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British PM Candidate Promises Social Media Crackdown (politico.eu)
Theresa May's party "is expected to win a majority at the June 8 election," reports Reuters -- and she's promising they'll pass new social media laws. An anonymous reader quotes Politico:
They want to introduce a new measure that could fine or punish internet firms which fail to adequately flag and take down content harmful to minors or "direct users unintentionally to hate speech, pornography or other sources of harm," according to a press release. "The internet has brought a wealth of opportunity but also significant new risks which have evolved faster than society's response to them," May said. "We want social media companies to do more to help redress the balance and will take action to make sure they do"... The Conservative digital platform also promises to better protect Brits' personal information, compelling social media companies to trash user records from before the age of 18. The party plans to encourage the development of digital by default government and business services, as well.
the Tories are planning to ban themselves from the internet then?
I thankfully had an Irish grandfather, obtained an Irish passport and I'm out.
I deeply pity all those people left in the UK who can't get out.
I may be wrong, but States seem to me to be like a cartel. Each of them basically refuses entry to anyone else; but this also means *you can't get out when your country goes bad*. And that's just fine for the local Government. They can be complete fuckwits and you can't do a thing.
Since British parents are total suck-wads at being parents, we will do it for them.
British PM Candidate Explains, "I don't understand how the Internet works!"
There seems to be an awful lot of politicians that don't understand how powerless they are to control what happens outside of their country.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
In the EU, the GDPR will give EU citizens roughly the same powers. The UK is leaving the EU, so this law will be a replacement for it.
Quantum hacker.
They'll fall all over themselves contorting into some explanation as to why they support a totalitarian wannabe like May, just because they'll get their precious withdrawal from the EU.
Man, you get in bed with snakes, you wake up with your brain poisoned like Baelor the Blessed, never the same again.
With "hate speech" they now have full coverage of the political spectrum. Whether it's "for the children", "against icky porn" or "against hate speech". There's something for every activist to approve. It's a smash hit across Europe.
Good luck defining "hate speech, pornography or other sources of harm," or what it means to direct users towards them. Sounds like a full employment plan for politicians.
Let's ban kitchen knifes, smartphones with cameras (because they could be used to make an explicit pictures of teens we love so much) and computers with keyboards on which most of hate speech (including this one) has been written.
This is the biggest bullshit cop-out the thought police have ever pushed. There's no evidence of any "harm" brought on minors by viewing adult content. Unless you define "harm" to mean "having thoughts and feelings we don't like."
Remember, a censor is someone who knows more than he thinks YOU should.
Inappropriate? Yes. Harmful? Laughable.
"direct users unintentionally to"
So if it's unintentional that means a bug or error has been found in software designed to define the content
Are we going to punish companies for bugs? Perhaps the measure should at least allow the companies to address it in a timely manner, or to prove that they were at least attempting to be stringent? A punishment for something unintentional seems a little extreme.
Twinstiq, game news
Next Article: Britain is disconnected from the Internet to avoid all content they cannot control.
No more available on this story, since we've been unable to communicate with anyone actually in Britain.
Realistically, the best they can hope for is getting other European countries to follow. They'll never get the USA to follow - freedom of speech, even unpopular, is protected. We have very unpopular groups spewing all sorts of crap over here. They are using their "freedom of speech."
It is also why our elections can be bought - freedom of speech - it trumps almost every other law, except the national security laws (it seems).
Protect private information by digitising it all in insecure systems (NHS) or collating it all in databases to protect the majority of non criminals from having to think we're not being watched without reason.
I feel safer already...
We don't directly elect our Prime Minister so Theresa May isn't a PM candidate. Wish people would get this right
This could go a long way toward persuading average Brits they should protect their privacy...and make it considerably more difficult for law enforcement to sort out the really bad stuff from relatively harmless things.
For example, if I were an ISP, I'd probably start offering discounts to customers based on the level of internet security they were willing to employ. If a customer was willing to make it impossible or incredibly difficult and expensive for me to determine what sites they were visiting, I'd be willing to knock quite a bit off their monthly internet bill.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Free speech dies when social justice is "enforced".
One persons hate speech is their political enemies voice. How convienient!!
... these people sure have huge hard-ons for cracking down on porn (i.e. nudity of any extent). All for the children, of course.
Simply to deny use of any Social media to anyone who is considered a minor.
Problem solved.
Far cheaper and easier a solution than to try and mediate every post, image and video that can be found there.
While UK citizens embraced the web with the same enthusiasm they had once embraced the home computer revolution, no Google or Yahoo or Youtube or the like ever arose in the UK. And that was because DRACONIAN UK laws from long before the new Orwellian net specific ones made Brits terrified of government response to any signs of real people-power online. The UK is the home of the rael police state- and it is all the worse because the goons that rule the UK use 'velvet gloves' with iron fists inside, but successfully propagandise their vile anti-Human actions as 'for the greater good' on state controlled mainstream media outles like the BBC, ITV and all major UK newspapers.
The newspapers and the BBC in particular specialise in the 'rabid dog' attacks- so if your service has ANY 'offending' content, the media scum state it should be shut down. So no British Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, major forum services etc- cos all of them run the risk of 'difficult' use of freedom of speech- a no-no in Britian. Of course, the FOREIGN run services have been left alone til now while enough Brits addicted to the Internet and the tech arose to allow the British Deep State to control and censor them absolutely while still benefitting from GCHQ data-mining of ordinary Brits' digital lives.
There is no free speech in the UK- instead you are 'free' to say anything the government approves of. Only 'criminals' wish to 'abuse' free speech to say things the mainstream media describe as 'bad' so obviously Britain must have laws to criminalise such speech- and that includes all forms of non-'normal' sexuality outside the currently trendy 'gay' stuff. Britain's 'gay' politicians have all lined up behind the new laws banning other forms of 'alternative' sexuality online- and that tells you all you need to know about the real 'gay' agenda currently pushed by politicians across the West. But of course the same 'pro-gay' politicians all support Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi agenda across the once peaceful secular Muslim world, bringing heavy anti-'gay' actions into nations that were more than tolerant only a decade or so back. Sane people judge politicians by their DEEDS not words, and people like Clinton and May have tireless worked to spread the anti-female, anti-gay extremist Islamic terrorism of Saudi Arabia across Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, North and Central Africa etc.
May is a monster fronting for far worse monsters, but Britain has no Trump as an option, just another monster, Corbyn, whose job it is to be so awful that people vote for May. Clinton was supposed to win the election the same way, by facing Republican candidates chosen specifically for their hopelessness. This is why Trump came as such a nasty surprise to the Deep State fixers of both major US parties.
The nanny state is at it again. Instead of limiting access to the kids, they limit everybody else.
They really do live in a different universe than us, just like Juncker said, after that dinner with P.M. May.
They have many illusions and this is another one.
Prime Minister is not, in itself, an elected position. It is a position held, by the leader of the party which forms the government after an election (whether in a majority or a minority) Potentially ()although it is very unlikely) Theresa May's party might win and she might not actually get elected in her constituency - at that point she could NOT be Prime Minister.
UK already has hate speech laws, which must've been fine with you. And they are not "obsolete", but actively prosecuted.
Which was so cool with the "anti Tories", their Illiberal American brethren would love such laws to come to the land of the First Amendment — to the annoyance of the earlier generation of Illiberals, flabbergasted at what their rhetoric lead to.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
http://www.tmay.co.uk/
So this is it, the base line for acceptable content on the Web in the UK.
It's far better than taxes since it doesn't take money from citizens. It doesn't affect domestic internet companies since all the big social media outfits are american. In fact it is "free" cash.
