Through most of history government always has the power, but the
question is whether it has the legitimacy.
In this case it has the legitimacy, but lacks the power.
This is an unusual turn.
We need online safety for kids. The aims of this bill should obtain
widespread support from everyone.
But instead of carefully researching and implementing difficult ideas,
framing it properly and obtaining permission from the people - a remit
to empower us to embrace online safety on our own terms - it's taken a
strictly 20th Century "Mother knows best, think of the children"
approach and made this a battle with Big Tech.
It is laughably "Yes, Prime-Minister" in its clumsiness. We have
anachronistic throwbacks in charge.
People might be more receptive if the UK government had shown any real intention of going after pedos before this. But the number of scandals and coverups indicate they dont. And this is little more than an excuse to make it easier to spy on their subjects.
It also has a recent history of racial discrimination targeting minorities as a result of false accusations of child abuse, so it's worth making sure there isn't an overcorrection particularly in a society where people sometimes still attribute random individuals together based on perceived ethnic origin. See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/04/how-eleanor-... for one example.
You've sleight-of-handed out "government" for "the UK" and linked two stories which don't really involve the UK government.
Furthermore if you read your own links, you will see that the "recent history" of the Rotherham offending is that there is an enormous police investigation costing tens of millions of pounds and a large number of people have been convicted, and the "recent history" of the fallout from Jimmy Saville is that another extremely well-funded enquiry was conducted (IICSA).
The general idea that the UK is particularly accomodating to paedophiles, or that an unusual number of powerful people in the UK are paedophiles, is not supported by evidence.
This meme mainly comes from a serial liar, Carl Beech, who's lies were credulously reported by people who should have known better.
Local police is a part of the government as far as the laws in question are concerned; it's them who will be using or abusing the surveillance powers granted by the law. And the Rotherham scandal took two decades to be addressed, due not least to fierce political interference.
Just yesterday it became clear the foreign office will not release files relating to Prince Andrew until 2065 - long after he's dead. Seems like a pretty obvious cover up.
It seems like "a pretty obvious coverup" to you because you are conspiratorially minded. It's actually just the FCDO explaining what the law has always been.
Should the law be changed? Yes. Is this evidence of a "cover-up"? No.
This question is really too broad to answer. What sort of thing are you looking for? For a general overview of the whole system, this strategy is the best place to start.
Thanks. I guess I meant either new primary legislation that improves something tangible, but more importantly, provided more resource.
As far as I can see, it's still funded from local authority budgets.
I worked briefly in children's homes a long time ago. Kids were placed in assessment centers where they were supposed to be evaluated and sent on to an appropriate home. But there were no places for them, and they stayed in this temporary place for years.
For example, the offence of "Sexual communication with a child" aka "grooming" was created in 2017 (by Serious Crime Act). Enforcing this law is one of the main causes of the arguments over the OSB.
We need road safety. But no genius in gouvernement has created a law that’s says it’s illegal to sell cars that CAN have accident. Generally the government goes after bad drivers instead of car companies.
I really don’t understand why Big Tech should magically stop every crime on earth: child abuse, racism, harassment, etc…
I think the supreme Zuck is a dick, but pulling out of the UK market was the right move.
Of curse, but it's not terribly easy for the average person to put
sophisticated filters into multiple content pipelines on every child's
device (imagine having 4 or 5 kids of different ages and needs).
So a solution I think we brainstormed on the show was mandating open
interoperable APIs that allow easy insertion of (presumably commercial
or open source) plugins into the system, within the user's end-to-end
digital estate, under the control of the user (parent) and completely
rejecting the MITM and endpoint compromise via back-doors that the
government naively proposed.
In many ways that would take a much bigger stick to Big Tech,
It also transitions the definition of "online harms" to those defined
by the guardian/parent rather than problematically allowing the State
to define harms and control the selectors.
What that says to me is that the government are dishonest about the
real aims of the bill.
And further, as a consequence, it crushes my belief that the
government even truly care out child safety except as a vehicle to
greater tyranny.
