Re: Online Safety Bill
 

That despite the rhetoric nonces get community orders.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

There are only so many ways of reiterating:

It
Will
Not
Happen

:banghead:

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

58%

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...under-32399074

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Assuming it's the same poll from This Morning & the Daily Mirror, it looks like they got their 83% figure from these stats in your link:



---------- Post added at 23:57 ---------- Previous post was at 23:52 ----------

Personally I think what they'll probably end up doing is banning smartphones during school time to make it consistent and put the onus onto websites to take measures to protect children under threat of sanctions.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

As there's not enough jail capacity, and no willingness to build more, I'm afraid the Conservatives are going soft on crime in the same way they've gone soft on low taxation, soft on funding the armed forces and soft on the economy.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Errr... No.....

83% of parents said smartphones are "harmful to young people."

Thats not the same thing as supporting they should be banned, at all.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The information came from This Morning. If (and I don't know if it is for sure) it's from the same survey in the Daily Mirror it looks like they have obtained their figure from the wrong question.

As the actual question as to whether parents support the banning of mobile phones isn't there, I think that they must be two different surveys.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The most obvious question being why these 83% almost all buy smart phones for their kids?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Good point. One parent in a previous link
apologised to their now adult children for buying them smartphones as children after explaining that, at the time, he simply wasn't aware of the damage that they could do or how addictive they could be.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Scottish Government to consider how to deal with misogyny.

Should this become a hate crime in Scotland I assume that the Online Safety Act will have to be amended for those who live in Scotland, unless the rest of the UK decides to adopt any measures for simplicity.

If they don't things could get messy as online offences take place where you physically are when you publish the comments so, if someone wanted to make misogynistic comments they could leave Scotland, publish their remarks and then return to Scotland!!

https://www.gov.scot/groups/misogyny...working-group/

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

How do they plan to deal with Misandry ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The Scottish Parliament can’t bind the UK Government to act in reserved areas - which the regulation of telecommunications is.

The Scottish Government do have form for ill thought out legislation though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offens...land)_Act_2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender...Scotland)_Bill

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

No, but if the rest of the UK doesn't voluntarily agree to accept this it could become messy.

---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 17:14 ----------

There aren't any plans to deal with misandry, which in my opinion there should be.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This programme looks at the indifference by social media companies regarding the deaths of children due to their inaction.

Deny, delay & deflect seems to be their strategy, but a psychologist says he lost sleep for weeks after viewing some if the posts in question.

The coroner for one child says that these posts affected her mental health in a negative way and contributed to her death in a more than minimal way (suicide.)

Generative AI is a new threat on the horizon as it can sound and act like a human, but it just "spews lies" and is said to be a threat to democracy. A Nobel Peace Prize journalist said that she was worried in 2016, but that 2024 will be a tipping point and elections could be impacted by this. She days she's gone from being a passionate supporter of new technology, to a skeptic and is now an activist against it.

The programme asks if, after 20 years, Silicon Valleys radical experiment to connect the world about to implode.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xlsl

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Florida to ban social media for under 14's, with parental consent required for 14 & 15 year olds. Legal challenges are expected:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...a-ban-children

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

You have to be 13 to join SM sites (facebook, instagram etc) anyway, so hardly much difference.
I'd also love to know how exactly they think they are going to enforce this anymore than the existing age requirements.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It has to be managed by the parents.

My boy has had a smartphone since he was 11, but he has no social media accounts.

He watches YouTube so obviously some content from other platforms will be on there from osmosis but I regularly check his phone.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

They ask for your date of birth when joining, so I suppose they will do a run and close the affected accounts.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I think he means how it'll be verified as at present it's just a self declaration.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Right, because no "child" wanting access ever puts in a false DOB.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I wondered what their children thought of that?

Pussies.

---------- Post added at 08:23 ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 ----------

Surely the answer is to modify the current arrangements so that the people who upload this stuff can be identified, banned and where appropriate, prosecuted.

The online safety legislation puts impossible obligations on social media companies to remove these posts as soon as they appear. How on Earth do you make that work?

Talk about a cask-handed way of tackling a problem!

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If it gets too much then they could make the minimum age required to use social media to something like 18. If any child is affected by content then the responsibility lies with the child or the parents only.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If children gain access by lying (and no age verification is legally required) and something terrible happened as a result, this would be a defence by the website as to why an under age child was on their platform.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Every website that ever asks me for my DoB gets a false one, unless it’s a legal requirement for them to have it. I don’t trust any website to be secure in the long run so I don’t give information that makes identity theft that much easier.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I do too for the same reasons. Not sure if children would think to do this, but they'd be advised to.

