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As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse. So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, ro

As its the EU and regulation, its time to trott out your hobby horse. So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions. the Online safety act is a good example of a bad law, which is enforced badly. The first big test (X producing industrial quantities of minors engaging in sexual activity) was failed. Had a small company produced a service that did they same thing, they would have been fined, servers ceased and owners thrown in jail. X got a letter saying they should stop. An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves. Another good example is NCAP ratings.

nekusar 28d ago
[flagged]
- flir 28d ago
  And both are illegal. (Depending on your local jurisdiction. But GP said "Online Safety Act" so I'm making an assumption).
- throwawayqqq11 28d ago
  You dont want to allow a market, which is why in many countries even imaginary CSAM is illegal.
- edelbitter 28d ago
  I guess when discussing the reasons for the law failing to bring about the intended changes, we only need to agree on that the law did not intend to make this distinction (though it definitely could have made them, even before LLM this was a deliberate choice) - not whether doing so would have been advisable.
- jdiff 28d ago
  Minors were involved. People were responding to pictures of minors and prompting Grok to sexualize them. People were uploading their own photos of real minors and asking Grok to make modifications to them.
- hgoel 28d ago
  Social media is already full of hentai art of that sort and that isn't a problem to most countries, so a little thought leads to the obvious point that your basic assumptions are incorrect. Minors were involved and people were generating sexually charged images ("donut glaze" etc). This is why other countries, like South Korea, also went after X under deepfake related regulations.
- KaiserPro 28d ago
  I understand your view point to a certain extent However for point one, the samples I saw were a picture of a minor posted by a minor in a normal situation. Someone would say @grok show me her in a bikini. for point 2, this is not born out by the examples that I saw. The bigger point here is that under UK law, there is little distinction between "real" and "fake". Any depiction of a minor engaged in sexual activities is illegal. This was to get round the "oh its photoshoped" defence. In the USA is different, but I have no experience on that point. The only reason why I know is because a member of staff at a previous company was found to be using his workstation to store and distribute anime shit that depicted this stuff, and the company legal advice was "oh wow you are totally fucked." It was a huge faff to deal with and posed huge risks to everyone involved.
s_dev 28d ago
A lot of scores on the doors are often faked defeating their purpose. Helpful but not bullet proof. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective. Not always ideal for every type establishment but I've seen high end Indian restaurants even do it by having the POS at the back where you can see the kitchen when paying which keeps the noise separate for the desired quiet atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this.
- KaiserPro 28d ago
  SOrry, yes I should point out its not perfect. The scores on the doors website is also a partial remedy for this. But I should concede that no solution is perfect, and you still need to allow for the evolution of fraudsters. > I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though Me neither, The pre-existing ways are independent lab testing ( euro-ncap for cars, or ifixit) or the "you have to pay for testing" like for large white goods. None of those work if they are not enforced though....
- cube00 28d ago
  >Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective. Guess that's why the new refits have a giant wall to stop you seeing into the kitchen.
  - SoftTalker 28d ago
    I don't recall any where it was every easy to see into the kitchen. Yes you could see some of the fryers where they made french fries, and sort of see into the kitchen but there was a lot of food-holding bins, drink dispensers, and other equipment etc. obscuring most of it.
- benrutter 28d ago
  > I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this. I'm not here with a silver bullet or anything, but I'd say the EU's energy efficiency labeling works well and has a fairly low level of being gamed/falsified. I don't think there's any big reason why the EU couldn't enforce labeling of a similar kind to IFixit's repair-ability scoring[0] for set devices. On a separate note, the article mentions the lousy attempts some smart phone makers are guilty of with regards to repair instructions: > Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions. There are at least a lot less smart phone manufacturers than restaurants and cafes (comparing to scores on the doors) - if the EU really wanted to, it wouldn't be a huge resource to produce clear guidance on what expectations are for smart phone spare part provision, and issue fines whenever they're violated (you might think is a bad idea, and too much regulation, but my point is just that it's at least feasible) [0] https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairability-scores https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit...
noir_lord 28d ago
Sadly that mess had a political component, any attempt to regulate US big tech results in howls from over the Atlantic. Frankly, I'd prefer it if we just let them howl and said fuck it more but it's probably a good job I'm not making those decisions (and in honesty the picture is complex for companies that size/the politics).
- kvuj 28d ago
  From the article, it seems more about chinese brands, no? > Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions. > But even for products that are technically compliant, the listed weblink still rarely offers a direct path to parts prices. For major brands such as Apple and Samsung, it can take some clicking around before you find what you need, Right to Repair says.
- WarmWash 28d ago
  Ironically the fact that the howls need to come from the other side of the Atlantic, rather than having any domestically, should tell anyone all they need to know about the situation.
  - noir_lord 28d ago
    Don't disagree but the results are impossible to know from the US side, politicians have to balance everything and decide whether it's worth the political capital. Not like it's the only issue in US/UK relations these days either. That's the situation whether we like it or not.
