6 ms·

I find it hard to comprehend how anyone would actually support this other than a stupid government bureaucrat, anyone with any real world experience of privacy

by zpeti 8y ago

I find it hard to comprehend how anyone would actually support this other than a stupid government bureaucrat, anyone with any real world experience of privacy and practicality would laugh at this idea. Yet it gets voted in. Well done UK government.

wukerplank 8y ago
Who's the lobby behind it? Or is pure conservative Weltanschauung? Edit: Fixed punctuation.
- adwww 8y ago
  Mindgeek lobbied hard for this. They (owners of Pornhub etc) are the government's approved age verifiers, so are in theory now in charge of access to all the other porn sites.
  - Phillips126 8y ago
    wow... just wow...
  - sambull 8y ago
    Now the law makes complete sense.
  - ahnick 8y ago
    Haha, that is unbelievable... https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/government-porn-id-check-mindgeek-porn-hub-digital-economy-act-bbfc-a8820016.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/government-porn-id-chec...
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Aaand of course. What else could it be, but the economic power moving to write laws to benefit themselves, stifle competition, overrule the will of the people, and impose their rules on all of us.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    They also give away free premium memberships to a degree that will shock even Audible, probably because a known user is worth so much more.
spoiledtechie 8y ago
Its going socialist. The entire European Union is. Whether you include the UK or not. Less Privacy, more public knowledge. Next thing you know they will start studies based on these people that watch porn.
- majewsky 8y ago
  This is entirely orthogonal to socialism vs non-socialism. Socialism is about economic systems where the means of production are owned by the workers.
  - 40dslf 8y ago
    That's not how that word is used in practice in Europe now. There are many parties with "socialist" in their names which don't promote giving the means of production to the workers.
    - afiori 8y ago
      Still the distinction between socialism as a centralized authoritarian country and socialism as mean of social welfare is important. various "socialist" parties in europe usually (IMO) tend to favour a view of society where the individual is assured many essential services and a stronger social safety net. this is the modern equivalent of owning the means of production. Then and now one focus of socialist policy is to make so that the "Bourgeoisie" cannot ruin the life of those near the bottom of society. In the last many decades the economy, the "workers", the bottom of society all changed a lot.
    - andrepd 8y ago
      Correction, it's not just that word, it's any word, and it's not used in practice anywhere in the world. North Korea is not "democratic", the US PATRIOT act is not "patriotic", etc. Still that doesn't mean we should call N. Korea democratic because they "devalued" the name. It still means what it means even though some might appropriate the name for purposes of propaganda.
  - op00to 8y ago
Waterluvian 8y ago
Well... Brexit is also happening. I wonder if the U.K. is going through a "forest fire" stage where in order for new culture/government/society to flourish, the old has to first go into decline. Both Brexit and these Porn laws are things that seem incompatible with reality and seem to force the U.K. onto a collision course.
- chess93 8y ago
  Brexit might have more of an influence than it seems. However, the effect is probably because no one is paying attention to anything else other than Brexit [1]. [1] I read a few sentences of a newspaper suggesting this.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  I don't know. The EU hasn't really been an enrichment lately... Especially in the last days. Maybe it is the better way to get rid of something old.
  - sveme 8y ago
    So the EU has fucked up, hence we abolish it completely? As the UK has fucked up the porn stuff, should we abolish it as well?
    - raxxorrax 8y ago
      It has fucked up so many times I stopped counting to be honest. They are very valid advantages and goals that are worth to defend and indeed some very good policies. But it just doesn't seem to work as a vehicle of democratic formation of will. Lacking any form of real opposition withing its organs, it should be reduced in scope to a large degree.
      - derefr 8y ago
        Honestly, every government is going to “fuck up so many times” that most people stop counting. The pragmatic reality is that you have to keep counting anyway, because it turns out that a million fuck-ups in a term of office really is better than a billion fuck-ups, and if every other party/multilateral org is making a billion fuck-ups per year while the one you’ve got is only making a million, you should vote to keep them, because voting them out would just mean voting to hand their decision-making power to a sibling or to a higher/lower level where more fuck-ups would happen. (At least, this is true in an elected democracy, because of the required elements of politicking and bureaucracy that make democracies go. For the same reasons dictatorships can be worse than democracy, they could also—presumably—be better: a benevolent dictator could exactly express the will of a united people with no politicking or bureaucracy fucking things up. Though I don’t think that we’ve ever actually had an historical example of this.)
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
This was voted in 2 years ago and there are still no plans to actually implement it.
darn2heck 8y ago
It is just an opportunity for blackmail waiting to happen. Absolutely insane that they have passed this purely due to "think of the children" style hand-wringing when it doesn't even address the primary issues. I suspect that the real reason is much simpler. They want to begin a formal process to tie identities to specific computers. By implementing this to "protect children" they are going to begin normalising the idea and we will see it spread to become ubiquitous for many internet services that can potentially be used in a manner that the state does not approve of. Maybe I'm being a bit tin-foil hat but I think it is unlikely that blocking pornography is the primary reason for this. Especially as it will probably be largely ineffective, I don't think they are stupid enough for this to go unnoticed.
- roydivision 8y ago
  Hanlon’s Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Given the U.K. government’s recent behaviour I don’t see any evidence that they are organised enough to be putting this through with any hidden motives.
  - jules-jules 8y ago
    Have you seen Theresa May recently? (this was conceived under her as Home Sec) It's pure malice dripping out of every pore.
  - darn2heck 8y ago
    Given the culture of mass surveillance I don't think this is a reach. They are talking about doing the same for social media too, I expect that will either be framed in terms of cyberbullying, fighting the far-right, or perhaps copyright. I see a consistent agenda that lines up perfectly with Theresa May's authoritarian approach to matters. Either they are stupid or they are pursuing a consistent agenda under different guises. I think the simplest answer is likely the latter. Also there is plenty of deliberate deception and malice in the Conservative party policies at the moment, I don't see why this would be the exception to the rule.