However, if they create an age that gives them access to a site that they shouldn't be on then this can cause problems for them further down the line.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

No, Richard, this is completely the wrong approach. Simply deny the right of children to have access to social media until they are of a suitable age. Oh, wait...parents can do that already! Well, well.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I have actively encouraged my kids to give a false DoB, not to get round age restrictions but simply for data security.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Not that they need any encouragement, Chris. They're not stupid. Stupidity seems to be reserved for the majority of adults, sadly.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If all parents were to take an interest & and had the technical knowledge to adequately police their children's activity on the internet, then most problems could be resolved before they got out of hand.

Unfortunately, some don't/aren't and their children deserve protection too.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-68688133

It's been criticised for not including incidents based on gender.

From on online point if view I think this could become messy as someone breaking this law has to post their remarks whilst in Scotland. If they live near the border, they could simply drive into England to do it and someone in Scotland could post something that is unlawful that wouldn't be in England, NI or Wales!

Will websites be required to note the location of contributors in order to assess if a user has broken the law or not? Accotding to Radio 4 this morning, the police have said that they will investigate all complaints.

I think that this could well be the first law since devolution that will affect people outside Scotland.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

A stupid crazy win for the minority snowflakes... What a waste of police time.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I criticise it for specifying any characteristics. Why is threatening or abusive behaviour ever acceptable?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

This post on twitter (X) is hilarious and goes someway to explain the stupidity of the bill.

https://twitter.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/...20991188140135

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yep that about sums it up.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It's not and it's against the law for someone to do this to anybody, as it should be.

I think that the Scottish legislators have recognised that certain members of society are more vulnerable to verbal & physical attack because of who they are.

Their hope is that this new law will make the perpetrators think twice before doing it or result in a more harsh sentence if the attack was in fact a hate crime.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

That is just brilliant. :D

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Scot Squad was brilliant … pretty sure the whole lot is still on iPlayer.

(He goes to check)

And it is: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...5fq/scot-squad

Well worth 22 hours of your time.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The Scottish police are going to be busy.

Source: A.F.Neil.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I said last year that this was a charter for every person who have a grudge against someone or those that find offence about something because they think everyone else should be offended even if they are not. Every keyboard warrior in Scotland must be in the element.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Or those creepy weirdos that insist on having people corrected they must salivating at the prospect of koshing the unwary with this nonsense

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

BBC 6pm news said that teachers blame
the use of social media on mobile phones for a rise in male on female sexism. Boys have been said to have been making remarks about both the bodies & choice of clothing of girls.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-68731795

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

:rofl:

Because prior to mobile phones no teenage boys ever commented on the sexual attractiveness or otherwise of the girls in the classroom.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yep, I blame that mobile phone I had back in the late 1970's :dozey:

Seriously. :rolleyes:

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

From what they are saying it's
excacerbated the behaviour & made it more extreme. Girls have been called sluts & on the news one teacher said "I'll put it politely, but one boy said that he wanted to have sex with me".

---------- Post added at 01:25 ---------- Previous post was at 01:22 ----------

These days 'boys watch "aggressive and violent pornography" and influencer content that "completely distorts their view of women".

---------- Post added at 01:33 ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 ----------

The increased amount of moderation thats now needed cannot be done by humans alone. Some words and innapropriate content can be removed and dealt with automatically, but sometimes it gets it wrong as it cannot understand the context of what's been posted.

Entrepreneur Sacha Haco saw a gap in the market and has set up a company to develop a product that can moderate using AI:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xvk1

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

You must have led a very sheltered life at school.
That was common when I was at school, almost 50 years ago, I wonder what they blamed it on then ... ;)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

There is quite a bit of truth in what Richard says (I can't believe I'm agreeing with him).

Online porn which is mainly extreme or violent seems to be the norm and teenagers can and will accept it as a standard. The lines between 'sex' and 'love making' are now blurred due to the extreme content so that attitudes towards sex has now changed.

The correlation between watching online porn and sexual abuse is very high and they see it now as acceptable which is worrying.

It'll only get worse as children will be desensitized enough to want or need to copy what they see online which will only get worse as well.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It probably does, but they’re not watching it on Twitter, Facebook, etc. And they’re all (in most cases) clicking to confirm they are over 18, or watching it on sites that are offering content illegally (piracy) so already operating outside the law.

