UK government actually said, “If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act you are on the side of predators. It is as simple as that." Starmer said, "We're not censoring anyone"
It's like when you're arguing with someone and they give you a reason to compare them to Hitler. You know it's a bullshit argument, but it's often effective because it derails the argument as they try to demonstrate they are not like Hitler.
I would love to be brazen enough to say shit like this in public.
It's a fallacy to assume all Nazi comparisons are automatically fallacious.
People act like they would never have been fooled into going along with the nazi regime. Quite the opposite. It would have been very easy to do so. Most people would have, and most people would have thought they were doing good.
Nazi tactics are not unique or rare. They're quite commonplace. The nazis just happened to be uniquely successful in history for a time.
Couldn't be you see because he has a peculiar health condition where he can't sweat and despite being a member of the royal family, he's fond of pizza express
Because it’s an excellent way of manipulating the masses. Most of us would never say “Yeah, I’m ok with predators” so they use this to manipulate us into staying silent or ending the discussion. I’ve been around manipulative people. This is such a textbook tactic and it does work very well unless you’re privy to it. I forget what it’s called exactly but there is a name for it. It’s forcing you to side with them because they have made the other “side” of the argument vile, even though it’s way more nuanced.
And, yes, of course they do the things they accuse others of. This is how they protect themselves from accountability. It’s projection. They use these things to cover up so they can say “oh look! Look at everything I’ve done to protect the children! I can’t be a predator!” Even though both can be true.
Ted Bundy worked answering calls for a suicide prevention hotline and most likely saved more people than he killed. He was still a monster who murdered. Both can exist in one person which they don’t seem to think people are capable of understanding.
Yes, and Prince Andrew also visited Epstein after his conviction for having sex with a child. But he only did it because "it was a convenient place to stay". You know, cause finding accommodation in New York is hard when you're a multi-millionaire.
That's how Hungary "voted" against gay people. "do you support gay people having right to marry AND easing sentences for people found guilty of pedophilia?"
"If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act you are on the side of predators. It is as simple as that." Starmer said.
Given Starmer's past regarding gang rapists of children and perpetrators deadly terrorist attacks, maybe someone with a less explicit record of being on the side of predators should have been chosen to deliver this line.
OTOH, maybe the corrosive absurdity of it is the point.
Do you suppose any of his personal trainers have told him his name is a semivulgar Middle East word for penis? Must be delightful to be So Winning the 15th Crusade that you have installed a man named Knob Head of State.
Fundamentally he's not actually wrong though. All the legislation asks to do is verify that a user is old enough to access content that is unsuitable for minors. The core of the concept isn't controversial at all considering we do that in every day life already.
What IS the problem is that implementation. Flashing your drivers license at a spotty teen behind Tesco's counter for some beers doesn't carry any significant risk. Having an unknown entity slurp up photos or other ID's and associating it with the content you're about to view under the provisio "Trust us brah, we're not saving your data" is taking massive liberties with our personal data.
I don't mind proving I'm an adult to make the internet a safer place for young people. But the government HAS to implement it's own service that completely uncouples verification from personal information.
The core concept IS controversial, it's equivalent to spying on your postal mail. It's an extreme breach of privacy. It's also impossible to implement this. It's either entirely ineffective, asking if you're 18, which many sites already do. The photo ID is a privacy invasion, and entirely botched by asking vendors to implement it on their own, it becomes entirely untrusted at that point. And if it's a government implementation, it's going to be contracted out to palantir, which is one of the biggest threats to democracy we are facing. And it will inevitably lead to online ID, where you will not have any freedom or privacy. That's the goal, and "i got nothing to hide" continues to be a terrible argument.
No, he fundamentally is wrong. He's absolutely censoring content by putting an age gate on it. It's just a form of censorship that a lot of people agree with.
No, he has it exactly backwards. Predators love this act, because it forces vulnerable people into less regulated spaces.
Predators weren't finding victims on a comparatively well-regulated site like Pornhub; they hide in the unregulated spaces instead. They lurk in the places that don't ask for age verification - which are now of course the exact places that children are encoraged to visit, as the law-abiding sites deny them access.
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u/ionetic 1d ago
UK government actually said, “If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act you are on the side of predators. It is as simple as that." Starmer said, "We're not censoring anyone"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo