Police to get tough on internet trolls.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

After concerns about plans to weaken moderation, Elon Musk has been invited to appear before a Commons Select Committee regarding his intention to purchaseTwitter..

Julian Kinight, who chairs the DCMS panel, will be asking him to explain how he will be balancing his commitment to free speech with the forthcoming obligations on websites to protect users from harm under the Online Safety Bill.

Deja vu!

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Each morning, during the Radio 4 breakfast programme 'Today', there is a segment called 'Thought for the Day'. This is where reflections are offered from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news.

This morning, following the MP admitting that he had viewed pornography in Parliament, Rhidian Brook took a look at the issue of pornography.

He began by examining the negative aspects of online porn, including the normalisation of violence against women, torture etc and that children were actually using porn as a form of sex education!

He went on to reveal that a study by the British Board of Film Classification revealed the shocking result that 60% of 11-13 year olds had viewed porn accidentally on their devices. One of Rhidians friends has a son who was shamefully sent home from school for viewing porn. He was so traumatised by the shame of being caught and by the content that he'd accessed that his father dedicated himself to ensuring that age verification on the internet be made a legal requirement and the result will form part of the Online Safety Bill:

He ended his talk with the following quoatation from the Bible:





https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016xj0

Members of a certain age may remember the wonderful Floella Benjamin from the BBC children's programme 'Play School'.

Floella is now a member of the House of Lords for the Liberal Democrats. In an interview that I saw yesterday, she explained that she has always fought for the rights of and protection for the most vulnerable and discriminated against in society. She went on to say that she believes that children are our most vulnerable citizens because they don't have a voice and that this is why she is putting her support behind the Online Safety Bill, particularly with regards to preventing children from accessing online pornography.

---------- Post added at 07:12 ---------- Previous post was at 06:47 ----------

Yesterday's Radio 4 programme 'You & Yours' contained a report about the growing problem of facebook and Instagram accounts being taken over by scammers:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016xqv

Many of these are owned by small businesses. Once they have taken control, they try to blackmail the true account holders because they know that these sites are essential to their business, but even those that do pay don't get their accounts back.

Instead, the friends/followers of the accounts are scammed for money in the name of the true account holder.

Reporting this to Meta, who own these sites, has proved fruitless. People are ignored, sent into a permanent reporting loop or asked to provide evidence of ownership. One man supplied them with a copy of his passport and a solicitors letter to verify his identity as requested and they still failed to act, meaning that more and more of his friends were being sucked into the scam in his name.

A Conservative MP, Kevin Hollingway from the Treasury Select Committee, said that the Online Safety Bill will not only be about dealing with harm, including financial harm, but about preventing it from happening in the first place and that it is hoped that the threat of substantial fines and personal liability for the owners/directors of websites will provide an incentive to focus their attention to prevent or deal with such incidents properly in the first place.

As it stands, complainants feel angry, frustrated and stalled because they have nobody else to turn to to resolve matters.

Private legal action is also being considered to force Meta to compensate users for their inaction.

[RichardCoulter]

The Online Safety Bill will also now be used to combat the malicious spreading of misinformation:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016xvj

I imagine that this will be in relation to things like covid, interfering with our elections & referendums etc.

[Pierre]

Who decides what's misinformation and what isn't?

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

The Online Safety Bill

You mean the "government to control everything yo say and do on the internet" bill.

Its clear it has little to do with safety and everything to do with controlling and censoring your entire use of the net.

Big brother is watching you.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Who decides what's misinformation and what isn't?

That’ll be the wokes, of course, who will have the power to cancel you without trial.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

That’ll be the wokes, of course, who will have the power to cancel you without trial.

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

It’s SUPERWOKE!

"the wokes"? You’ve been sniffing the wacky baccy again, haven’t you?

(or at least, drinking the Express/Mail/Telegraph Kool-Aid).

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by Paul

You mean the "government to control everything yo say and do on the internet" bill.

Its clear it has little to do with safety and everything to do with controlling and censoring your entire use of the net.

Big brother is watching you.

So true

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

It’s SUPERWOKE!

"the wokes"? You’ve been sniffing the wacky baccy again, haven’t you?

(or at least, drinking the Express/Mail/Telegraph Kool-Aid).

We know who they are….

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Who decides what's misinformation and what isn't?

It will be Ofcom who ultimately decide, but I imagine (and hope) that they do it after consultation with the Government and expert advisors.

This part of the bill will need to be handled with tact & sensitivity. For example, there were a lot of people who genuinely believed that covid was a conspiracy or that 5G masts were involved with it.

Some of these people were so convinced that medical staff were involved and actually killing people that they were going into hospitals shouting and insulting hard pressed staff.

Whilst I understand that people must be stopped from posting/sharing potentially harmful nonsense to influence others, imagine the accusations of censorship and possible civil disobedience that would have arisen if the Government had of made it an offence to post/share this material on the internet at the height of the pandemic.

We don't want a similar situation to Russia where people are punished for daring to suggest that Russia is at war with Ukraine.

I accept that this part of the bill may be problematic.

---------- Post added at 17:55 ---------- Previous post was at 17:48 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul

You mean the "government to control everything yo say and do on the internet" bill.

Its clear it has little to do with safety and everything to do with controlling and censoring your entire use of the net.

Big brother is watching you.

That's rather unfair as there are lots of provisions to deal with paedophiles, scammers, trolls, protecting minors from accessing porn.etc.

Nothing will change for the vast majority of people who use the internet in a responsible manner.

Unless it's something serious, I imagine that people/companies will initially receive a warning to give them chance to change their behaviour. They won't immediately be thrown into prison or be fined to such an extent that they lose their house or something!

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

We know who they are….

Who are "they"?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

It will be Ofcom who ultimately decide

I don’t think they’re qualified.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

.. imagine the accusations of censorship and possible civil disobedience that would have arisen if the Government had of made it an offence to post/share this material on the internet at the height of the pandemic.

So it wasnt ok to censor then, but its ok now

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

We don't want a similar situation to Russia where people are punished for daring to suggest that Russia is at war with Ukraine.

Thats where this is heading.
Ban anything that someone disagrees with.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

That's rather unfair as there are lots of provisions to deal with paedophiles, scammers, trolls, protecting minors from accessing porn.etc.

Its not unfair at all.
We already have laws to deal with paedophiles & scammers.
Who decides who or what a troll is ?

Why should the nanny state "protect" yet again - thats the job of parents.
The major ISPs already provide tools to do it (and you can buy software as well).
Not to mention, these minors are usually looking for it, they dont "accidently" come across it, thats quite hard to do these days, especially for the tech savy generation.

Speaking as a retired secondary school teacher I can attest that the first thing teenagers did in computer lessons was to type in porn in the search engine of choice.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I accept that this part of the bill may be problematic.

You can say that again!

---------- Post added at 08:12 ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 ----------

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Nothing will change for the vast majority of people who use the internet in a responsible manner.

Unless it's something serious, I imagine that people/companies will initially receive a warning to give them chance to change their behaviour. They won't immediately be thrown into prison or be fined to such an extent that they lose their house or something!

I don't know how you can be so sure about that. Seemingly innocent comments these days get people cancelled. This cure is worse than the disease!