The damage goes beyond the economic, it shattered the UK’s soft power. Without that soft power the UK was left at a disadvantage at every negotiating table.

Further, one could argue that the fracturing of UK/EU relations paved the way to today’s war in Europe, as almost all attention was pulled onto Brexit and none was given towards declawing Russia.

If there were any real justice in the UK, Farage and the brexiteers would all be up in front of a judge on a charge of treason. That they lied before is forgivable (they may well have believed their lies), but that many continue to do so now given the breadth and depth of evidence is beyond remotion.

That’s ok, it’ll take them a while to write them out by hand, and they can really think on what utter clowns they are while they do it.

Back to hand written manuscripts only!

And during those billions of minutes, most of them are cursing the existence of the spyware experience that is teams.

4chan is an extreme example of an unmoderated site - indeed it’s what the OSA was designed to combat. If this legislative test fails, it would undermine the acts legitimacy, and provoke questions as to it’s existence.

It’s a shit law - it’s not fit for purpose. Its sole reason for existence is to controle public speech, not protect the children.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/30326565624343-How-to-Complete-Age-Verification-on-Discord

Check down on data security ;)

So, I looked at age verification - it was made clear photos were on device only and never transmitted.

If this turns out to be false, then the legal fallout would be apocalyptic.

(Edit: or not, see the comment by ambitiousprocess below)

Oh no, someone might not be paying them for their user generated content (!)

To be fair, it’s probably best that history forgets this period of the web…

I dunno, the use of AI Ethicist fits as they’re not against the concept of generative AI as a whole, they’re against unethical generative AI (in terms of stolen training data and environmental harm).

If the world transitioned to a post-IP (intellectual property) society (as we need to), with AI eating less power, then AI Ethicists are unlikely to object.

I applaud folks like this - they make a choice and stick with it. No “I’ll never use AI to generate art but I vibe code to save time” hypocrisy. No “I use it to help me with maths, but I’d never use it to steal artistic work”.

Just straight up “it is an environmental hazard, it is unethical, not engaging”. Should be called “AI Ethicists” rather than “AI Vegans”.

I thought it was the gays, oh wait no its the transes, hang on we’re back to the 1500s and are just saying “it’s smut”. It’s very “violent video games turn men into violent monsters”.

Want to really know what’s radicalising young men: a mixed hangover of “the provider role” clinging on, two decades of economic implosion, and normalised sexism aimed at addressing systemic injustices. That’s how you end up with radicalised young men.

Well we all saw that coming.

The parental and elderly voting bloc is very hard to ignore, and those groups tend to be less privacy conscious (as well as pro-anything “protect the children”).

The only way it’s getting repealed is if enough labour voters raise a fuss. Given Reform’s messaging (i.e. repeal it) and how worried Labour are over Reform’s polling, that is likely the only lever that’ll work. However, that’s a long game - one that will take years to play out.

1. Add censorship for mods containing adult (sexual) content.

2. Slowly move the bar so that more content falls under definition of “adult” (themes of violence, LGBTQ+ themes).

3. Continue to move the bar until desired level of censorship is obtained.

Well done, you’ve used moral panic to control your media.

Dark futures aside, why do I think that folks are just going to VPN their way in?

And when this measure fails to protect children and, instead, becomes a data security nightmare, another scheme will be proposed to further erode the freedoms the web brings.

I look forward to hearing about the workarounds kids find.

Ehh… Application of a addiction model is somewhat controversial for pornography (the ground seems divided on whether it’s a compulsion or an addiction). Social media, however, is no less controversial (it’s just the media likes to hype this more).

I will say - the point of a porn site is to sell user data and deliver ads, whereas the point of social media is to keep the user scrolling by any means possible. By its design, the latter cultivates addiction as a clear goal (the goal to scroll is artificially imposed), whereas the case for the former is less clear (the goal to masturbate isn’t something porn created). In essence, one creates a drive and then sates it, whereas another sates an existing drive.

Honestly, I think, at the moment, we’re on the “violent video games cause violence” stage of the research. In other words, not enough data to decide so the media has decided for us.

Had to be done. It’s just too damn close not to.

“Treatment request rejected, insufficient TC level”

One of the experiences I will never forget was “teaching” an ICT class about 2 decades ago (I was a TA who got left to cover a class - good times).

The older ones of you will remember the trick (many of us used it for playing flash games like adventure quest!) - have two browser windows open, minimise the one with the thing you were not supposed to be doing on it when the teacher comes around - no evidence right?

These kids were doing the same thing - I swear I’ve never seen so much porn in my entire life. Oh and yes, a lot of it involved Japanese animation. This was on a network with parental controls enabled by the way, because it didn’t block those sites.

Here’s the thing - and we all know it, no matter what measures you put in place kids will find away around it. More crudely put “If little Timmy wants titties, Timmy going to move heaven and earth to find them”.

They’ll sneak a parental passport at 3am when you’re sleeping, or just VPN on in, or even invest in a fake ID. Nothing you do is going to stop that; you have to sleep some time, you have a lot of goals, they can stay up all night, and they only have one.

Catching your kids with porn and dealing with it is a game of whack-a-mole every parent has to play, and honestly it’s one they need to play. It’s about having those difficult talks and saying “it’s ok to want to look as long as you realise it isn’t real”.

Mass surveillance isn’t the way - if I were a government hostile to the USA (and soon the UK), I’d be working on making the best free porn site ever made. Think of all the free documents and credentials, think of all the blackmail material, think of all the harm that could be inflicted.

Admittedly, skin cream is likely to face less of a rabid drive from kids, and isn’t something you’d blackmail over. Then again, maybe little Timmy needs some lotion, or maybe president Puta wants to use my girlfriend’s skin lotion addiction to compel me to spy for Russia?

As a mathematician who has worked in tech, this I am very much aware of XD

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

What you’re likely seeing here is innovation similar to the early tech sector. The hardware limitation (no Nvidia chips) means different (usually more complex) solutions are needed.

These solutions usually require a deep understanding of a specific area of mathematics, and expertise in coding. The person making it normally has to be heavily invested, since it still eats a lot of hours.

I often joke, the mathematician who finds a faster algorithm for matrix operations is sitting on a billion dollar idea.