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BBC Says It May Contact Your Boss If You Post Comments It Finds Problematic
- adamnemecek 9y agoIs this another TV detector van? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
- JdeBP 9y agoNo, it is a WWW site privacy policy. YCombinator's is at http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/ http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/ . Others have been mentioned on this page. You can compare to other privacy policies, and note the somewhat ironic fact that other privacy policies are quite woolly and vague about whom personal information will be disclosed to for the purposes of protecting the site, protecting its users, and enforcing terms and conditions of service. For all users know, these companies and organizations could be disclosing it to some randomly selected stranger in a faraway country. The U.K. Information Commissioner has some guidelines for privacy policies, and making it clear what sort of people personal information will be disclosed to is actually a good thing, even though the BBC has been somewhat inept about it. * https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/privacy-notices-transparency-and-control/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio... Rather than the vague "we may disclose information" of Apple, Reddit, and their ilk, the BBC is trying to point out that the people that it may disclose information to are going to be the people discoverable from things like looking up one's IP addresses, which is going to include employers if one posts to the BBC site from company computers, schools if one does so from school computers, and so forth.
- s73ver 9y agoIf you post harassing comments, this probably should happen. People are going to be concerned about free speech, but harassment isn't free speech, and I honestly don't believe it's a "slippery slope".
- maxpblum 9y agoWhat do you mean when you say you don't believe it's a "slippery slope"? That the proper boundaries are obvious to everyone? I think the reason this is okay is that notifying a school or employer of your behavior is not the same as persecution.
- subway 9y agoI see no problem with giving someone a heads up that they've employed an asshole.
- pyre 9y agoThe problem with this is that things change from time to time. Replace "asshole" with "Japanese sympathizer" during/after World War 2, or "Communist sympathizer" during the reign of McCarthyism. Would you be so quick to say that this is a good thing then?
- chrshawkes 9y agoWho's your employer?
- subway 9y agoIt's readily available if you google my name and usernames; available in my profile.
- makomk 9y agoThere's this idea I've seen a lot lately amongst social justice activists that the correct boundaries are obvious and a simple matter of common decency, and that anyone who dares to question this by asking where they should be placed is simply obfuscating to justify bigotry and harassment. Of course, no two people's idea of where the obvious, clear boundaries are is actually the same, it's just they don't generally realise this because it's never discussed. Occasionally something happens that different members of the community do see differently and all hell breaks loose.
- kijeda 9y agoSeems like this is just a clumsy way of simply saying they are going to contact the administrator of the domain your account is associated with (which may be your employer, school, etc.)
- blowski 9y agoExactly. We may block your account, and send an email to something like webmaster@yourdomain.com. If that happens to be your boss's email address, that's your problem.
- bostonpete 9y agoThe article says: "the BBC may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school email/internet provider" If your comment was what they intended, they would have just referred to "e-mail provider".
- dismantlethesun 9y agoThey are clarifying that they'll talk to everyone in the chain, so you don't think that only Google will hear about it just because your office email is hosted with Gmail.
- ccrush 9y agoThat happens to be my email.
- donalhunt 9y agoTHIS! Having run a publicly facing messageboard for many years (no auth, just plain old "write what you want (within reason"), we were able to effectively keep the level of spam and abuse off the site with cultural norms within the user base. In one case, we had someone specifically trolling people on the site. We were able to track the poster back to a particular university in Ireland who we notified via their abuse channel (abuse@domain.xxx I think) with a very generic query: "we're seeing someone from your network posting crap like this <link to content>. can you investigate?" The behaviour stopped pretty quickly afterwards... Turns out most network operators want to run a network that benefits all it's users. If you abuse that privilege, they have no qualms with disconnecting you!!
- CaliforniaKarl 9y agoWow, that's confusing. I know that I know very little about U.K. law, so I would appreciate if someone there could answer: - Do employers typically have law-enforcement duties? - Is there a legal presumption of innocence---until proven otherwise---as there is in the U.S.? - Besides TV Licenses, is the BBC a judicial entity? I'm just trying to understand why the BBC may notify a non-law-enforcement agency about a possible violation of law.
- matt4077 9y ago> why the BBC may notify a non-law-enforcement agency about a possible violation of law Well, they are journalists, after all :) More seriously: these is a ton of stuff that happens that is both completely legal and somewhat bad. In the past, this grey area was policed by the community, using standards such as "politeness" or "etiquette" and sanctions such as "no longer inviting that idiot".
