4 ms·

Architect of the UK Online Safety Act Calls for Its Complete Repeal

45 points by iamnothere 5mo ago

dijksterhuis 5mo ago
tl;dr author wants uk to be more like the usa. nadine dorris complaining in an opinion column somewhere is a convenient way for him to pivot to talking about his think tank’s white paper about wanting to make that happen.
stephen_g 5mo ago
Ah, the good old "I never thought leopards would eat my face" after voting for the 'leopards eating people's faces party'... Somehow I have zero hope the bill she is proposing as a replacement could be any better than the absolute horror that the OSA is though...
- Defletter 5mo ago
  Ditto, but also the so-called "Free Speech Bill" advocated by the publisher which explicitly attempts to import America-style free speech into the country as law. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be something Parliament is entertaining, at least not yet.
  - streetfighter64 5mo ago
    What's wrong with america-style free speech? In my opinion that's one of the few things they got more right than many european countries.
    - Defletter 5mo ago
      Have you not noticed what it's done to their country?
      - streetfighter64 5mo ago
        Done? I'm having a hard time seeing how not jailing people for objectionable tweets led to the election of Trump (which I'm assuming you're referring to). USA has many deep problems in their politics and if you haven't noticed, have been waging unjust wars for almost their entire history. The recent events are nothing more than a continuation of how it's always been going. If you want to attribute that to free speech, sure, but I'm not seeing the causation honestly.
        Defletter 5mo ago
        This is where the propaganda surrounding American-style free speech clashes with reality. Many people assume it protects all speech unless it's incitement to imminent lawless action, "fighting words", etc. But that is simply not the case. This is in large part due to how American law doesn't do what it says. Read their First Amendment, actually read it: it's a limitation on Congress. It's become much, much more than that because their Supreme Court is a de facto legislative body. This is how you get the Red Scare; that money is speech (Buckley v. Valeo); that legal entities are people with free speech and thus campaign donations cannot be restricted (Citizens United v. FEC); that retaliatory arrests for speech are fine so long as there's probable cause for something else (Nieves v. Bartlett); that therapists have a right to convert their underage gay clients (Chiles v. Salazar); etc. Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect? The whole "objectionable tweets" thing is so overplayed too. British pundits like to wax poetic about the apparent persecution of people for political speech, and the "political speech" is, for example, Lucy Connolly calling for the burning down of a hotel building housing asylum seekers. The biggest sufferers under UK speech restrictions are not tweeters, it's protesters, and yet the examples are always tweeters. Isn't that interesting?
        streetfighter64 5mo ago
        > Many people assume Oh, did I do that? Where? > This is how you get ... Not really, you're just naming a shopping list of examples of what I mentioned earlier: "USA has many deep problems in their politics", with a very tenuous connection to the laws on speech. > Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect? I did hear about that, why are you assuming I didn't? Can you explain the connection to the issue at hand though, because I'm not seeing it. I chose the tweets example because it's one of the more ridiculous examples, but I could just as well have named Palestine Action or numerous other examples from other european countries. What's "interesting" about it? Isn't it "interesting" how you're trying very hard to paint a certain picture of the discussion?
    - latexr 5mo ago
      > What's wrong with america-style free speech? The biggest issue might be the false belief that it’s superior to others or that the USA is somehow “more free” than other democracies. That’s propaganda, and has precipitated the erosion of freedoms in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Exclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite... As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech”: Defending that corporations making large donations to political candidates is free speech. Talk about an incentive to corruption.
      - GJim 5mo ago
        > As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech” Here are some more. Frankly, the USA isn't doing very well on free speech lately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
JonAtkinson 5mo ago
This is RWNJ garbage dressed up in false "think tank" legitimacy.
justinclift 5mo ago
Hmmmm: > By harmonizing to U.S. free speech standards, the UK will make it considerably easier, as a political matter, enter into data sharing and cross-border cooperation agreements, like CLOUD Act agreements, with the United States.
bad_username 5mo ago
In the age of toxic empathy, "think about the children" is a very common tool for nefarious uses.
kylegordon 5mo ago
"harmonize UK and US law on political speech" I can't think of anything worse. This is just the extreme right wing pushing the Overton Window even further
- bonesss 5mo ago
  Step 1: reject and leave the EU to be free of their colonial rulers in Brussels Step 2: harmonize all laws and regulations with EU anyways without voting influence because Single Market access is lucrative and vital Step 3: start harmonizing other laws with the US in hopes of courting a new colonial ruler Step 4: …? ——— With love, this feels like a situation where a good friend should simply have taken the car keys away.
dwroberts 5mo ago
For people outside the UK: this person is not really credible. She is an incompetent moron that is desperate for any coverage, especially if it helps get attention for Reform, the party she defected to (this is not defending the act, just to call her the architect of anything is probably too much)
- ChrisRR 5mo ago
  On brand with their platform of "Everything the current government does is bad so you should vote for us. We don't have any better solutions, we just know that it's bad"
  - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
    unfortunately that approach works
stuaxo 5mo ago
I'm not in favour of the online safety act, but the problem is she is incredibly stupid - nobody will listen to her.
ablation 5mo ago
Nadine Dorries is one of the least credible, least trustworthy political gadflies you could possibly imagine, only ever truly content when being fed the oxygen of publicity.
iamnothere 5mo ago
Of note is that the author of this piece is the attorney defending 4chan et al against Ofcom, hence the slant and the general attitude.