The Online Safety Act, and the latest moral panic, doesn’t change that.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Very true, it makes a mockery of the online safety bill when you read this... (From the Guardian).. ( https://www.theguardian.com/society/...agers-addicted )

It's like they just don't have a clue at all.

Obviously it's not just the underaged that are affected by online (porn) content either.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’m convinced they do have a clue to the point they know it’ll be completely ineffective. However that’s not the point - as long as enough people think that it is (the curtain twitchers), and it provides an opportunity to “stand up to big tech” there might be enough political capital in it.

It’s also a good distraction from the causes and effects of actual problems in society.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It was, but it's now gotten much worse and is more blatant.

As most boys go through puberty they will start to find the opposite sex sexually attractive, including some of their teachers. This would have been kept private & discreet, but the teacher on the news yesterday basically said that a boy had said to her that he wanted to **** her. We would never have dared say that 50 years ago.

---------- Post added at 17:27 ---------- Previous post was at 17:22 ----------

Exactly. One of the main problems is kids now having access to online porn, so Ofcom is currently looking at ways to try and prevent them accessing it.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

What makes it access to online porn over say, a lack of basic manners, growing up in poverty, a broken household, etc. etc?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

These factors may well play a part too, but it's believed by teachers, the regulator etc that having access to porn that doesn't reflect real human relationships and misogynistic influencers that is the root cause

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yet the regulator is taking no steps. The Online Safety Act gives them no additional powers. Teaching unions will always complain about conditions for their members and adding their concerns to the flavour of the month scare stories gives them press coverage.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I think you mean 'you' would not, others would have.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Of course they have additional powers! The protection of children is what they are concentrating on as a first priority.

---------- Post added at 20:33 ---------- Previous post was at 20:31 ----------

I have never come across any schoolboy saying something like that. Did they at your school (or has anybody else had experience of this)?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

What powers to close down websites that are already illegally pirating graphic pornography?

I don’t think it’s such a routine occurrence that the average person would have encountered it, but almost certainly similarly sexually suggestive things will have been said at some point in schools up and down the country. Infinite monkey theorem.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Perhaps Richard has had a very sheltered existence. I went to fairly good schools, but even there this sort of thing was going on, although often I wasn’t aware of much of it because I wasn’t included in the naughty kids groups.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I'm sure it will have been said between themselves, but did you encounter any other pupils saying that they wanted to *** a particular teacher to their face?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

No, but then neither have all but a small two digit (maximum) number of the 10 million school pupils in the UK at the moment.

We also don’t know the circumstances - if the pupil had Tourette’s or some other kind of behavioural disability for example - has the teacher, school and union unwittingly discriminated against the pupil by raising a complaint rather than considering reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act?

I have heard pupils objecting to instructions with a retort implying the teacher should perform fellatio on them instead. Smart phones not required.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Wow, I didn't realise that some schools had degenerated to that extent. I have teacher friends who have never mentioned this so I shall make a point of asking them about this.

I wonder if this behaviour is confined to state schools in inner city areas or if it's a more widespread problem??.

You make a fair point about this behaviour being caused by a disability. Perhaps the individuals have been referred for assessment

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’m with OB on your sheltered existence btw. There’s a big bad world out there.

I’m not sure how it could be confined to state schools in inner cities if the internet is is to blame and largely ubiquitous. My school was a selective school in a town.

There’s an epidemic of shit parenting out there, a far bigger issue than “online harm”.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

For crying out loud , used to watch girls doing handstands in the yard , showing their knickers that was over 60 years ago , pulling up their skirts, looking at girlie magazines in the corner shop , nothing changes just the method of delivery.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

That says more about their upbringing, frankly. The teachers themselves complain that more and more children come to the reception classes not even trained to go to the toilet by themselves. There have been reports of children not recognising their own names unless their name is yelled at them.
The standard of parenting has gone downhill massively in recent years, but it has nothing to do with the internet.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It may have something to do with parents spending all their time looking at their phones instead of their children.

I dont know about under 16's having their phone access restricted, a lot of adults should have their time restricted.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So true

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

50 years ago in school caning was a common everyday occurrence.Then it was banned.Then we had on the spot detention.Then that was banned and it became a dance around organised detaining after school or during playtime instead.The pupils just stayed away from school with parents connivance on the whole.

Then Mobile phones arrived and parents stupidly decided little johnny had to be safe in school with his mobile permanently in his grasp.So teachers had to insist that mobiles had to be placed in the teachers possession for the duration of a lesson.You can imagine what a kerfuffle that placed in every lesson because students would just hide their mobile about their person..

it's all gotten ridiculous trying to instill common rules and regulations since and some parents seem to entirely misunderstand what education and schools are for. they just regard it as the ways and means for them to be able to work and have free childcare between the ages of 4-16.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

God forbid we should violently assault children?