- ghughes 9y agoIt's got nothing to do with the law. They're notifying third parties about people who they suspect of posting "offensive" content.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dboreham 9y agoSome aspects of UK and US culture are quite different and I suspect this is one. It has been a while since I lived there but I think the general idea is that it is silly to waste law enforcement resources on absolutely everything. Some things can be dealt with outside of the police and courts. Even the US has this with the RIAA/MPAA able to "tattle" on people who are file sharing directly to their ISP without a police report being filed.
- DanBC 9y agoAlso, a bit of what the BBC is talking about is either defamation (not something the police get involved with) or "misuse of company resources" - and BBC only wants to use this stick to prevent some of the vile trolling some of their employees have to put up with.
- heisenbit 9y agoBBC may want to rethink that. Either it is illegal and then the police and courts are the place or it is legal and then it is none of their business. What they are threatening is when they perceive their TOS are violated that they use personal information and interfere in other relationships. This exposes the BBC to liability e.g. if the person is fired they may ask the BBC to pay up. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
- jellicle 9y agoWhy is it "none of the BBC's business" when you send hate mail to the BBC? Haven't you made it their business?
- interfixus 9y agoThat magic spell again: Hate mail. All parties are invited to remember, one guy's considered opinion is another guy's hate speech. And then, ever so often, the wind changes, the tables are turned, those in the wrong are now in the right, and those in the right are now everybody's laughing stock.
- Veen 9y agoThe boundaries are fuzzy and subject to change. That doesn't mean there can be no standards of acceptability. Who defines the standards? In this case, the BBC.
- interfixus 9y agoAnd those standards to be defined by ... ???
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- PascLeRasc 9y ago
- arjie 9y agoDude. It just means that if you abuse from email@example.com, then example.com is going to be informed that you're spamming from them or whatever.
- khana 9y agoI heard the heck outta that.
- theandrewbailey 9y agoIf so, I have a feeling that all those disclaimers stating "my opinions do not represent my employer's views" are going to have a very different meaning.
- matt4077 9y agoI'm no fan of the 'employer' part, because it places companies in a position as arbitrators of behaviour that they don't deserve. BUT: Considering the stuff I see people posting online, I do think it's such a cesspool of hatred, ill-will and really bad arguments that I am concerned how societies will continue to function, if these interactions become a routine part of civic society. In the past, your opinions, and statements were moderated by your peers, i. e. friends, family, or even strangers (but face-to-face). Sure, that meant a certain degree of self-censorship in some cases. But apart from some anarchists notion of "free speech", I have yet to see anything good emerging from the cauldron of freedom (see /r/the_donald for reference). Anonymously posting hate-filled comments or fake conspiracies is probably legal, but that doesn't mean it's good. It has real costs, both in how it may hurt those it wants to hurt, as well as the toll it has taken on the political narrative. There needs to be a mechanism to include the author in the fallout from his comments. The best I can think of would be connecting posts to the author's Facebook profile. If your friends all see the stuff you write at bbc.co.uk, you'll be a bit more circumspect in what you say. Generally, posts that the author would be ashamed of if their mother read them are probably something we can do without. Ideally, we should come up with a mechanism that respects the idea that we all have multiple public personas, i. e. it's completely legitimate to ask a question on a sexual health forum but you still don't want your family to see it. But these 'personas' shouldn't be license to act without taking responsibility for the consequences.
- chrshawkes 9y agoIdiots on a forum are not representative of society at large. In my opinion, only the extremes post day and night and I don't bother reading it anymore.
- interfixus 9y agoAnd who gets to decide what's comme il faut and what is not?
- matt4077 9y agoThat's kinda the point, thank you very much. There is a grey area of behaviour that cannot be pinned down with a blunt instrument like criminal law. These behaviours have traditionally been handled by the people witnessing them, and with an equally large spectrum of instruments from just a frown to social exclusion, etc. So, to directly answer your question: nobody and everybody. By letting the people you actually interact with on a day-to-day basis know what you're writing online, the mechanisms of social control continue to function as they always have.
- Fifer82 9y agoAhh UK State Media. I swiftly cancelled my Licence after the Scottish Indy Ref. I say let the licence fee collapse.