  - oblio 28d ago
    > Ironically the fact that the howls need to come from the other side of the Atlantic, rather than having any domestically, should tell anyone all they need to know about the situation. Europeans by and large don't care about American companies these days. They use American software products because frequently there are no alternatives. And most of the news about them are negative.
    - 28d ago
pbasista 28d ago
> X got a letter saying they should stop. I am unfamiliar with these matters and I am also unsure what specifically you are referring to. But in general, if big companies get away with wrongdoings by receiving a gentle slap on their fingers, figuratively speaking, it will, in my opinion, lead to no change whatsoever. Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine.
- friendzis 28d ago
  > Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine. In mono/oligo-poly situations there's no really such a thing as "a really hefty fine". Either the cost will be happily trickled to the very public that are being wronged or the fine is effectively unsurvivably hefty, which noone would levy against a too-big-to-fail entity. Look at the recent fine for Meta for example. Settling a case against one of the core monopolic drivers for a couple percentage points of early revenue is peanuts. I can't believe the exec suite[-s] are thinking anything else than "which anti-consumer behavior can we buy indulgence for?", they would be stupid not to at these discounted rates. I'm half joking here, but at this point it feels like the only reasonable way to instill some fear against building Torment Nexus and cyberpunk dystopia would be personal criminal liability of the boards and exec suites that is impossible to settle.
  - bot403 28d ago
    I don't consider meta too big to fail. If they go out of business the world can move on with minor disruption and inconvenience.
    - JoshTriplett 28d ago
      > If they go out of business the world can move on with substantial improvement to quality of life. Goals: build a company such that people don't think the world would be better off if you don't exist.
delusional 28d ago
Yes, Twitter frontpage should include a little counter with how much child exploitation it has facilitated today. I don't think there's a single politician in Bruxelles that wouldn't love to come down hard on X. There is no love for Elon in those circles anymore. The problem is that he's attached himself to international politics through his daddy. Trump has threatened the EU with strict sanctions if they levy any sort of proportional fine to US tech companies. The problem is no longer capitalist liberalism. The new challenge is American Fascism.
- gustavus 28d ago
  [flagged]
  - ceejayoz 28d ago
    The President of the United States is openly posting fascist shit regularly. Yesterday: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-space-force-uniforms-star-wars-b3045658.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... The image literally says "inspired by Starship Troopers". Which was inspired by fascism and Nazi uniforms in particular. > if you want to see a real fascist regime Is it not worth looking at how such regimes got there? Maybe as a preventative? Do we have to wait for it to go all the way to Holocausts before we go "uh oh, should've said something"? We had our https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch a few years back, even.
    - MentalM 28d ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 28d ago
        > An objectively good and very stylish film. It is like 30 years old and still grate to watch. Yes, it's a great satire. You get problems when, as with The Boys' Homelander, people apparently can't figure out who the bad guys are. > And what exactly does it change? Are you afraid that particular type of pants will make people Nazi or what? I am afraid of people who are super into the Nazi aesthetic, yes, especially when they run the country I live in. > The government get to many tools to influence every aspect of citizens' lives, and then uses those tools to get rid of all opposing voices. That is far more relevant to the Europe than to the US. Have you been in a coma the last few years?
philipallstar 28d ago
> An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves. > Another good example is NCAP ratings. Worth noting that NCAP and Scores on the Doors are not regulators. NCAP is an industry body; SotDs is run by TripAdvisor.
- juntoalaluna 28d ago
  I think the food hygiene ratings are a regulatory thing - https://ratings.food.gov.uk https://ratings.food.gov.uk - places are required to show their stickers by law. I'm not sure how the Scores on the Doors website, which is at least related to TripAdvisor, fits into all of this...
  - philipallstar 28d ago
    It shows the ratings that are provided by food standards inspectors.
    - juntoalaluna 27d ago
      Ah, ok, but so does the official government website. I'd never heard of Scores on the Doors until yesterday.
  - masfuerte 28d ago
    The restaurants are proactively inspected but nobody is checking that the sticker on the door matches the real rating unless you do it yourself*. Some companies have been taking the piss. * Which you can at the website you listed.
    - bmacho 27d ago
      Make the sticker text + QR link to a website so anyone with a smartphone could verify them if they wanted. This could work for products too: have webshops add links to verdicts of inspections and also put them on the boxes (in link and QR code form).
cromka 28d ago
> Another good example is NCAP ratings. Ironically it's a very bad example: EuroNCAP is an independent organization and has nothing to do with the EU and legislation/regulations as such.
jimnotgym 28d ago
I've no doubt the EU will take action on this... sometime over the next 15 years
slopinthebag 28d ago
> regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?
bsder 28d ago
> So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions. The issue is that people want quick sanctions until they wind up on the wrong end of the pointy spear--at which point they want accurate sanctions. The problem is that quick and accurate are opposing forces when it comes to sanctions.
- mitxela 28d ago
  True. As an example of sanctions both quick and accurate, X in Brazil. All ISPs blocked it and it was a crime to use X until Elon complied. Of course many people still accessed X through VPNs, but public figures couldn't because they'd be charged. However, basically the same mechanism lets Spain block Cloudflare on Saturdays, which is bad. Even though I hate Cloudflare, that's worse.