45 points by iamnothere 5mo ago

tl;dr author wants uk to be more like the usa. nadine dorris complaining in an opinion column somewhere is a convenient way for him to pivot to talking about his think tank’s white paper about wanting to make that happen.

stephen_g 5mo ago

Ah, the good old "I never thought leopards would eat my face" after voting for the 'leopards eating people's faces party'... Somehow I have zero hope the bill she is proposing as a replacement could be any better than the absolute horror that the OSA is though...

Defletter 5mo ago
Ditto, but also the so-called "Free Speech Bill" advocated by the publisher which explicitly attempts to import America-style free speech into the country as law. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be something Parliament is entertaining, at least not yet.
- streetfighter64 5mo ago
  What's wrong with america-style free speech? In my opinion that's one of the few things they got more right than many european countries.
  - Defletter 5mo ago
    Have you not noticed what it's done to their country?
    - streetfighter64 5mo ago
      Done? I'm having a hard time seeing how not jailing people for objectionable tweets led to the election of Trump (which I'm assuming you're referring to). USA has many deep problems in their politics and if you haven't noticed, have been waging unjust wars for almost their entire history. The recent events are nothing more than a continuation of how it's always been going. If you want to attribute that to free speech, sure, but I'm not seeing the causation honestly.
      - Defletter 5mo ago
        This is where the propaganda surrounding American-style free speech clashes with reality. Many people assume it protects all speech unless it's incitement to imminent lawless action, "fighting words", etc. But that is simply not the case. This is in large part due to how American law doesn't do what it says. Read their First Amendment, actually read it: it's a limitation on Congress. It's become much, much more than that because their Supreme Court is a de facto legislative body. This is how you get the Red Scare; that money is speech (Buckley v. Valeo); that legal entities are people with free speech and thus campaign donations cannot be restricted (Citizens United v. FEC); that retaliatory arrests for speech are fine so long as there's probable cause for something else (Nieves v. Bartlett); that therapists have a right to convert their underage gay clients (Chiles v. Salazar); etc. Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect? The whole "objectionable tweets" thing is so overplayed too. British pundits like to wax poetic about the apparent persecution of people for political speech, and the "political speech" is, for example, Lucy Connolly calling for the burning down of a hotel building housing asylum seekers. The biggest sufferers under UK speech restrictions are not tweeters, it's protesters, and yet the examples are always tweeters. Isn't that interesting?
        streetfighter64 5mo ago
        > Many people assume Oh, did I do that? Where? > This is how you get ... Not really, you're just naming a shopping list of examples of what I mentioned earlier: "USA has many deep problems in their politics", with a very tenuous connection to the laws on speech. > Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect? I did hear about that, why are you assuming I didn't? Can you explain the connection to the issue at hand though, because I'm not seeing it. I chose the tweets example because it's one of the more ridiculous examples, but I could just as well have named Palestine Action or numerous other examples from other european countries. What's "interesting" about it? Isn't it "interesting" how you're trying very hard to paint a certain picture of the discussion?
  - latexr 5mo ago
    > What's wrong with america-style free speech? The biggest issue might be the false belief that it’s superior to others or that the USA is somehow “more free” than other democracies. That’s propaganda, and has precipitated the erosion of freedoms in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United_States#Exclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite... As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech”: Defending that corporations making large donations to political candidates is free speech. Talk about an incentive to corruption.
    - GJim 5mo ago
      > As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech” Here are some more. Frankly, the USA isn't doing very well on free speech lately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

JonAtkinson 5mo ago

This is RWNJ garbage dressed up in false "think tank" legitimacy.

justinclift 5mo ago

Hmmmm: > By harmonizing to U.S. free speech standards, the UK will make it considerably easier, as a political matter, enter into data sharing and cross-border cooperation agreements, like CLOUD Act agreements, with the United States.

bad_username 5mo ago

In the age of toxic empathy, "think about the children" is a very common tool for nefarious uses.

kylegordon 5mo ago

"harmonize UK and US law on political speech" I can't think of anything worse. This is just the extreme right wing pushing the Overton Window even further

bonesss 5mo ago
Step 1: reject and leave the EU to be free of their colonial rulers in Brussels Step 2: harmonize all laws and regulations with EU anyways without voting influence because Single Market access is lucrative and vital Step 3: start harmonizing other laws with the US in hopes of courting a new colonial ruler Step 4: …? ——— With love, this feels like a situation where a good friend should simply have taken the car keys away.

dwroberts 5mo ago

For people outside the UK: this person is not really credible. She is an incompetent moron that is desperate for any coverage, especially if it helps get attention for Reform, the party she defected to (this is not defending the act, just to call her the architect of anything is probably too much)

ChrisRR 5mo ago
On brand with their platform of "Everything the current government does is bad so you should vote for us. We don't have any better solutions, we just know that it's bad"
- red-iron-pine 5mo ago
  unfortunately that approach works

stuaxo 5mo ago

I'm not in favour of the online safety act, but the problem is she is incredibly stupid - nobody will listen to her.

ablation 5mo ago

Nadine Dorries is one of the least credible, least trustworthy political gadflies you could possibly imagine, only ever truly content when being fed the oxygen of publicity.

iamnothere 5mo ago

Of note is that the author of this piece is the attorney defending 4chan et al against Ofcom, hence the slant and the general attitude.