People need to grow a brain and learn to make choices instead of having an algorithm, a law, company or Government do it for them. It is quite simple, don't want to see certain content block it (social media) or scroll/click away from it. Don't like what is on television or radio? Change the channel or turn it off, stream a video of your choice, watch a DVD or VHS, read a book, challenge yourself and learn something. As for children the parents should be monitoring and controlling their activities on and off line. That is a parents job, not the school, Government or nanny/babysitter.

There are already filters built into browsers to block content, there are tools and ways to block content from children. With a simple google search you can block websites using the host file on Windows, there are programs that will do it for you. Use your brain instead of crying for someone else to make the decisions for you!

@BPontius

I think you are suggesting parenting. Is that not banned yet?

The thing is that the serfs must be wholly engaged with the in work in corporate labour camps while their children get indoctrinated to be even better serfs.

You can't have parents doing the parenting, because they may teach children about something called freedom, respect, values and people with such values are difficult to be installed as cogs building up billionaires' wealth.

While I agree with parenting being important and it being the job of parents and not the government, there are limits.

I use Family Link to limit which apps are installed and how long my kids can use their phones for.... but also with an eye to them taking on more responsibility as they get older. I talk to them about how to use the internet and social media, the school does classes on it (surprisingly good ones) ..... However as long as it easy to access "harmful content" and especially where it's easy to stumble upon it, what can I do?

Obviously by the time they're 16 I hope they're educated enough to click away but it's not so easy when they're younger unless I sit and watch them all the time.... and even at 16 a local girl committed suicide after being bullied online and I don't think that was the fault of her parents.

For me the ideal solution is to make harmful content harder to stumble upon and for moderation of groups to prevent bullying..... but then that raises other problems... how can we respect privacy if Whatsapp chat groups are all monitored? Who gets to say what harmful content is? Who gets to say what kids can and can't say to each other? Who draws the line between bad taste or things we don't agree with and things which are harmful?

>Who gets to say what harmful content is? Who gets to say what kids can and can't say to each other? Who draws the line between bad taste or things we don't agree with and things which are harmful?

That's not the point. The point is we need official ID cards that can be used to verify your age online and track which websites you visit.

We also need to ban VPNs so your can't just go and see naughty foreign websites.

We then need a law that lets us close down 'harmful' websites without having to specify why.

Oh well the clock just struck 13 so back to work....

Hyperbolic nonsense. Children are killing themseves due to what they encounter online. Blame the cretins who think it funny, not the government that has to step in and stop the minority from ruining things for everyone else.

>Children are killing themseves due to what they encounter online

I thought children were killing themselves because of hidden messages in that Rock Music ?

> the government that has to step in and stop the minority from ruining things for everyone else.

The same government that grew up in the 80s when the then government was banning "Frankie goes to Hollywood" from the TV

Raised by parents who grew up in the 50s when the government was banning Elvis

Who gets to say when ADULTS can continue to be adults and have the ability to choose options that haven't been made child-proof???

The entire world does NOT have to be made child-proof for the benefit of someone [else's] children. As an adult I damn well expect that I [continue] to have all the rights and benefits of actually being an adult and that means participating in, and having access to, adult-level concepts and materials. Yes, that includes PrOn. As long as it does not harm anyone else (which, for example, underage pron does), what I choose to do needs to stay my own business and not made a topic of regulation.

I am tired of the Disneyfication of the entire world, thinking of "the children!".

Or you could actually read, and understand, the article. No one is making the choice for you but giving you the ability to choose.

I'm responding to the comment, not the article - a bit of comprehension in the topic is useful here.

If they really wanted to tackle the problem of children seeing harmful content, they would have done it in a completely different way.

For instance, it would be illegal to give child a phone, tablet, computer that does not have parental controls installed, specifically with allowlists that only a number of websites could be accessed.

For the platform to get on such list they would have to demonstrate how they keep creeps at bay and content is moderated and suitable for children.

That of course means things like Facebook would be banned for people under 16. If they wanted to stay in touch with friends, they could just as their parents could - using phone calls or text messages. Schools could have created a "social network" where only pupils and their parents could use and that could be heavily monitored.

"For instance, it would be illegal to give child a phone, tablet, computer that does not have parental controls installed, specifically with allowlists that only a number of websites could be accessed."

Exactly. Hasidic Jews have no problem restricting their children from accessing any forms of popular culture that the parents do not like - children are not allowed on the internet, watching TV or movies, unless the parents have directly approved and allowed the access.

So it *is* possible to parent in today's society. Shocker, I know.

I think the Taliban have similarly caring policies around child rearing, so if we can only get the Christians onboard (and offline) we will have brought unity to all 3 fans of the same imaginary being

I actually setup Family Link for another adult to track/monitor the parent as said parent is getting old, insistes on living alone, forgets stuff on and off, and does not answer phone calls at times - so hard to check up on.

