Online Safety Bill Etc

[damien c]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I know there have been amendments making it illegal to encourage serious self-harm, cyberflashing, and sharing non-consensual intimate images - can I ask what are the others that concern you, please?

I have no issues with that stuff being made illegal, what I have an issue with is it being used as an excuse to force 24/7 surveillance on each and every one of us, and surveillance on everything we do on our devices, every conversation we have etc.

Don't tell me they are not it, because they are, they have already looked into it, they are already forcing hardware manufacturers and software developers to implement it despite them saying "we won't be doing it".

The level of surveillance being introduced, the level of restrictions and control being introduced, the twisting of what was once a good idea, all because the Labour Government want to stop the people from being able to do anything they don't like.

I am grateful I have not had kids nor will I have kids, because I wouldn't want to bring a kid into a world where they are not allowed to be proud of who they are, not allowed to move freely, think freely or speak freely!

For those who think the Conservatives, Reform, Lib Dems, Greens etc will do any better or remove any of the stuff that Labour have put in place, well you are delusional, money is king and none of them will say no to their donors!

[nffc]

Originally Posted by damien c

It won't be long before even this forum will be required to implement Age Verification because it is classed as Social Media.

Technically it already should do. The OSA doesn't make much distinction between a forum and other forms of social media in terms of what is considered in scope.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Not a big fan of the OSA, but it was passed under the previous Goverment, and received Royal Assent on 26th October 2023…

It was, and they had a chance to repeal it or not implement it, they chose to keep going with this, and there's also a fair chance they voted for it at the time as well.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by nffc

Technically it already should do. The OSA doesn't make much distinction between a forum and other forms of social media in terms of what is considered in scope.

It was, and they had a chance to repeal it or not implement it, they chose to keep going with this, and there's also a fair chance they voted for it at the time as well.

Indeed, the Act had all party support.

Regarding the banning of social media for u16's. 90% of parents who responded to the consultation about this were in favour of the ban & the Conservative leader of the opposition has said that she agrees with the ban & so will be supporting it.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Indeed, the Act had all party support.

Regarding the banning of social media for u16's. 90% of parents who responded to the consultation about this were in favour of the ban & the Conservative leader of the opposition has said that she agrees with the ban & so will be supporting it.

and what do the under 16s think about it

[damien c]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

and what do the under 16s think about it

Doesn't matter, they are not to be listened to, just like parents who took part in a Government and Ofcom related study, although I am for some reason struggling to find it, where the overall majority was that parents said they should be in charge of controlling what their kids see not the government.

I will keep trying to find it, and when I do I will post a link, but it puts a spanner in the works of those who seem to think that every parent on the planet wants to have to prove they are over 16 in order to use the internet, buy a newspaper or even walk into some shops.

How long before anyone under the age of 16 is not allowed in a shop because they might see a newspaper or magazine with a women on the front who, has been on a diet and the government says "Dieting is bad, it gives people mental health issues about their weight"!

[Itshim]

All governments want to control the public, just set about it in different ways.

https://www.ippr.org/media-office/va...ren-ippr-finds

Eight in ten either support banning under 16s from social media or forcing companies to remove content and features, with parents 50 per cent more likely to back a ban than regulation

But only one in seven trust government ministers to decide which platforms should be banned

IPPR is calling for a blanket social media ban for under-16s to prevent further loss of childhood

Around eight in 10 people support either banning under-16s from social media or forcing social media companies to remove features and content deemed inappropriate for children, according to new polling for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) conducted by YouGov.

While 44 per cent of the public prefer a ban and 39 per cent prefer tighter regulation, parents of children under 16 included in the poll favour banning social media ban over regulation by 3 to 2 (54 per cent to 36 per cent).

Only 11 per cent of adults, and 7 per cent of parents with children under 16, say social media should not be banned or regulated in this way.

When it comes to deciding which social media platforms are appropriate for children, around half of adults trust parents (51 per cent) or an independent regulator (49 per cent) to make the decision. By contrast, only a fifth trust schools (22 per cent), one in six trust technology companies (16 per cent), and just one in seven trust government ministers (15 per cent).

[Carth]

*cough*

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,058 adults.

[jem]

Originally Posted by Hugh

https://www.ippr.org/media-office/va...ren-ippr-finds

I suspect that the majority of people in this country will be broadly in support of a ban for under-16s. As always, easy to pass a law, but how will it be implemented, how will it be enforced?

Let’s ask for (sensible, please) suggestions from my fellow posters; ‘just how would you implement it?'

I’ve seen some ideas; ‘special child-friendly phones’ - but not really practical for technical and commercial reasons.

So we have the problem of a phone or other device (laptops, some people still use desktops - especially gamers, games consoles etc.) which in the hands of an under-16 behaves differently to an identical device being used by a 17 year old. How does the device know? Remember it’s not possible for the under-16 to have to fail to show that they are old enough, the onus is on everyone else to have to prove that they are! Hopefully this could be done in a simple, non-invasive way - but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting. More likely it’ll be send scans of your passport along with a mugshot to some third-party who will absolutely promise to keep it all secure, and destroy the info once age has been confirmed, and somehow the device knows this.

Oh and what happens if it’s a shared device?

But anyway, let’s assume that the ban becomes law and some age-verification method is in use. What happens when a tabloid paper reveals that some thousands of under-16s are still using SM - parents just ‘allowing’ it because they didn’t understand the parental controls, a bug in the verification system, someone found and disseminated a ‘work-around’?

Will even more draconian restrictions be put in place, again, for everyone, to try to close these loopholes - rinse and repeat?

I’m not against taking steps to protects children from the worse parts of the internet (or the world in general - the internet is just a means of communication), but let’s make sure that the ‘cure’ isn’t as bad as the ‘disease’!

Originally Posted by Carth

*cough*

Tell me you don’t understand how statistical sampling works without telling me you don’t understand how statistical sampling works…

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sampling.asp

https://yougov.com/en-gb/about/methodology

A survey’s sample size can substantially alter its margin of error, and a bigger sample size generally is better. As sample size increases, the precision of our estimates increases, and the margin of error decreases. For example, while a survey of 1,000 people may have a margin of error of roughly ±4%, increasing the sample size to 2,000 will lower the margin of error to about ±2% or ±2.5%. However, there are diminishing returns to increasing sample size.