> So a solution I think we brainstormed on the show was mandating open interoperable APIs that allow easy insertion of (presumably commercial or open source) plugins into the system, within the user's end-to-end digital estate, under the control of the user (parent) and completely rejecting the MITM and endpoint compromise via back-doors that the government naively proposed.
What you're proposing would likely enable the creation of some fairly invasive stalkerware. Don't forget that 1) just because a feature says it's for use by a parent on their child's device doesn't mean that it can only be used in that context, nor that 2) not all parents have their children's best interests in mind.
Or too busy? In plenty of families both parents have to work hard to make ends meet.
Not helped by the fact that children are growing up in a completely different environment to the one their parents remember. Familiarizing myself with TikTok or whatever the kids are into these days would fill me with dread. And the way platforms work means my experience of them would differ dramatically from a child's anyway.
>> Familiarizing myself with TikTok or whatever the kids are into these days would fill me with dread.
You don't need to. Don't give them devices until they're 16, and then implement the built in parental controls that come on every smartphone. When they are 18 and can buy their own, they can do what they want. I'm guessing your actual issue isn't familiarizing yourself with TikTok etc, but is instead facing conflict. I'm not saying it would be easy but pretending the above isn't a workable solution is self-deception.
No, I'm just trying to empathise with busy parents rather than write off parents who struggle with this stuff as lazy.
I know some parents give their children devices for safety reasons. For others, I guess they don't want their children to be socially isolated if all the other 14 year olds are chatting on messenger.
My only point was that it can be hard, and that not everyone who fails at it is lazy. It sounds like we are mostly in agreement.
Oh yeah I get that. My point was more that there is a simple solution that requires almost no time investment (i.e. a good option for busy parents). It might not be for everyone but it’s a solution that is to easily dismissed very often.
Wish I could upvote this harder lol. Parents really dont have enough time/energy to do this better than people who are trained in software/legislation. Especially if they have more than 2 kids/are single parents
Sounds like we need a cultural shift away from governments involving themselves in parenting to governments ensuring parents have adequate time to parent.
Id say i trust the competence of government in this arena more than that of parents on average. If someone is working on policy day in and day out for tech related things, they will have a better lay of the land than the average parent. However, you bring up a good point about ethics. A parent will definitely be far more acting in the best interest of their child compared to the government. An interesting quandry, good point
The other test is what can the “other” party do with any power you give the government. I define “other” as the party with viewpoints you are opposed to.
Modern devices are chock full of features that will work hard for parents while they aren’t even thinking about it. If the can’t be bothered to turn those features on, they shouldn’t be providing the devices in the first place.
This is just as lazy a take as the UK government though.
Many societal problems would be trivial if you could get perfect compliance from the population. You can't, so if you're interested in solving problems you need to be willing to grapple with the world as it is. So far as I can tell online safety has not meaningfully improved since the late 90s - "enforce safety at home" has been the advice for all of that time and it has never worked.
I don't have a solution but "blame the parents" seems to be a very clear non-answer without some plan for how to make creating safety at home more easily actionable.
I started using the Internet in 1998, and the only advice my parents gave me was "Don't reveal anything about yourself online." (Thankfully I heeded their warning and still to this day I'm very guarded about disclosing any form of PII.)
Whilst admittedly a lot has changed in the last 25 years, I'd say only half the parents will actually try to keep their kids safe online.
The other half will sit around watching crappy reality TV shows getting angry at their five-year-old children finding porn on their own personal smartphone* because they don't want to look up how to prevent them from doing that, and instead absolve that responsibility to the gov't...
...who in turn use that as an excuse to censor the Internet.
*not entirely sure why a five-year-old needs a smartphone, but anyway.
In this case it has the legitimacy, but lacks the power.
This is an unusual turn.
We need online safety for kids. The aims of this bill should obtain widespread support from everyone.
But instead of carefully researching and implementing difficult ideas, framing it properly and obtaining permission from the people - a remit to empower us to embrace online safety on our own terms - it's taken a strictly 20th Century "Mother knows best, think of the children" approach and made this a battle with Big Tech.
It is laughably "Yes, Prime-Minister" in its clumsiness. We have anachronistic throwbacks in charge.