Online Safety Act

[JimJay]

I think people need to read the detail of this before making silly comments.
Anyone that knows the harms of online content will appreciate why this legislation is happening and ought to be supportive of it.

Yes, site owners will have do a risk assessment, possibly increase moderation and may need to change some forum features. If that's too onerous maybe they shouldn't be running sites at all.

And I think that people should engage their brains before making silly comments like yours.

The OSA would be better named The Whingers & Feckless Parents Act and "anyone that knows the harms of online content" should have the nous to ignore the garbage for themselves and/or ensure that they know what their children are doing on their electronic devices. If they're unable or unwilling to exercise personal responsibility, then perhaps a Ban Idiots From Having Internet Access Act would be more appropriate?

I'm lucky in that I live in a country where the government doesn't see it as their duty to interfere with how grown-ups choose to use the internet or what they permit their children to do, and the population responds, by and large, by behaving responsibly. The nation has experienced the dubious benefits of a Socialist Nanny State and has decided that it wants nothing to do with another - and pensioners still get supplied with cheap heating in the winter here!

 

[mudman]

Somewhat amusing that you berate people for applying a caveat to free speech, and then immediately go on to say you think it's sensible to have a caveat to free speech.

Why can't I call for violence, why are you trying to silence me and take my freedom of speech? We'll end up in a N.Korean dictatorship if we can't call for violence to prevent it.
(To be clear this is sarcasm in case it was not obvious)

Even in the US they have that caveat. An explicit call to violence will get you in trouble.
I don't think you understand what @Delaney is trying to explain to you. Don't worry though, there are others in this thread having the same difficulty.
Freedom of speech/expression is a fundamental right, you can say whatever you want, it is just that you need to accept that saying some things will get you into trouble such as the punch in the face for insulting the wrong person or arrested for inciting violence, but the right exists. Except in the UK, it doesn't any more. There are now laws in place that target the speech, not the outcomes and that brings in restrictions as to what people can say and leads to people misinterpreting these restrictions to think they are more draconian than they are. This then instils a sense of fear that cause people to self-censor and that is where we have the loss of an important freedom.

 

[Rhossydd]

or ensure that they know what their children are doing on their electronic devices.

You haven't got children in the digital age then.

 

[Spectric]

What about an example, someone punches someone to the ground and is videoed doing it so admits guilt and escapes prison but loses their job whilst a women says something on social media but has taken no actions yet gets locked up.

This scoffing at turning into North Korea is short sighted.

The thing to remember is nothing happens in an instant, there is a starting point and an end point with change between. So Russia was once a monarchy, look at how it is now, the same for Korea and again a massive change and a country divided so look at how many monarchies have fallen over the centuries and ask yourself why is the UK any different in that it could never happen here. If you end up so divided as a country then you lose a majority of support for having the current monarch or type of leadership so having the freedom of speech can keep everything in the public domain and not behind closed doors.

 

[Spectric]

You haven't got children in the digital age then.

Does that mean that in the digital age parents have lost control over their kids, yes I know discipline has been phased out and kids get rewarded for bad behavior by being sent home and excluded but the very first things any kid learns should be right and wrong and good behavior which is taught by parents before school age. Is it now a case that schools are failing the parents and undoing any good the parents had previously taught ?

 

[JimJay]

Free speech is a bunch of nonsense. Nobody wants or needs absolute free speech.

'There is no greater harm done to a people or society, than buy those removing freedoms in the name of doing good.'

Really? It's funny how free speech did the exact opposite of what you say in the case of Hitler, who got to say what he liked and coerce others into thinking the same way. Didn't work out that well, did it. We are seeing the same populist tactics used today and the same outcome - the powerful get more powerful.

Perhaps a greater harm is being done by $multi-billion media corporations using culture wars to fuel division.

Societies have rules and limits for a reason. It helps if everyone gets along. A lot of those rules used to be called manners, but they seem to have increasing disappeared with the arrival of 'free speech'.

And whilst everyone is shouting about whether they have the right to swear at strangers on the internet, nobody is paying attention to the global corporations taking over pretty much everything. You want to worry about free speech? Maybe you should be trying to stop companies like Amazon taking over even more of the worlds internet. AWS currently runs 31% of the internet! Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google—combined—accounted for a total of 68 percent share of the $84 billion global cloud market in third-quarter 2024.