nekusar 28d ago

[flagged]

flir 28d ago
And both are illegal. (Depending on your local jurisdiction. But GP said "Online Safety Act" so I'm making an assumption).
throwawayqqq11 28d ago
You dont want to allow a market, which is why in many countries even imaginary CSAM is illegal.
edelbitter 28d ago
I guess when discussing the reasons for the law failing to bring about the intended changes, we only need to agree on that the law did not intend to make this distinction (though it definitely could have made them, even before LLM this was a deliberate choice) - not whether doing so would have been advisable.
jdiff 28d ago
Minors were involved. People were responding to pictures of minors and prompting Grok to sexualize them. People were uploading their own photos of real minors and asking Grok to make modifications to them.
hgoel 28d ago
Social media is already full of hentai art of that sort and that isn't a problem to most countries, so a little thought leads to the obvious point that your basic assumptions are incorrect. Minors were involved and people were generating sexually charged images ("donut glaze" etc). This is why other countries, like South Korea, also went after X under deepfake related regulations.
KaiserPro 28d ago
I understand your view point to a certain extent However for point one, the samples I saw were a picture of a minor posted by a minor in a normal situation. Someone would say @grok show me her in a bikini. for point 2, this is not born out by the examples that I saw. The bigger point here is that under UK law, there is little distinction between "real" and "fake". Any depiction of a minor engaged in sexual activities is illegal. This was to get round the "oh its photoshoped" defence. In the USA is different, but I have no experience on that point. The only reason why I know is because a member of staff at a previous company was found to be using his workstation to store and distribute anime shit that depicted this stuff, and the company legal advice was "oh wow you are totally fucked." It was a huge faff to deal with and posed huge risks to everyone involved.

s_dev 28d ago

A lot of scores on the doors are often faked defeating their purpose. Helpful but not bullet proof. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SO8KcfhJmc Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective. Not always ideal for every type establishment but I've seen high end Indian restaurants even do it by having the POS at the back where you can see the kitchen when paying which keeps the noise separate for the desired quiet atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this.

