Comment by Veliladon

I guess I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Americans who want age verification laws have some entirely different motivation than people in other countries who want age verification laws.

It has broad public support.

The law was passed in 2023 by the tories, and Ofcom has concluded what the tories asked them to do -- write the statutory instruments that implement the law.

The Labour government would have to repeal the law (really unlikely; governments don't usually rip down their predecessors' laws because if they did no progress would occur) or set the statutory instruments aside.

I think the "true motives" are what the law says. I don't think they will ban VPNs (which would support an alternative reading of motive).

I also, again, encourage US readers to understand that your own supreme court has rubber-stamped a law that requires US porn firms to do all this and more for the benefit of Texas, and there are 24 more state laws that have similar impacts.

Pretending this is just something crazy we Brits are doing out there on our own is disingenuous at best and often hypocritical and whiny at worst.

Requiring device side child safe modes would be far further reaching and likely mean your cannot run your own software anymore. Requiring providers of adult content to check id is much more limited in scope.

So if you don't give your ID to multiple corporations in league with foreign governments, then foreign governments win?

Even in that context, I believe you could provide semi-anonymous verification. You just need a weaker encryption of sorts. One you can crack in a month instead of never ever. Then have that shit rotate, and the government can invest money to find that one identity posting BS all day with multiple bots until it rotates/regenerates, but they can't keep track of everyone.

The opposition in the West does not come from foreign propaganda but from sky-high house prices, sky-high education and health insurance costs and dropping living standards.

All of which is the fault of the establishment parties and not of foreign actors.

Even Trump now continues or, in the Middle East, exceeds the existing long term neocon policies. So the foreign online propaganda, which does exist, is completely overrated.

Well the politicians could make that argument but haven't.

I agree with much (if not necessarily all) of what you said, esp about foreign actors and adversarial propaganda and disinfo (APD.)

I worked on the latter problem space precisely for the US State Department. Its challenging, esp at scale, and esp if the folks trying to fight back are not given a free enough of a hand to do whats needed.

> Of course, this is all rife for abuse. Of course, there are immense downsides. Yet the downsides of leaving an endless stream of propaganda, disinformation spewed at everyone including our youth, unchecked, is far far greater.

Or we could, you know, trust people to exercise their critical faculties without the intervention of overbearing Civil Servants, Cabinet Office officials or the guiding hand of the BBC. Radical idea, I know.

What makes you think it's any better here in the US? There is a worldwide rise toward nationalism/authoritarianism.

> The US should start a refugee program for UK citizens who understand what freedom actually means and want to live in a free country again.

I ask this in all seriousness: have you been paying attention to what's happening recently in the US?

The frying pan is uncomfortable and everything but the fire is failing to tempt me.

It wouldn't be the first time: when the Parliamentarians gained control over England in the English Civil War, large number of Cavaliers fled to the American colonies.

Many in the UK find the US quite a frightening place right now. We will also welcome US refugees into the UK! Don't want to create a refugee-deficit after all ;)

> The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare. The US should start a refugee program for UK

Hilarious, you literally have a president shutting down free speech by getting a talkshow taken off the air so that the owning media company can pass its merger regulations; he’s also threatening to sue or actually suing other media organisations, universities, newspapers,... And on top of all that has built a private militia to grab people off the street and deport them.

All while major corporations have so much money and control over the government and its representatives that individuals have little to no say in how things are done.

And let’s not even start on the electoral system that encourages only the issues of a few states to ever be ‘heard’.

The whole country is indoctrinated to pledge allegiance to the flag and is taught that the constitution is of equivalent standing as the stone tablets brought down from Mount Sinai, leaving you all more vulnerable in a world where anybody can say anything and have it broadcast to billions of people at once. Or, you know, to being shot. You're indoctrinated to believe that the founding fathers were infallible geniuses, when they were just men, with opinions.

Often in these discussions we get quotes like:

"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

That was said by a man, a regular man. He said a thing. It is entirely devoid of nuance, but you will all recite like it's the word of god. It's a form of self-oppression in its own right.

The vast majority of so-called oppressive laws introduced in the UK were well meaning, not done for power (like with your current president). The anti-hate speech laws were brought about because preachers were openly indoctrinating people who went on to commit atrocities like 7/7. I have never fallen fowl of those laws because I don't preach hate and foment violence. But to Ben Franklin that's the thin end of the wedge.

This latest law is for sure misguided, but it came from a desire to reduce online harm for children -- more opposition was needed when it was going through parliament. I get it, they messed up, it's bad law, but we also have a parliamentary system that functions, so it will almost certainly be refined over time.

The goals are right, the implementation is wrong, but that doesn't mean the UK is falling into authoritarianism. We're not trying to overturn elections, or you know, stop them altogether.

The idea that the US is some paragon of freedom and liberty is utter, utter nonsense. It’s more fucked than the UK will ever be.

If your kid has a friend how are you going to stop your kid from getting access to porn at their friend's house?

That’s plain idiotic. Have you ever met a kid? Good luck with that.

And even if it were somehow feasible to control internet access points 100% of the time, do you think most parents could figure it out? I have friends with teenage children, I assure you, most of them would be easily outsmarted by their kids with anything tech related, and they’re above average intelligence.

I’m not necessarily saying this is the correct solution anyway, I don’t know what is, I’m just saying we don’t need to make up dystopian conspiracy theories to explain the motivation of the people who want to do it.