Matt.GC
TS Member
I'll admit to the grooming thing. Lesson learnt. Never scroll through forums whilst trimming your eyebrows.
Sorry.
Anyway, it looks like one of those well intended pieces of legislation, but completely hashed. The fact that it's just weeks away now and there's a need for this discussion in the first place to make sense of much ambiguity says a lot.
Attempting to stop absolute monsters from pulling live foxes out of their sets so that they can enjoy watching hounds tear them apart was well intended. 2 decades later the fox hunting ban is still a car crash and it's still happening.
Millions were spent by retailers 2 years ago adapting to HFSS. Trying to discourage unhealthy eating choices (like the sugar tax which I wish was expanded as it's massively effective) sounds great doesn't it? Never heard of a single retailer even being inspected, let alone prosecuted. I bet your local Aldi or Sainsbury's had chocolate coins next to checkouts and pallets of Pringles at the ends of aisles all over Christmas. Not hard to see why nothing materialised. Bran Flakes, bad for you so hide them away, 12 can of Strongbow Dark Fruits, fill your boots! Chocolate doughnuts will make you fat, send the exact same product in Frozen and whack a date label on manually and sell sell sell. Can't have ice cream freezer there as it makes someone buying their now perfectly healthy cider and chocolate doughnuts want to also buy a Magnum, move it slightly to the left 3mm and bang, Magnum purchase avoided. Laughable.
Point of this is, there are evil people out there harming children, inciting hate riots, and manipulating and harassing people to the point of suicide. All crimes, and easier to detect and prosecute in-person, by post, or via established media formats. Yet many online platforms sit back and watch the advertising cash roll in, whilst continuing to publish the crimes of others on their domains with impurity. The content may be user generated, but it's these for-profit platforms that provide them with the means in which to do it. A foreign owner of one of these platforms is even actively engaged in interfering with our democracy.
Publish - prepare and issue (a book, journal, piece of music, etc.) for public sale, distribution, or readership.
They prepare and issue user generated content for distribution and readership through their platforms, by providing users with a suite of tools they have created, and on domains that they own, in the pursuit of profit. They are publishers, and should be treated as such. They can choose to moderate, but they don't because it's logistically difficult, costly, and even if they did, some nobody on GBNews will be shouting "It's the leftie Wokes taking away our freedom of speech!" at the 7 viewers it attracts during peak time. The fact that they've let the genie out of the bottles their problem, not the parents of a dead child.
Problem is, this legislation looks like some sort of well intended mess of a compromise and failure to understand the problem, timidly focusing on the symptoms rather than the root cause of them.
I've found the moderation of this forum rather good. I've seen some rare stuff, including some behaviours towards children, and the crap that sometimes gets through overnight. Been told off myself for being a git a few times. But there's remarkably almost always a moderator around, and the only 2 times I've ever felt strongly enough to report anything (normally, as long as not hate fuelled, if you're over 18 and can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen), action was swiftly taken. So this and other similar environments will not be the target or focus and not intended to be.
It's not draconian, just looks more sloppy to me. Applying a sticking plaster to Facebook with one hand, whilst throwing the baby and the bathwater all over smaller settings with the other. It'll be interesting to see what comes to fruition. If a moderator has stated they don't know and aren't concerned.
Sorry.
Anyway, it looks like one of those well intended pieces of legislation, but completely hashed. The fact that it's just weeks away now and there's a need for this discussion in the first place to make sense of much ambiguity says a lot.
Attempting to stop absolute monsters from pulling live foxes out of their sets so that they can enjoy watching hounds tear them apart was well intended. 2 decades later the fox hunting ban is still a car crash and it's still happening.
Millions were spent by retailers 2 years ago adapting to HFSS. Trying to discourage unhealthy eating choices (like the sugar tax which I wish was expanded as it's massively effective) sounds great doesn't it? Never heard of a single retailer even being inspected, let alone prosecuted. I bet your local Aldi or Sainsbury's had chocolate coins next to checkouts and pallets of Pringles at the ends of aisles all over Christmas. Not hard to see why nothing materialised. Bran Flakes, bad for you so hide them away, 12 can of Strongbow Dark Fruits, fill your boots! Chocolate doughnuts will make you fat, send the exact same product in Frozen and whack a date label on manually and sell sell sell. Can't have ice cream freezer there as it makes someone buying their now perfectly healthy cider and chocolate doughnuts want to also buy a Magnum, move it slightly to the left 3mm and bang, Magnum purchase avoided. Laughable.
Point of this is, there are evil people out there harming children, inciting hate riots, and manipulating and harassing people to the point of suicide. All crimes, and easier to detect and prosecute in-person, by post, or via established media formats. Yet many online platforms sit back and watch the advertising cash roll in, whilst continuing to publish the crimes of others on their domains with impurity. The content may be user generated, but it's these for-profit platforms that provide them with the means in which to do it. A foreign owner of one of these platforms is even actively engaged in interfering with our democracy.
Publish - prepare and issue (a book, journal, piece of music, etc.) for public sale, distribution, or readership.
They prepare and issue user generated content for distribution and readership through their platforms, by providing users with a suite of tools they have created, and on domains that they own, in the pursuit of profit. They are publishers, and should be treated as such. They can choose to moderate, but they don't because it's logistically difficult, costly, and even if they did, some nobody on GBNews will be shouting "It's the leftie Wokes taking away our freedom of speech!" at the 7 viewers it attracts during peak time. The fact that they've let the genie out of the bottles their problem, not the parents of a dead child.
Problem is, this legislation looks like some sort of well intended mess of a compromise and failure to understand the problem, timidly focusing on the symptoms rather than the root cause of them.
I've found the moderation of this forum rather good. I've seen some rare stuff, including some behaviours towards children, and the crap that sometimes gets through overnight. Been told off myself for being a git a few times. But there's remarkably almost always a moderator around, and the only 2 times I've ever felt strongly enough to report anything (normally, as long as not hate fuelled, if you're over 18 and can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen), action was swiftly taken. So this and other similar environments will not be the target or focus and not intended to be.
It's not draconian, just looks more sloppy to me. Applying a sticking plaster to Facebook with one hand, whilst throwing the baby and the bathwater all over smaller settings with the other. It'll be interesting to see what comes to fruition. If a moderator has stated they don't know and aren't concerned.
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