Can you just remind me what it is that qualifies you to declare that "Nobody wants or needs absolute free speech"? You certainly don't speak for me, or the millions of other adults who are perfectly capable of deciding what they "want or need" - and equally able to ignore or reject what we don't!

And what makes you think that you're the only one who has noticed that global corporations are taking over everything? What exactly are you doing to counter this, apart from hinting that the rest of us are too dim to realise what's going on?

 

[Rhossydd]

Does that mean that in the digital age parents have lost control over their kids,

No more so than any other age, just different problems.

 

[niall Y]

Government set the judiciary landscape, they set, amend and enact the laws into legislature. The police then enforce said laws, then judiciary prosecute those laws.

When governments change laws or want to focus on one area, then the police and judiciary have to follow.

One could also add that any government of the day, in certain instances, send messages to the general public through the severe sentencing policy of the judiciary.

I have always thought that the law should be applied even-handedly, That, in certain cases - usually to do with public order - much harsher sentences than usual, are handed out, indicates that this is not the case.

 

[Agent_zed]

4) This scoffing at turning into North Korea is short sighted. You don't have to be NK, you can be the UK, where apparently 6x as many people last year were arrested for speech violations than in Russia.

A. Perhaps 6x as many people in the UK were saying illegal things.
B. In Russia you tend to fall out of a window before you get arrested

Even in the US they have that caveat. An explicit call to violence will get you in trouble.
I don't think you understand what @Delaney is trying to explain to you. Don't worry though, there are others in this thread having the same difficulty.
Freedom of speech/expression is a fundamental right, you can say whatever you want, it is just that you need to accept that saying some things will get you into trouble such as the punch in the face for insulting the wrong person or arrested for inciting violence, but the right exists. Except in the UK, it doesn't any more. There are now laws in place that target the speech, not the outcomes and that brings in restrictions as to what people can say and leads to people misinterpreting these restrictions to think they are more draconian than they are. This then instils a sense of fear that cause people to self-censor and that is where we have the loss of an important freedom.

I understood exactly what Delaney was saying and he clearly contradicted himself by adding a caveat that he's happy with, whilst denying someone else to have a caveat that they agree with. Clearly you did not understand the irony of such a statement.

3) Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you have to be an a hole to people. It just means that you have the right and protection to call things out. There are up sides and down sides to it but it is wiser to have it than not.

Agree you don't have to, but the vast majority of 'free speech' seems to revolve around telling everyone that whatever problem exists is some specific group of peoples fault. This is then amplified by the highly biased media to stoke culture wars and ultimately benefit financially a few people.

Let's be serious there is little to no problem with going online and stating that

'Inner city crime crime is a problem because X group of people account for 53% of crimes. We need a robust strategy to educate and provide opportunity to this group. It has been shown that investment in education leads to reduced crime rates'

Whereas 'free speech' tends to end up as -

'Inner city crime is all because of X group. We need to run them out of the country. Push them into the sea for all I care'


Can you see the difference?

 

[Blackswanwood]

I think this thread has drifted.

Unless you want to promote/engage in ...

child sexual abuse
- controlling or coercive behaviour
- extreme sexual violence
- extreme pornography
- fraud
- racially or religiously aggravated public order offences
- inciting violence
- illegal immigration and people smuggling
- promoting or facilitating suicide
- intimate image abuse
- selling illegal drugs or weapons
- sexual exploitation
- terrorism

... the Online Safety Act is not something to get hot under the collar about.

I'll just take the opportunity to exercise my right to freedom of speech ... the comments about this being down to bad parenting just show how detached from reality some people are.

 

[mudman]

A. Perhaps 6x as many people in the UK were saying illegal things.
B. In Russia you tend to fall out of a window before you get arrested


I understood exactly what Delaney was saying and he clearly contradicted himself by adding a caveat that he's happy with, whilst denying someone else to have a caveat that they agree with. Clearly you did not understand the irony of such a statement.