KaiserPro 28d ago
SOrry, yes I should point out its not perfect. The scores on the doors website is also a partial remedy for this. But I should concede that no solution is perfect, and you still need to allow for the evolution of fraudsters. > I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though Me neither, The pre-existing ways are independent lab testing ( euro-ncap for cars, or ifixit) or the "you have to pay for testing" like for large white goods. None of those work if they are not enforced though....
cube00 28d ago
>Old school methods like what McDonald's use, literally allow the customer to see in to the kitchen are very effective. Guess that's why the new refits have a giant wall to stop you seeing into the kitchen.
- SoftTalker 28d ago
  I don't recall any where it was every easy to see into the kitchen. Yes you could see some of the fryers where they made french fries, and sort of see into the kitchen but there was a lot of food-holding bins, drink dispensers, and other equipment etc. obscuring most of it.
benrutter 28d ago
> I'm not sure how to translate this to the smartphone market though. Fairphone and LaJolla seem to do well in this regard though so back to brand reputation for a lot of this. I'm not here with a silver bullet or anything, but I'd say the EU's energy efficiency labeling works well and has a fairly low level of being gamed/falsified. I don't think there's any big reason why the EU couldn't enforce labeling of a similar kind to IFixit's repair-ability scoring[0] for set devices. On a separate note, the article mentions the lousy attempts some smart phone makers are guilty of with regards to repair instructions: > Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions. There are at least a lot less smart phone manufacturers than restaurants and cafes (comparing to scores on the doors) - if the EU really wanted to, it wouldn't be a huge resource to produce clear guidance on what expectations are for smart phone spare part provision, and issue fines whenever they're violated (you might think is a bad idea, and too much regulation, but my point is just that it's at least feasible) [0] https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairability-scores https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit...

noir_lord 28d ago

Sadly that mess had a political component, any attempt to regulate US big tech results in howls from over the Atlantic. Frankly, I'd prefer it if we just let them howl and said fuck it more but it's probably a good job I'm not making those decisions (and in honesty the picture is complex for companies that size/the politics).

kvuj 28d ago
From the article, it seems more about chinese brands, no? > Some records even refer customers to Temu or AliExpress for spare parts and repair instructions. > But even for products that are technically compliant, the listed weblink still rarely offers a direct path to parts prices. For major brands such as Apple and Samsung, it can take some clicking around before you find what you need, Right to Repair says.
WarmWash 28d ago
Ironically the fact that the howls need to come from the other side of the Atlantic, rather than having any domestically, should tell anyone all they need to know about the situation.
- noir_lord 28d ago
  Don't disagree but the results are impossible to know from the US side, politicians have to balance everything and decide whether it's worth the political capital. Not like it's the only issue in US/UK relations these days either. That's the situation whether we like it or not.
- oblio 28d ago
  > Ironically the fact that the howls need to come from the other side of the Atlantic, rather than having any domestically, should tell anyone all they need to know about the situation. Europeans by and large don't care about American companies these days. They use American software products because frequently there are no alternatives. And most of the news about them are negative.
  - 28d ago

pbasista 28d ago

> X got a letter saying they should stop. I am unfamiliar with these matters and I am also unsure what specifically you are referring to. But in general, if big companies get away with wrongdoings by receiving a gentle slap on their fingers, figuratively speaking, it will, in my opinion, lead to no change whatsoever. Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine.

friendzis 28d ago
> Because if there are no material consequences for wrongdoings, they probably would not care. And there are very few kinds of actually material consequences for big companies. One of them being a really hefty fine. In mono/oligo-poly situations there's no really such a thing as "a really hefty fine". Either the cost will be happily trickled to the very public that are being wronged or the fine is effectively unsurvivably hefty, which noone would levy against a too-big-to-fail entity. Look at the recent fine for Meta for example. Settling a case against one of the core monopolic drivers for a couple percentage points of early revenue is peanuts. I can't believe the exec suite[-s] are thinking anything else than "which anti-consumer behavior can we buy indulgence for?", they would be stupid not to at these discounted rates. I'm half joking here, but at this point it feels like the only reasonable way to instill some fear against building Torment Nexus and cyberpunk dystopia would be personal criminal liability of the boards and exec suites that is impossible to settle.
- bot403 28d ago
  I don't consider meta too big to fail. If they go out of business the world can move on with minor disruption and inconvenience.
  - JoshTriplett 28d ago
    > If they go out of business the world can move on with substantial improvement to quality of life. Goals: build a company such that people don't think the world would be better off if you don't exist.