There are plenty of cases of the US government fining foreign companies for contravening its laws. Many times they have to pay $$$$ billions. So if european governments can get some revenue by tapping american companies, it's just part fo the same game.
And since many american companies have huge stashes of money that they refuse to repatriate to the US, as they would get heavily taxed on it, it's not as if the home-country is losing anything, either.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Excerpt: "The country was listed among the "Enemies of the Internet" in 2014 by Reporters Without Borders,[6] a category of countries with the highest level of internet censorship and surveillance that "mark themselves out not just for their capacity to censor news and information online but also for their almost systematic repression of Internet users".[7] Other major economies listed in this category include China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia."
It ends basically with internet related companies fleeing the country, a great firewall blocking external country access, and government level persecution of businesses and companies.
On the other hand, this goes directly against:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Excerpt: "It also enhanced existing defences, by introducing a defence for website operators hosting user-generated content (provided they comply with a procedure to enable the complainant to resolve disputes directly with the author of the material concerned or otherwise remove it), and introducing new statutory defences of truth, honest opinion, and "publication on a matter of public interest" or privileged publications (including peer reviewed scientific journals), to replace the common law defences of justification, fair comment, and the Reynolds defence respectively. However, it did not quite codify defamation law into a single statute.[4][5]"
It goes one way or the other. Political speeches have no effect in matters that are already estabilished. The whole thing sounds reactionary and not well thought through. As if this was a new thing... but I guess congratulations for Theresa May's party for realizing something that has been going on over 20 years now.
You can take the daughter out of the vicarage, but you can't take the vicarage out of the daughter.
Not that anything will happen. It's just throwing a bone to Daily Mail readers which is pretty pointless as they're all dedicated Tory voters, especially now the BNP has imploded.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Will that be before or after they have to hand them over to the secret police under the new Snooper's Charter?
Says Theresa May:
"The internet has brought a wealth of opportunity but also significant new risks which have evolved faster than society's response to them."
And by "society" you mean... you? The government?
Government is not nor should it act on behalf of "society". Try understanding the difference, and we can all get along just fine.
Might makes right irrelevant.
This wat we can ban all promotion of conservative party policies. I can quit clearly be demonstrated that tories are harmful, not just to minors, but to anyone who values healthcare, education, job security, peace, and competent government.
Does Theresa May aspire to be elected to an office?
Yes, she does but only for Member of Parliament, NOT Prime Minister. The position of PM is not an elected one but an appointed one. The reigning monarch chooses the PM but by long-standing tradition always picks the leader of the party with a majority of seats in the commons. The PM remains in office until either they step down or they are fired by the monarch. They may also have to step down if they lose a confidence motion but I'm not sure whether that is legally binding or whether it just means that they have lost the ability to govern so they always do step down.
So she really is not a "candidate for PM" but just a leader of her party who is seeking re-election and, if her party gets enough seats, she will be appointed PM and command enough support in the commons to be able to hold the position.
If the UK make themselves irrelevant by hamstringing their ability to adapt and work in 'high tech', some other country will take over for them. So the rest of the world will be OK. The UK will suffer for her policies, and eventually she'll be fired in another election. Unless of course the opposition parties keep running fucktard incompetents. It's up to Britains to figure out whether they like her policies or not and act accordingly.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
to the annoyance of the earlier generation of Illiberals flabbergasted at what their rhetoric lead to
A stitch in time saves nine: If only we had restricted that dangerous earlier generation liberal rhetoric we'd be spared the threat of censorship now. Ban the ACLU now to protect civil liberties!
Politician makes vague promises during election campaign, news at eleven.
Fuck you May! does that count as hate speech? You are 1984 incarnate May!... I wonder, will she also require all history on the internet to be retroactively re-written... check back here to find out in 6 months! FUCK YOU MAY!!! wooo.
Representative democracy doesn't work that way...
Why don't we fix it, then?
Whatever happened to parental responsibility? The parents are responsible to monitor what their children are doing online, not the government.