Agree you don't have to, but the vast majority of 'free speech' seems to revolve around telling everyone that whatever problem exists is some specific group of peoples fault. This is then amplified by the highly biased media to stoke culture wars and ultimately benefit financially a few people.

Let's be serious there is little to no problem with going online and stating that

'Inner city crime crime is a problem because X group of people account for 53% of crimes. We need a robust strategy to educate and provide opportunity to this group. It has been shown that investment in education leads to reduced crime rates'

Whereas 'free speech' tends to end up as -

'Inner city crime is all because of X group. We need to run them out of the country. Push them into the sea for all I care'


Can you see the difference?

Oh I could see that you intended irony even if you labelled it as sarcasm. Although if you did intend sarcasm, then it could be interpreted as you intending to hurt or insult with your words (check out the etymology of the word) and so someone could become offended and so your free speech has caused hurt and then maybe you should bear the consequences or shall we prohibit sarcasm so that you can't do it again?

The difference between your two examples is that the first is an assessment of a problem, one probably backed up by data that hasn't been further broken down into the categories of perpetrators and the reasons they commit crime. Without that, the second part is impossible to achieve and so the whole statement becomes meaningless and causes worse outcomes, such as the second statement, that can be seen as a consequence of not being honest with the data, and showing who are committing the offences and why. This is then leading to people making unfounded statements based on perception and maybe lived experiences, and then providing a solution that everyone can see is unworkable and not valid. However, the important thing is that whoever makes the second statement is allowed to say what they think, however ridiculous it might be. I suppose you will now argue that the statement will result in a mass uprising of right wing hooligans that will round up such people and drive them into the see off the coast of Sussex as a justification for banning the sentiments.

 

[Jake]

You are confusing the two. Freedom of speech refers specifically to the protection of spoken or written words whereas freedom of expression is a broader term that includes not just speech but also other forms of expression like art, music, dance, body language, symbols, and even silence. So, if you have freedom of speech, you may not have freedom of expression but if you have freedom of expression, then you also have freedom of speech.
So, your protestor's banners are allowed under both freedoms.

Oh really? Which Article is Freedom of Speech then. I'll wait.

 

[Agent_zed]

Oh I could see that you intended irony even if you labelled it as sarcasm. Although if you did intend sarcasm, then it could be interpreted as you intending to hurt or insult with your words (check out the etymology of the word) and so someone could become offended and so your free speech has caused hurt and then maybe you should bear the consequences or shall we prohibit sarcasm so that you can't do it again?

The irony note was in relation to Delaney's statement. The sarcasm was the example I provided afterwards. Two entirely different things. But let's not get into semantics.

The entire point I am making is that there should be consequences to 'free speech' that actively causes harm and this should be proportionate to the situation and outcome. A sarcastic example like this is unlikely to cause harm, and if so a possibly appropriate consequence would be an apology (Apologies to Delaney if my sarcasm caused offence), an inappropriate consequence would be armed police smashing down my door and arresting me. But the police aren't going to do that and this new amend to the law is not going to make them do that, despite the insistence that if we can't say anything to anyone (apparently excluding calls to violence because reasons) we'll instantly become a dictatorship.

I believe I'm correct that we weren't in a dicatorship before the internet, so I'm reasonably confident that we won't suddenly end up in one if more laws are in place so that I'm not allowed to send online death threats to people in the name of free speech. The playing field changed and we are now updating the rules, it may take a while to get right but allowing a complete wild west internet is clearly not working.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Most democratic countries allow the challenging of laws being brought in by a government by a judicial process and their rejection if necessary.

It usually allows challenges to the enforcement being carried out by a police or other enforcement agency to the judiciary.

Agreed.
Poignantly, in the case of the UK in particular, it is not in the distant past that we have seen mainstream media print headlines such as "Enemy of the People" when the Judiciary very successfully pushed back against a government's own particular agenda. So we do indeed have an independent Judiciary - the evidence for which has been paraded before our very eyes. And it works in the absolute reverse of what has been proposed.

When there is a situation where the judiciary is being "packed" with government "stooges", this is where democracy breaks down.

This is indeed a very significant issue and highlights a very different view of "Freedom of Speech" that some countries who apparently (yet only selectively) worship at the altar of "Freedom of Speech" (at the direct expense of equality and fraternity - go figure!)