Detention during school time is fine, detention o/s of school hours can impact the care schedule that working parents have in place.

Any school with a competent administration can police the use of mobile phones in school.

The one my child goes to does.

Ridiculous that we can’t beat children, inconvenience working parents or manage our own schools competently, You’re right.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

One teacher friend has actually said that school is in effect a babysitting service these days.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’m amazed anyone sees it as anything else for 95%+ of pupils. Very few things, if any, taught in a classroom today will have any relevance to work in 2045. Teaching is very much a gravy train for some families though of second and third generation teachers. Solid public sector employment, decent pension, nice holiday entitlement. So the industry has to pretend otherwise, academia sees the pound signs coming their way too so very happy to play along.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’ll take a wild assumption here, in that neither of you have kids, or kids of school age and definitely not kids of secondary school age.

Happy to be wrong, but please do let me know.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’m not sure someone needs to have kids to have been through the education system themselves and decide on balance it’s primary function is to give kids somewhere to be to allow their parents to work first and educate some distant position further down than that.

Outside those with academic aspirations the system offered very little in terms of skills needed to get into a trade. People who make a success of themselves in a trade often do so despite the system, rather than because of it.

And I went to school before entire bits became dedicated to pronouns.

(Whether there’s societal value in this is a separate argument, but the housing market won’t prop up itself on the basis of one income households)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I do recall hearing a few years ago that the less academic kids were to be introduced to vocational preparation at the age of 14 I think with work experience etc. I remember thinking at the time that this was a good idea.

---------- Post added at 00:24 ---------- Previous post was at 00:12 ----------

One of my senior teacher friends has recently taken early retirement. He says that some of the kids are now impossible
to teach.

Upon entering the classroom two girls had turned their chairs round so that they had their backs to him. After he had dealt with this behaviour and completed the lesson the headmaster called him in as he had had a complaint from these girls for 'raising his eyebrows in an aggressive manner'! I told him that when I was at school it would have been the kids who would have been in trouble for their rude & disrespectful behaviour. He said that noe kids & teachers are treated as equals and both have a right to speak to the headmaster about the situation.

Later on he was admonished for marking a book in red as this was considered to be 'passive aggressive'. He said that this, and the fact that his salary had been cut in real terms by about 20% since 2010, is what made him decide to leave the profession.

In my time at school we had to stand up everything a teacher entered the classroom, but these days I can understand why there is a shortage of teachers.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

How do you raise your eyebrows in an aggressive manner :confused:

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

To give some insight on how online safety is taught in schools, we had the news on the other day when the William Wragg issue blew up. I asked my 15 year old what she would do in that situation and the answer was immediate - block and report. She asked why and we told her about the issue with William Wragg and she called him an idiot!

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If the headmaster is entertaining nonsense like this and actually calling in a head of year teacher in for a chat about it there's something seriously wrong.

---------- Post added at 12:28 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

The difference is thar Wragg was on a gay pick up site, so it wouldn't be unusual for strangers to contact people.

However, sharing the details of a sensitive job (perhaps he was showing off to try and appear more attractive?) and sending compromising pictures (I assume this will be naked photos) with a stranger was an idiotic thing to do.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Yep, that’s the point. My kids knew about what they should and shouldn’t do and share online in primary school. Their school is excellent on continuous reinforcement of this and come down on anyone like a ton of bricks on anyone perpetrating cyber bullying and the like.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Excellent :) I'd like to see this rolled out to every school. Adults who the children don't know or who aren't related shouldn't be messaging kids. Even if it starts out innocuous it often turns sexual before too long.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Being reported on the Radio 4 PM news programme that the police have received more than 7,000 complaints in the first week of the new law that forbids the stirring up of hatred for the following vulnerable groups relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So what public services will lose some of there funding to pay for all of the police time dealing with frivolous complaints potentially raised by bully's and lets face it trolls who are targeting people they just don't like or have some sort of grievance. I do understand some might be genuine but the police MUST release details of how many were not genuine or had no case to answer. Also how many police officers will be taken off front line duties to deal with the mess.

To highlight what i am getting at

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...hate-crime-law

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...hate-crime-law

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...de-first-week/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...f-new-law.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ce-jk-rowling/

My point is that this is a charter for anyone to ether raise a complaint anonymously just to tie up the police or to target someone in a grudge action similar to the Swatting occurrences in America.

