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Their web site: https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/ https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/ From the article: > If Toyn puts up a story about rape or sexual assault, using any of

Their web site: https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/ https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/ From the article: > If Toyn puts up a story about rape or sexual assault, using any of those words, the story will be buried by Google. To ensure his stories remain visible, he has to word many crimes euphemistically. As a lover of language in its specificity and extremity, and as a journalist who believes in reporting what actually happens in society, Toyn finds this outrageous. “What are we going to say, rape doesn’t exist?”

sandworm101 2y ago
>> What are we going to say, rape doesn’t exist? Exactly. Many jurisdictions removed it from the books decades ago. Its exact definitions were always problematic. Now it is more often described as one end of a s-assault continuum.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  > Many jurisdictions removed it from the books But not the jurisdiction in question. "Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003: " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law
- darby_nine 2y ago
  I can't think of a serious reason why rape would have a different colloquial meaning than sexual assault. It's just a more provocative term.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    Rape is only one kind of sexual assault. It’s not just one term being more “provocative” than the other.
    - darby_nine 2y ago
      I don't see what benefit the distinction brings. The meaning is inherently identical to the meaning of sexual assault. The fact there's a legal distinction is irrelevant to the meaning of the words themselves. I'm not referring to a legal concept when I use the word "rape" and the legal definition—for polities that even have one—is irrelevant.
      - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
        It’s not a legal distinction. Use Wikipedia, Luke.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > I can't think of a serious reason why rape would have a different colloquial meaning than sexual assault. It doesn't. But the reason for having two terms is so that there can be a legal term, "sexual assault", which people interpret as meaning "rape" despite the fact that it includes, and almost always refers to, very different behavior. The point of the term is that the actual meaning is unrelated to the colloquial meaning. The purpose is to be uninformative. It's the same reason that "human trafficking" is legally defined as "prostitution". It sounds like slavery, which is good for the reputations of police and prosecutors, but if you look at prosecutions, they're effectively all made against women who are accused of "trafficking" themselves.
mschuster91 2y ago
Yeah, the same crap that's been started with Youtube and has exploded on Tiktok... everything must be advertiser friendly, so instead of "suicide" it's "unalive" now. As societies, we have to force Google, YouTube, Tiktok and all the other algorithm-based rankers to fully disclose their ranking criteria as a first step, and then actually discuss as a society if we want to force the rankers to rank differently.
- eru 2y ago
  How do you do 'anything' as a society? And how do you fully disclose the ranking criteria? It's a giant pile of evershifting programs. And even if you disclosed them, that wouldn't mean normal people would understand them. Just like barely anyone understands exactly how your favourite filesystem works in the fully disclosed Linux kernel. > and then actually discuss as a society if we want to force the rankers to rank differently. Just don't use the services that seem to have rankings policies you disagree with. No need to drag other people in with your own choices 'as a society'. 'As a society' we already make laws about what's legal and what's illegal, and there's also some vague consensus (but not universally shared) about what's perhaps legal but still in bad taste. But 'as a society' we don't decide on every last thing. People should have their freedom as much as possible, the freedom to make their own decisions. Do you want to disclose exactly how you make your decisions when you are voting on HN comments? Can you even do that? A 'society' that makes all the decisions for everyone is totalitarian.
  - bloqs 2y ago
    People dont understand the filesystem because it doesnt translate to pretty much immediate monetary gain, not because of complexity
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    > How do you do 'anything' as a society? Usually by outsourcing it to some government regulatory agency > that wouldn't mean normal people would understand That’s fine, some people would and be able to explain it to others who care (minimizing the likelihood of misinformation since it would be easy to verify) > understands exactly how your favourite filesystem works in the fully disclosed Linux kernel Because it doesn’t really matter. Almost all people are entirely unaffected by this and have no reason to care > Just don't use the services that seem to have rankings policies you disagree with. Right.. doesn’t work with oligopolies/monopolies. Do you think Bing is much better? No? Well..that’s that.

sandworm101 2y ago

>> What are we going to say, rape doesn’t exist? Exactly. Many jurisdictions removed it from the books decades ago. Its exact definitions were always problematic. Now it is more often described as one end of a s-assault continuum.

kwhitefoot 2y ago
> Many jurisdictions removed it from the books But not the jurisdiction in question. "Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003: " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law
darby_nine 2y ago
I can't think of a serious reason why rape would have a different colloquial meaning than sexual assault. It's just a more provocative term.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Rape is only one kind of sexual assault. It’s not just one term being more “provocative” than the other.
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    I don't see what benefit the distinction brings. The meaning is inherently identical to the meaning of sexual assault. The fact there's a legal distinction is irrelevant to the meaning of the words themselves. I'm not referring to a legal concept when I use the word "rape" and the legal definition—for polities that even have one—is irrelevant.
    - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
      It’s not a legal distinction. Use Wikipedia, Luke.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > I can't think of a serious reason why rape would have a different colloquial meaning than sexual assault. It doesn't. But the reason for having two terms is so that there can be a legal term, "sexual assault", which people interpret as meaning "rape" despite the fact that it includes, and almost always refers to, very different behavior. The point of the term is that the actual meaning is unrelated to the colloquial meaning. The purpose is to be uninformative. It's the same reason that "human trafficking" is legally defined as "prostitution". It sounds like slavery, which is good for the reputations of police and prosecutors, but if you look at prosecutions, they're effectively all made against women who are accused of "trafficking" themselves.

mschuster91 2y ago

Yeah, the same crap that's been started with Youtube and has exploded on Tiktok... everything must be advertiser friendly, so instead of "suicide" it's "unalive" now. As societies, we have to force Google, YouTube, Tiktok and all the other algorithm-based rankers to fully disclose their ranking criteria as a first step, and then actually discuss as a society if we want to force the rankers to rank differently.

eru 2y ago
How do you do 'anything' as a society? And how do you fully disclose the ranking criteria? It's a giant pile of evershifting programs. And even if you disclosed them, that wouldn't mean normal people would understand them. Just like barely anyone understands exactly how your favourite filesystem works in the fully disclosed Linux kernel. > and then actually discuss as a society if we want to force the rankers to rank differently. Just don't use the services that seem to have rankings policies you disagree with. No need to drag other people in with your own choices 'as a society'. 'As a society' we already make laws about what's legal and what's illegal, and there's also some vague consensus (but not universally shared) about what's perhaps legal but still in bad taste. But 'as a society' we don't decide on every last thing. People should have their freedom as much as possible, the freedom to make their own decisions. Do you want to disclose exactly how you make your decisions when you are voting on HN comments? Can you even do that? A 'society' that makes all the decisions for everyone is totalitarian.
- bloqs 2y ago
  People dont understand the filesystem because it doesnt translate to pretty much immediate monetary gain, not because of complexity
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > How do you do 'anything' as a society? Usually by outsourcing it to some government regulatory agency > that wouldn't mean normal people would understand That’s fine, some people would and be able to explain it to others who care (minimizing the likelihood of misinformation since it would be easy to verify) > understands exactly how your favourite filesystem works in the fully disclosed Linux kernel Because it doesn’t really matter. Almost all people are entirely unaffected by this and have no reason to care > Just don't use the services that seem to have rankings policies you disagree with. Right.. doesn’t work with oligopolies/monopolies. Do you think Bing is much better? No? Well..that’s that.