delusional 28d ago

Yes, Twitter frontpage should include a little counter with how much child exploitation it has facilitated today. I don't think there's a single politician in Bruxelles that wouldn't love to come down hard on X. There is no love for Elon in those circles anymore. The problem is that he's attached himself to international politics through his daddy. Trump has threatened the EU with strict sanctions if they levy any sort of proportional fine to US tech companies. The problem is no longer capitalist liberalism. The new challenge is American Fascism.

gustavus 28d ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 28d ago
  The President of the United States is openly posting fascist shit regularly. Yesterday: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-space-force-uniforms-star-wars-b3045658.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... The image literally says "inspired by Starship Troopers". Which was inspired by fascism and Nazi uniforms in particular. > if you want to see a real fascist regime Is it not worth looking at how such regimes got there? Maybe as a preventative? Do we have to wait for it to go all the way to Holocausts before we go "uh oh, should've said something"? We had our https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch a few years back, even.
  - MentalM 28d ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 28d ago
      > An objectively good and very stylish film. It is like 30 years old and still grate to watch. Yes, it's a great satire. You get problems when, as with The Boys' Homelander, people apparently can't figure out who the bad guys are. > And what exactly does it change? Are you afraid that particular type of pants will make people Nazi or what? I am afraid of people who are super into the Nazi aesthetic, yes, especially when they run the country I live in. > The government get to many tools to influence every aspect of citizens' lives, and then uses those tools to get rid of all opposing voices. That is far more relevant to the Europe than to the US. Have you been in a coma the last few years?

philipallstar 28d ago

> An example of good enforcement is the UK's scores on the doors, where the public can see what the standard is, and if they fall below a certain level, the food place is fined/shutdown/other until it improves. > Another good example is NCAP ratings. Worth noting that NCAP and Scores on the Doors are not regulators. NCAP is an industry body; SotDs is run by TripAdvisor.

juntoalaluna 28d ago
I think the food hygiene ratings are a regulatory thing - https://ratings.food.gov.uk https://ratings.food.gov.uk - places are required to show their stickers by law. I'm not sure how the Scores on the Doors website, which is at least related to TripAdvisor, fits into all of this...
- philipallstar 28d ago
  It shows the ratings that are provided by food standards inspectors.
  - juntoalaluna 27d ago
    Ah, ok, but so does the official government website. I'd never heard of Scores on the Doors until yesterday.
- masfuerte 28d ago
  The restaurants are proactively inspected but nobody is checking that the sticker on the door matches the real rating unless you do it yourself*. Some companies have been taking the piss. * Which you can at the website you listed.
  - bmacho 27d ago
    Make the sticker text + QR link to a website so anyone with a smartphone could verify them if they wanted. This could work for products too: have webshops add links to verdicts of inspections and also put them on the boxes (in link and QR code form).

cromka 28d ago

> Another good example is NCAP ratings. Ironically it's a very bad example: EuroNCAP is an independent organization and has nothing to do with the EU and legislation/regulations as such.

jimnotgym 28d ago

I've no doubt the EU will take action on this... sometime over the next 15 years

slopinthebag 28d ago

> regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions Source for this claim? How can you say regulation is good without even defining what the regulation is? Or do you just believe that all regulation no matter what is always good?

bsder 28d ago

> So let me trot out mine: regulation is good so long as it is backed up by even handed, robust, transparent, quick and effective sanctions. The issue is that people want quick sanctions until they wind up on the wrong end of the pointy spear--at which point they want accurate sanctions. The problem is that quick and accurate are opposing forces when it comes to sanctions.

mitxela 28d ago
True. As an example of sanctions both quick and accurate, X in Brazil. All ISPs blocked it and it was a crime to use X until Elon complied. Of course many people still accessed X through VPNs, but public figures couldn't because they'd be charged. However, basically the same mechanism lets Spain block Cloudflare on Saturdays, which is bad. Even though I hate Cloudflare, that's worse.