- CommanderData 9y agoSo it becomes funded by the UK tax system? They are already contemplating scrapping the fee and increasing taxes to pay for BBC.
- Fifer82 9y agoHopefully we will bail from UK this time and it won't be a problem.
- CommanderData 9y agoI doubt Scotland will be leaving the UK, its pretty clear Tories can't risk loosing Scotland.
- leephillips 9y agoWow, I haven't heard of anyone doing this since Dave Winer.
- cafard 9y ago"Where the BBC reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any applicable laws (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), the BBC may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school email/internet provider or law enforcement, [etc....]" "in breach of any applicable laws" is not quite the same as "problematic", even under the modern sense of "a problem" or "something we don't like".
- MichaelGG 9y agoThey should be turning comments over to the police if they think it's a legal issue. Which makes me think they don't _really_ think it's about illegal comments.
- MichaelGG 9y agoSo if someone's BBC account gets hacked, or an attacker otherwise forges a comment, how's that going to play out when someone gets incorrectly dismissed?
- threatofrain 9y agoIs it problematic if you espouse beliefs about Brexit on BBC's website? Uh oh. Careful, your boss might know you have unsavory political beliefs. If a person speaks illegally on a forum, then the right move would be to contact law enforcement. But if the action falls below law enforcement, then apparently the BBC has its own enforcement wing when it encounters unsavory speech. The oversight? BBC's cold cultural calculations and political acumen. The consequences? Getting someone fired or harassed at work.
- merpnderp 9y agoThen I'm glad I'm in the US and work for an organization far more interested in preserving our fragile and shrinking individual rights than policing naughty thoughts on the interwebs.
- knorker 9y agoI'll just contact them with a complaint. Oh, error 504 gateway timeout. Maybe this article crashed their complaints department.
- orbitingpluto 9y agoGiven BBC's coverage as of late, I assume BBC will contact your boss if you make a pro-Corbyn statement. This story reminded me of Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen trying to get an anti-Trumper fired from her position at a bank by outing her to her boss. (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/15/15640534/rodney-frelinghuysen-bank-employee https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/15/15640534/r...)
- killjoywashere 9y ago"BBC Rule 9" is going to be a meme with a history similar to using "cuil" as a unit of measure, and "Wadsworth constant". Interesting, possibly even valid, but no one cares.
- ghostDancer 9y agoIf you don't behave , BBC will tell your parents. No dessert this week.
- mnm1 9y agoSimply don't comment on any site/app that has your real information. Imagine that. Problems solved. Lots of them.
- LinuxBender 9y agoUnless my post is related to my workplace, I am certain my employer would just tell them to play hide and go f themselves and to stop wasting their time. This seems to me an attempt to get folks spun up talking about the BBC. Are they hurting for money?
- stubadub 9y agoThis sounds like it would be a breach of the UK Data Protection Act http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents Information shared with third party without consent Providing personal details to a family member without consent Any organisation that stores and uses personal data relating to identifiable living individuals, either on a computer or in a paper filing system, is a "data controller" for the purposes of the DPA. Data controllers are obliged to handle personal data in accordance with the eight data-protection principles set out in schedule 1 to the DPA unless a specific exemption applies. The first principle is that data must be processed fairly and lawfully, which requires any processing (including disclosure) to be done either with the consent of the individual or in order to fulfil legal obligations such as contractual obligations. This disclosure would be a serious breach of privacy.
- JdeBP 9y agoNow see the Information Commissioner guidance for privacy policies that I hyperlinked at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14370384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14370384 . Whilst most privacy policies do not say whom the data are shared with when it comes to enforcing terms and conditions and protecting the site/its users, the BBC's privacy policy here is. The UKICO guidelines point out that part of fairness is telling people whom data are going to be disclosed to; which the BBC is doing. If one has a gripe against that, then one has a gripe against everyone, from Reddit to Amazon. Because all of their privacy policies have clauses that say, in one form or another, that personal information is disclosed in order to enforce terms and conditions, and to protect the site/its users. Reddit's and several others' are elsewhere on this page. Here is Amazon's: > We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Amazon.co.uk, our users or others. Ironically, the BBC is actually attempting to be the best of the bunch. Other people actually do not comply with the UKICO guidelines and make no mention of whom the data are disclosed to in such cases. They just make vague "we disclose data" statements.