Maybe the SNP will introduce a blasphemy law next with weekly stoning in town centres :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wciENFKUelY

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The majority of complaints are against Humza Yousaf or JK Rowling. None of which are being pursued. Make of that what you will.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

If this is the case it sounds like the complaints system may be being used as a form of protest then.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It’s being used by idiots, that’s what.

Poorly thought out legislation, implemented worse. Even Ministers have went on television and misrepresented what it actually says in the Act.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

The police say that this has had little to no effect on their ability to carry out their other duties.

It sounds like they are sorting the wheat from the chat in order that those with a genuine complaints are dealt with.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co....e-32540154.amp

That’s not what the police union are claiming.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Thats obviously bollox, how can having to deal with over 7,000 "complaints" have no effect.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It takes time to assess 7,000 potential complaints. Unless the police had lots of people lying around doing nothing, there must be an impact.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Assuming a standard 7.5 hr working day, and you could log & deal with a complaint every 10 minutes, it would take one person just over 5 months to deal with 7,000.
To deal with them in a couple of days would take almost 80 people, so yeah, somone is lying about the effect.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I expect it'll be admin staff rather than actual police officers that are processing the complaints.

Nevertheless, it's interesting that the police and the police union are saying two different things.

Hopefully those abusing the new law to make a point will eventually tire of it to allow the genuine complaints to be dealt with ASAP.

Maybe they should say that those deliberately wasting police time will be appropriately dealt with.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So admin at the police are deciding whether stuff is a police matter or not?

Sounds like this is being taken super seriously. It still costs money.

Are people “abusing” the new law? They were told this is where to go to complain about objectionable content.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

There are no admin staff, 23500 of them were sacked by the tories so they could say no front line staff had been lost after their brutal austerity cuts decimated actual officer numbers so it will be police officers deciding things, next time a jock calls them and they tell him no one is available the reason might be because they're all busy checking objectionable content

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

You know the Tories haven’t had a say on police staffing levels in Scotland since they last ran the pre-devolution Scottish office in 1997, right … ?

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

So their admin staff leveld are the same or better as 14 years ago right

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I have no idea what the SNP or Labour have done to police admin support levels since 1997. My point is, you jumping in to blame the Tories for sacking 23,500 police admin staff is irrelevant to a discussion about whether Police in Scotland can cope with the burden imposed on them by the new Scottish hate crime legislation, which was the issue Jfman was addressing (and which you quoted in your reply). The Tories have not had the power to hire or fire anyone in the police since devolution.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I’ve no idea of the situation either - I was only taking on the point on a hypothetical basis.

Policing being done by admin staff would raise quite significant questions over the whole thing. It’s also not at zero cost - Paul’s calculations above on the man hours apply albeit the wages would be lower.

If there’s a subsequent referral of some/all to police or more senior staff how much time is lost in double handling?

So many questions.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Here's some data on the number of police officers in Scotland. More dedicated posters might be able to go back to 1997 and find the admin staff numbers too.
https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1712840840

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...e-in-scotland/

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

Seems like a cop out unless you're also saying Scotland was immune to Westminster budget cuts and iirc 3000 officer and admin staff jobs were under threat from redundancy at the end of last year something Unison said resulted in police officers filling the civilian roles 10 years ago

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

And that sounds like you’re shifting the goalposts while hoping nobody notices that the total funding settlement from Westminster to Holyrood is not the same thing as ‘Tories have sacked 23,500 police admin staff’. Just admit you got the wrong end of the stick and move on. ;)

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

I suspect that the number of complaints about two individuals to be part of an organised campaign to make a point as opposed to true complaints made in good faith.

I expect that civilian staff are making decisions that would at one time have been made by police ifficers, yes. In an effort to deal with spending cuts or staff shortages, many organisations these days use lesser qualified staff to do the job that at one time was once done higher up the hierarchy.

It is happening at the NHS (Nurse Practitioners) and in frontline policing (Police Community Support Officers).

Even going to an Ombudsman these days is likely to be dealt with by admin staff and only goes to an actual Ombudsman if the complainant objects to the decision.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

It doesnt matter who is dealing with them, someone is having to.
Thats clearly going to have an effect on whatever else they were supposed to be doing.

Re: Online Safety Bill
 

https://www.theguardian.com/technoog...s-to-under-16s

The Town that banned children using smartphones':

https://www.itv.com/thismorning/arti...ng-smartphones