by zpeti 8y ago

wukerplank 8y ago

Who's the lobby behind it? Or is pure conservative Weltanschauung? Edit: Fixed punctuation.

adwww 8y ago
Mindgeek lobbied hard for this. They (owners of Pornhub etc) are the government's approved age verifiers, so are in theory now in charge of access to all the other porn sites.
- Phillips126 8y ago
  wow... just wow...
- sambull 8y ago
  Now the law makes complete sense.
- ahnick 8y ago
  Haha, that is unbelievable... https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/government-porn-id-check-mindgeek-porn-hub-digital-economy-act-bbfc-a8820016.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/government-porn-id-chec...
- andrepd 8y ago
  Aaand of course. What else could it be, but the economic power moving to write laws to benefit themselves, stifle competition, overrule the will of the people, and impose their rules on all of us.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  They also give away free premium memberships to a degree that will shock even Audible, probably because a known user is worth so much more.

spoiledtechie 8y ago

Its going socialist. The entire European Union is. Whether you include the UK or not. Less Privacy, more public knowledge. Next thing you know they will start studies based on these people that watch porn.

majewsky 8y ago
This is entirely orthogonal to socialism vs non-socialism. Socialism is about economic systems where the means of production are owned by the workers.
- 40dslf 8y ago
  That's not how that word is used in practice in Europe now. There are many parties with "socialist" in their names which don't promote giving the means of production to the workers.
  - afiori 8y ago
    Still the distinction between socialism as a centralized authoritarian country and socialism as mean of social welfare is important. various "socialist" parties in europe usually (IMO) tend to favour a view of society where the individual is assured many essential services and a stronger social safety net. this is the modern equivalent of owning the means of production. Then and now one focus of socialist policy is to make so that the "Bourgeoisie" cannot ruin the life of those near the bottom of society. In the last many decades the economy, the "workers", the bottom of society all changed a lot.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Correction, it's not just that word, it's any word, and it's not used in practice anywhere in the world. North Korea is not "democratic", the US PATRIOT act is not "patriotic", etc. Still that doesn't mean we should call N. Korea democratic because they "devalued" the name. It still means what it means even though some might appropriate the name for purposes of propaganda.
- op00to 8y ago

