and
| protections and safeguards on almost every device on the market
| today. If children are constantly accessing harmful content, it's
| because these settings haven't been enabled by parents or
| guardians.
|
| These parental controls rather suck though; see e.g. [1]. This
| basically matches my own experience.
|
| I do agree with the general gist of it, but it's not as simple as
| "these tools already exist, we just need to educate people".
| There is real work to be done here before this is usable.
|
| And why isn't there a "Content-Rating: sex" or "Content-Rating:
| gambling" HTTP header? Or something along those lines? Why isn't
| there one easy "under 12" button on a phone to lock down tons of
| stuff, from PornHub to gambling sites to what-have-you? All of
| this is also a failing of the technical community to actually
| build reasonable and usable standards and tools, too.
|
| [1]: _Parental controls? What parental controls?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38314224 - Nov 2023
| (archive, since site is down:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231119003608/https://gabrielsi...)
| fidotron wrote:
| > And why isn't there a "Content-Rating: sex" or "Content-
| Rating: gambling" HTTP header? Or something along those lines?
| Why isn't there one easy "under 12" button on a phone to lock
| down tons of stuff, from PornHub to gambling sites to what-
| have-you? All of this is also a failing of the technical
| community to actually build reasonable and usable standards and
| tools, too.
|
| The mobile app world solved this years ago, and successfully
| generates age ratings for different countries based on
| developer interviews. (It's part of the app submission
| process).
|
| There are problems with the mobile app world, but that isn't
| one of them.
| gs17 wrote:
| > And why isn't there a "Content-Rating: sex" or "Content-
| Rating: gambling" HTTP header?
|
| There kind of was one:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_...
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Look, if parents are that willfully ignorant they will just
| build a better idiot, no matter how easy it is to use.
| snozolli wrote:
| Children shouldn't have unsupervised access to the Internet. Stop
| off-loading parenting onto politicians who infringe on liberty in
| the name of a (false) sense of security.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| They're not offloading it onto the politicians. The politicians
| are taking that onto themselves against the will of many of the
| parents.
| dcow wrote:
| The core argument presented is that children watching porn is a
| cultural problem and therefore can't be addressed by a technical
| solution.
|
| I agree with the preface that the online safety act is a big
| dumpster fire. Regulators and lawmakers can and often do fail to
| effectively regulate.
|
| I disagree that calling it a cultural problem and saying "oh
| well, can't do anything" is a legitimate conclusion. I mean
| governments aren't _supposed_ to attack cultural problems, only
| protect the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. Nobody wants
| the government telling you what clothes to wear and what shows to
| watch.
|
| The rhetorical "example" given is just plain false. It's not like
| the government sending someone to your house to age check you
| when you pick up a knife. It's like them requiring a bouncer at
| the door of a knife store.
|
| We ID people for purchase of alcohol. It's not perfect. Older
| kids get around it. And it's definitely a "cultural problem" to
| some degree. But there isn't _harm_ being caused by requiring an
| age check to purchase.
|
| So often lately I see people letting perfect be the enemy of
| good.
|
| If you wanted to fix problems with the implementation of the
| online safety act you would loosen the burden imposed on user
| content driven communities by exposing the individuals posting to
| legal liability for their posts rather than imposing
| unimplementable moderation requirements on the service operators.
| You would attack institutional porn not message boards where
| someone uploads a nsfw photo. Regulators don't understand the
| stratification of the internet. You'd require sites that fall
| under regulation to use digital ID documents. You make it illegal
| for that data to be stored at all and simply tell sites to update
| a column in the user db "age verified: true". You would not use
| IP address-based or credit card based filtering.
|
| There are many ways this could have been not a regulatory
| dumpster fire and still moved the needle towards sustainable and
| effective online ID document presentation. One example of failure
| doesn't damn the whole concept.
|
| In this instance, though, the online safety act should definitely
| be repealed and reworked.
|
| Also no parental controls are not readily and widely available
| nor are they easy to configure and install, not least because of
| lack of a digital ID story.
| holowoodman wrote:
| The world isn't child-safe. Nobody would want children to play on
| a motorway, nobody would feed children xxxtra-hot curry of death,
| nobody would want children to drive a car or play with kitchen
| knifes.
|
| Yet none of those far more problematic things comes with an age
| check, a fence, government controls or any special kinds of
| locks. We just educate children, and parents pay attention.
| Children that are too young to understand are put in special
| places like kindergarten, and even at a later age are often
| supervised by responsible adults.
|
| I don't see why the internet should suddenly be all of that in
| reverse: Things like the online safety act require a whole world
| full of child-safe sites, and a child-impenetrable fence put
| around the few ones considered unsafe. This is totally ass-
| backwards.
| Aerroon wrote:
| > _Yet none of those far more problematic things comes with an
| age check, a fence, government controls or any special kinds of
| locks._
|
| I was thinking about this the other day: everyone has knives at
| home. Sharp and deadly. Yet I've never heard of somebody
| putting a lock on their knife drawer. Instead, the knives are
| almost always easily accessible to anyone, including kids. Yet
| somehow that is not a hugely dangerous safety issue that must
| be taken care of.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23849364/
|
| Results: An estimated 8,250,914 (95% confidence interval [CI]
| 7,149,074-9,352,755) knife-related injuries were treated in
| US EDs from 1990 to 2008, averaging 434,259 (95% CI
| 427,198-441,322) injuries annually, or 1190 per day. The
| injury rate was 1.56 injuries per 1000 US resident population
| per year. Fingers/thumbs (66%; 5,447,467 of 8,249,410) were
| injured most often, and lacerations (94%; 7,793,487 of
| 8,249,553) were the most common type of injury.
| Pocket/utility knives were associated with injury most often
| (47%; 1,169,960 of 2,481,994), followed by cooking/kitchen
| knives (36%; 900,812 of 2,481,994).
|
| Children were more likely than adults to be injured while
| playing with a knife or during horseplay (p < 0.01; odds
| ratio 9.57; 95% CI 8.10-11.30).
|
| One percent of patients were admitted to the hospital, and
| altercation-related stabbings to the trunk accounted for 52%
| of these admissions.
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