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

I disagree. The government has decided that antisemitism, for example, is against the law. Having to enforce the law, the police deal with people who have strong views on the subject. So the police are not separate, they are inextricably linked to government. And yes, the governments' views are enforced in law.

No - the Police are not "linked" to government. Far from it. The Police enforce the law as it is written. I agree that it is the PARLIAMENT that passes those laws, but not all laws of today are "aligned to the government in sitting".

So on these terms alone, the Police are separate and distinct from government. And on many, many other terms. As an example, a Home Secretary may well be in direct supervision of Policing, and therefore in some respects "in charge of the Police", but a Home Secretary (Their Government Department Head) cannot influence the police into acting outside of the previously established and laid down law, regardless of any specific agenda. That's just intentional baloney. Perhaps not your baloney, but it IS a repeat of intentional baloney, even if it is unwittingly.

Saying that Police enforce "the government's agenda" is therefore absolutely refutable in fact.
Saying that Police enforce "the government's agenda" explicitly denotes that it is the sitting government and that it is the "current agenda". Once again, this is refutable in fact.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

<snip>

....you can be the UK, where apparently 6x as many people last year were arrested for speech violations than in Russia.

On who's official statistics?
Please just think about that more closely...

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

What about an example, someone punches someone to the ground and is videoed doing it so admits guilt and escapes prison but loses their job whilst a women says something on social media but has taken no actions yet gets locked up.

If a person "admits guilt" to punching someone to the ground (ie - pleads guilty at the court after being arrested for an offence) - the court is required to observe sentencing rules and pass an "appropriate sentence". If punching someone to the ground doesn't result in custodial sentence, and I don't know if it should or if it is "commonly given" as a sentence, then that is because the sentencing guidance says so. Some sentencing guidance appears out of kilter for some offences to the common joe such as myself - but it will have been considered at time of passing the law and updated thereafter...

Ultimately, the example you are using is pretty meaningless without appropriate context.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

One could also add that any government of the day, in certain instances, send messages to the general public through the severe sentencing policy of the judiciary.

No, this is an out and out lie.

The government of the day does not and cannot interfere with "severe sentencing". It cannot. Sentencing is specifically controlled by the Judiciary. Current Sentencing Guidance is edited and amended ONLY by the Judiciary.

 

[Delaney]

A. Perhaps 6x as many people in the UK were saying illegal things.
B. In Russia you tend to fall out of a window before you get arrested


I understood exactly what Delaney was saying and he clearly contradicted himself by adding a caveat that he's happy with, whilst denying someone else to have a caveat that they agree with. Clearly you did not understand the irony of such a statement.


Agree you don't have to, but the vast majority of 'free speech' seems to revolve around telling everyone that whatever problem exists is some specific group of peoples fault. This is then amplified by the highly biased media to stoke culture wars and ultimately benefit financially a few people.

Let's be serious there is little to no problem with going online and stating that

'Inner city crime crime is a problem because X group of people account for 53% of crimes. We need a robust strategy to educate and provide opportunity to this group. It has been shown that investment in education leads to reduced crime rates'

Whereas 'free speech' tends to end up as -

'Inner city crime is all because of X group. We need to run them out of the country. Push them into the sea for all I care'


Can you see the difference?

You insist I contradicted myself but I didn’t.
My position has always been that free speech is the mechanism with which we speak truth to power and sort good ideas from bad ideas.
The ideals of free speech have always been nested in the idea that we do make explicit calls to violence. I never once made an argument that it shouldn’t be.
It is from within that confine that we talk about free speech.

Regarding Uk vs Russia, we know full well that many of the thousands locked up last year for speech, did not make calls to violence. Which is extremely worrying and part of the problem regarding the increasing draconian and authoritarian laws being passed surrounding speech.
Your falling out of a window meme is proving the point. In Russia where freedoms and life are so awful, many more people are arrested in the Uk for saying something the state disagrees with.

 

[bbtex]

Oh really? Which Article is Freedom of Speech then. I'll wait.

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are asking for. I gave you some definitions, as you seem to be confusing what they actually mean. So, as your question needs some work, I'll wait for you to refine it, then I may be able to answer it.