This is exactly what many of these proposals do. they give you the choice of whether you want to interact with verified users or cowards who hide behind anonymity to attack and bully others.

Isn't this law only adding one layer of a "sheild", because the other two layers already exist? So, basically, it's saying that anything doubleplusungood should be blocked by a moderator, but the definition of ungood is going to be nebulous for every category of "stuff" on the internet until a journalist points out some individual awful thing.

Or in other words, the law is saying that stuff that is legal is illegal, without actually making it illegal, oh, and we're not going to give you a formal definition of what the illegal stuff is.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think kids should be seeing questionable content, but how can this approach really work?

One thing is true - every single totalitarian regime became crazier and crazier with their laws just before it has fallen.

Seems like government has figured it out that as long as people don't suddenly disappear, they may not be as resistant to become enslaved as one may think.

Once they introduce programmable pound (CBDC) you will realise that you own nothing and making a fuss about it will be deemed legal but harmful.

Then they'll cut you out of your assets and you'll starve.

We have always been at war with east Eurasia!

And remember the chocolate ration goes up next week.

"Our new triple-shield mechanism ..."

the mechanism, to be built by platform providers ...

So it's the govt's, but someone else has to make it actually work. Does this sound rather familiar? And can one guess the extent to which the technical feasibility of the proposed "shield" has been investigated?

If porn is to be banned by G4S/Serco then the natural outcome is going to be a 100000% rise in the amount of porn on the streets.

I almost want to see Mat Hancock put in charge of banning porn - just to see what would happen.

I'm not sure I have that much energy anymore....

While I hate to agree with her Shadowiness, on this occasion she's spot on - kids will continue to use unverified accounts and continue to be exposed to the full range of online content, good and bad - so no change. The only way that risk gets significantly reduced is with full (and probably paid for) verification on all the major platforms globally, and there's not the remotest chance of that in the near future... Even if it's mandated for users in the UK, it would be trivial to circumvent - but still I'm sure we'll soon hear random politicians espousing the virtues of a "Great British Firewall" for all the good that would do...

We, as a society, CAN'T allow verification on major platforms because we *all* know where it can lead to: tracking of your actions and, if / when the winds of politics change in the 'wrong' direction, harassment and eventual chastisement of those participating in "unwelcome" traits.

To believe otherwise is simple naïveté.

You can't be "free" and "overseen" at the same time. In the history of the human condition, they are both exclusive. Add in any level of oversight into how free peoples spend their time, you inevitably will get attempts to restrict, direct, castigate and eventually punish those who do not toe the line of 'acceptability'. Ideally it does not have to be that way, but humans will constantly push for control of their surroundings, up to and including the living creatures, sentient or otherwise, within their dominion. History has never proven otherwise.

>You can't be "free" and "overseen" at the same time

Of course you can - this will only be used for your own safety and protection against naughty things, promise.

Legislate as if the internet was only run by giants, and you'll get the internet run by giants.

That's the whole purpose of this - for communication to be happening only on a handful of platforms easy to control by the government, while setting up barriers to entry for new players or independent platforms.

If they start blocking "legal, but harmful" content, does it mean the Online Safety Bill will disappear from the interwebs?

"If they start blocking "legal, but harmful". They aren't. Read the damn article. Under the proposals, YOU get to choose what you see.

It's called a block list.

What are the odds "government & politics" won't be an allowed topic for blocking?

Shirley, it would be blocked by default, at least the feeds about it from reliable news networks, to better to hide the goings on of TPTB?

Parliament channel is going to be blocked - where else can you see 650 punts in one shot

A block list relying on categories is only as good as the categorisation of online resources.

So who does the categorisation? The author or owner of the resource or maybe a third party such as Tic Tok or FaceBork, perhaps a government agency.

Can the categorisation be questioned?

Would there be any sanction for intentional miscategorisation?

So many questions, so few answers.

How come that was enabled by default, despite daily stories of kids accessing (and running up huge bills* to do so) adult chatlines.

*Possibly answered my own question ....

I usually have solutions to most issues but in this case having experienced a forum on a very popular site in which I suspect only a fraction of people were genuine as opposed to a wide range of bad players quite able to cause real-world trouble by using technical tricks to isolate your actual address to within 100 metres or so, the challenge is not to isolate bad people because there are too many of them but instead, and I'm thinking let's start with something for children, introduce a digital identity scheme so that those of a certain age can only talk to someone of equal age which I think is the best of a bad situation. Adults will have to accept that there are a wide variety of damaged souls out there and my personal solution for that is to not engage with trouble and sleep better but young people bored with not being able to grow-up quick enough, find fun stuff to do and often get into places not intended for them, we should try and fix that by keeping them in isolated groups based on equal age as a starting point which might also involve starting to use biometrics to verify someone is who they say they are.

I've been hearing similar conspiracy lunatics for the last 6 decades. The big, bad government things, never happens. We are freer today than we have ever been.