Waterluvian 8y ago

Well... Brexit is also happening. I wonder if the U.K. is going through a "forest fire" stage where in order for new culture/government/society to flourish, the old has to first go into decline. Both Brexit and these Porn laws are things that seem incompatible with reality and seem to force the U.K. onto a collision course.

chess93 8y ago
Brexit might have more of an influence than it seems. However, the effect is probably because no one is paying attention to anything else other than Brexit [1]. [1] I read a few sentences of a newspaper suggesting this.
raxxorrax 8y ago
I don't know. The EU hasn't really been an enrichment lately... Especially in the last days. Maybe it is the better way to get rid of something old.
- sveme 8y ago
  So the EU has fucked up, hence we abolish it completely? As the UK has fucked up the porn stuff, should we abolish it as well?
  - raxxorrax 8y ago
    It has fucked up so many times I stopped counting to be honest. They are very valid advantages and goals that are worth to defend and indeed some very good policies. But it just doesn't seem to work as a vehicle of democratic formation of will. Lacking any form of real opposition withing its organs, it should be reduced in scope to a large degree.
    - derefr 8y ago
      Honestly, every government is going to “fuck up so many times” that most people stop counting. The pragmatic reality is that you have to keep counting anyway, because it turns out that a million fuck-ups in a term of office really is better than a billion fuck-ups, and if every other party/multilateral org is making a billion fuck-ups per year while the one you’ve got is only making a million, you should vote to keep them, because voting them out would just mean voting to hand their decision-making power to a sibling or to a higher/lower level where more fuck-ups would happen. (At least, this is true in an elected democracy, because of the required elements of politicking and bureaucracy that make democracies go. For the same reasons dictatorships can be worse than democracy, they could also—presumably—be better: a benevolent dictator could exactly express the will of a united people with no politicking or bureaucracy fucking things up. Though I don’t think that we’ve ever actually had an historical example of this.)

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

This was voted in 2 years ago and there are still no plans to actually implement it.

darn2heck 8y ago

It is just an opportunity for blackmail waiting to happen. Absolutely insane that they have passed this purely due to "think of the children" style hand-wringing when it doesn't even address the primary issues. I suspect that the real reason is much simpler. They want to begin a formal process to tie identities to specific computers. By implementing this to "protect children" they are going to begin normalising the idea and we will see it spread to become ubiquitous for many internet services that can potentially be used in a manner that the state does not approve of. Maybe I'm being a bit tin-foil hat but I think it is unlikely that blocking pornography is the primary reason for this. Especially as it will probably be largely ineffective, I don't think they are stupid enough for this to go unnoticed.

roydivision 8y ago
Hanlon’s Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Given the U.K. government’s recent behaviour I don’t see any evidence that they are organised enough to be putting this through with any hidden motives.
- jules-jules 8y ago
  Have you seen Theresa May recently? (this was conceived under her as Home Sec) It's pure malice dripping out of every pore.
- darn2heck 8y ago
  Given the culture of mass surveillance I don't think this is a reach. They are talking about doing the same for social media too, I expect that will either be framed in terms of cyberbullying, fighting the far-right, or perhaps copyright. I see a consistent agenda that lines up perfectly with Theresa May's authoritarian approach to matters. Either they are stupid or they are pursuing a consistent agenda under different guises. I think the simplest answer is likely the latter. Also there is plenty of deliberate deception and malice in the Conservative party policies at the moment, I don't see why this would be the exception to the rule.