I'm casually listening to the radio and right now, I just heard a segment "can we protect children from 'harm' on the Internet". They're not just targeting pornography. Activists for online safety in the UK if they get their way would love the idea of locked down devices and a national Intranet where everything is licensed and deemed safe for children by Ofcom while the gateways to the Internet are monitored and regulated in the same way Border Force do with physical border crossings (not that it stops migrants getting in).
Sadly, these activists are the ones who are invited into Parliament and have the ear of the main party leaders while civil liberty campaigners are dismissed as threats to children.
The whole point of these age verification laws being in the way they are is to allow the state to ban pornography without facing the charge of banning it because they're written and implemented in such a way that it makes it impossible for such websites to continue to function in that state. Even if they went ahead with it, it would be long before "hackers" leaked all the users of that site as a "perverts database" as a final measure to deter people from going to those sites.
Next year, the UK will introduce even stricter age verification than being implemented in US states where the favoured requirement will not just be Government photo ID (passport or driving licence) but also live, ongoing facial recognition. And the criteria for who will need to comply will be any site or service that is not "safe for kids". On the basis that they need to see who is accessing a website at any time in the same way you're in person when showing ID for age restricted products in a store. It also stops an adult showing ID and then handing their device over to a child.
That's exactly the direction the UK is heading with their requirement for Government photo ID and live facial recognition system they favour for implementation next year for anything not "safe for kids". People have mistakenly believed this is just for pornography but they'll be in for a shock when a wide range of websites will have to comply.
Tim Pool, The Quartering and many Conservative commentators - 'It's only TikTok getting sold off or banned. They're not coming for your websites and apps. You're being paranoid, hyperbolic and alarmist'.
Apology when?
I chuckled at how commentators such as Tim Pool and The Quartering believe that the law will exclusively focus on TikTok, they trust the Government to not engage in overreach and that the Government will not do anything to the other thorns in their side, ever.
If they genuinely believe that, Biden has a bridge to sell them.
Elon wants X to be a walled garden where access will only be available through an account. He's been doing his very best to prevent outside sites from accessing posts. The likes of Poast and Privacydev's last remaining Nitter instances are being done through real accounts but there is always the danger of another clampdown on accounts scraping data for outside sites. It's described as a legal grey area and could attract the lawyers at X of whom Elon can pay for the best. There is also the prospect that if these accounts are not regularly posting on X or appear to be bots to X, they'll all be closed in time. The remaining instances do seem keen on preferring people host their own private instances and run their own accounts on X to get data for them, but that requires knowledge of compiling source code.
They work for now but don't rely on them just in case they get taken down or go private.
The UK may have effective Lese-majeste and blasphemy laws under the guise of a new extremism definition in hours that the individual introducing it claims "isn't statutory" but will be treated as such by the Police (which means it IS statutory). A definition that will include a currently democratically elected political party and a man who publicly said he did not like a politician.
The Tories have moved left. Labour has moved right and have now become one Uniparty. There is the new addition to the definition of extremism due to be announced today which if Michael Gove keeps it statutory as he wants, would criminalise the Scottish National Party as Scottish independence would meet the new definition of maintaining British values via the union. The UK Government today could outlaw a democratically elected opposition party.
That's why all the parties are in unison regarding their beliefs. And to some degree, that also includes Reform UK. The alternative is being deplatformed, debanked and face criminal consequences.
I've seen too many times where a law has been introduced, critics have pointed out the potential misuse of that law down the line. Proponents have dismissed their concerns as overblown, flawed and not the intention of the law. Then the critics ultimately get proven right when said law gets misused.
I've seen it with terror legislation, misogyny legislation and it will happen with websites and apps in time.
Possibly the most disturbing thing about women that I've learned is how some of them are such psychopaths they don't think there are any worthwhile single men out their in their dating pool so their conclusion is that they have to go and slip into a relationship. To the point they'll try and make friends with the woman in order to steal the guy and ruin the relationship itself.
Pre-selection in action. Women prefer men who have been selected by other women. This is why middle aged divorced men have better outcomes in online dating compared to their long term single male peers. It's also why you hear men say that the second they found a girlfriend, they suddenly got attention from other women. It's why the top percentile of men have options while a significant proportion of men are treated as ghosts. And why it is impossible for a woman to be involuntary celibate.
Hurting people's feelings, sorry I meant, posting "misogynistic hate speech" should not be a police priority at all. It seems to me that a lot of what was said will not be credible threats and actual hatred (if it was, police would be making arrests) but uncomfortable truths and factual observations about the dating market and the gynocentric society we live in or advocating for male bachelorhood and going their own way. Seems like these men hit a raw nerve and are now being harassed, threatened and made to feel fear by the state.
What they don't realise is that if they take away everything including anonymity, you create men with nothing to lose and that is a VERY bad thing for all of society to have to deal with.
Meanwhile they seem to have no intention of doing the same to the copious amounts of "misandric hate speech" being published by women with their real identities because they know there will be no consequences to their man hatred.
They'll attempt to make exemptions to the first amendment and will take it to the Supreme Court if needs be to make precedents. They're not going to be the odd one out when every other western country is falling in line.
Right on cue from the BBC today: https://archive.is/oTXcI
The real problem will come with the forthcoming vague redefinition and statutory enforcement of extremism, which will cover anything deemed "transphobic". Rowling in future may only have two choices - prison or flee the country under political asylum.
Wait until the new extremism definition kicks in. "Undermining" or "overturning" "British values".
“The promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values; or threaten the rights of individuals or create a permissive environment for radicalization, hate crime and terrorism.”
The whole point is to make the definition vague and statutory (ie. decided or controlled by law) so anything that is critical of the Government, scrutinises them or they deem "hateful" can be classified as extremism. It will also outlaw political opposition. You may have noticed recently that Labour has pivoted toward being the Red Tories and the Tories have attempted to oust those who are on the right of the party (such as Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson). There will be no place in future for political opposition, criticism or scruitiny. And of the biggest advocates of that on the right is Tommy Robinson, a constant thorn in the side of the Government.
https://reclaimthenet.org/the-uk-government-is-considering-a-new-looser-definition-of-extremism (archive)
Robinson will be the first to lose citizenship should the Government wish to strip censorship from anyone who violates that definition, even if it makes them stateless. Then he becomes someone else's problem. After that, JK Rowling.
At a time where they're under pressure to shut the borders electronically from American social media conglomerates who are "causing tragedies like Molly Russell and Brianna Ghey" in order to create a regulated, state controlled national Intranet "to protect the children". If activists get their way, the likes of Robinson will have to flee the country and won't be able to communicate into the country as the UK will have mounted a walled garden with border checks electronically.
You could argue they have holy shrines now. One in particular I can think of is Grenfell Tower in London. Criticise or mock it and you will have broken an unwritten blasphemy law that causes gross offence and you will potentially go to prison for it.
It seems to have gathered the media's desire to celebrate it every year in recent years. You could not escape it and the inevitable man bashing and misandry yesterday everywhere in the name of "gender equality". Even the alternative media got in on it - the Lotus Eaters being eager to put the boot into unmarried men in a podcast segment yesterday. Most of the commentators were not having any of it.
Meanwhile, November 19th will pass by as another day by those advocating for "gender equality" (International Men's Day).
She's a femcel. Women have two avenues - either they have dropped out of the dating market altogether or they have options (but possibly all those options are not good enough for me). Neither avenue is involuntarily and femcel does not equal female involuntary celibate.
I saw a chart in a video that suggested that bachelorhood, the "manosphere" and the red pill was a conveyor belt to extremism in gaming. My eyes rolled when I saw it.