Censorship

[9-R]

Sorry Admin but I didn't know where to ask this.

Just read an online article concerning online censorship in the UK. Part of it was concerning especially for this forum?

This week the Labour MP Lucy Powell put forward a Bill in parliament that would ban private online discussion forums because, she says, hate speech can fester in these “echo chambers.”

Have you been following this and what exactly does this mean?

https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/briti ... -messages/

[ChrisParish]

I have been on the parliament website and found the following, which is the official summary of the proposed bill

A Bill to make administrators and moderators of certain online forums responsible for content published on those forums; to require such administrators and moderators to remove certain content; to require platforms to publish information about such forums; and for connected purposes.

That’s a little vague, so I check out her twitter feed which leads to a guardian article she wrote. It would appear that what she is going after are closed, members only groups that aren’t visible to the public as she views them as “echo chambers”. She also wants site administrators and moderators to be held accountable for allowing hate speach on their forums.
This is all aimed at Facebook, primarily, but it will affect all online forums (there is some mention of “large” forums, maybe this would be a “small” forum - not sure of the significance)

I don’t like the direction which this is headed in as it is treading on the fringes of free speech, but the argument is that if saying something requires you to be secretive, hide your ID and disappear into a private forum then maybe you shouldn’t be free to say it.

This has been introduced as a Private Members Bill which means that it was not proposed by the current government but by an individual. It still has to go through the archaic House of Lords and there are one or two in there who will always vote down private members bills as they don’t think that anyone other than the government should be able to propose a law.

For the record, I am not in favour of this bill but I can see what they are trying to achieve. One problem that they have is that MPs don’t tend to have any understanding of the underlying technology. What is the point of banning closed groups on Facebook? Imagine how people get into those groups - they have to be invited. If this bill becomes law then all that will happen is that the private groups will move into the darkweb, something which is very easy to do as there is nothing stopping you hosting a forum on a private computer in a home and inviting people to join.
All it’s going to do is make more work for our admin teams!

The news articles I have read, like the one linked above, tend towards sensationalising the whole thing and make it out to be worse than it really is. I don’t envisage it being an issue for a forum such as this.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[chris moody]

Facebook is turning very nasty, to the point I'm only now going on it to run RHIBs group and look at a few boaty selling groups.

[9-R]

Thanks, Chris'. Interesting.

I agree about facebook. I'm the same. After coming back to it from a many-year hiatus, I only go on it for particular closed interest groups and a couple of select true friends, not loose connections and associations like before.

[The Hobbit]

Minimal FB activity but it has captured a lot of friends from the past but always cautious when on it

[The Hobbit]

Sorry 9-R but I've had to take your last post off for obvious reasons!!

[9-R]

Sorry but no, I don't know the reasons. You deleted it because I bad-mouthed Obama?

[The Hobbit]

Sorry but no, I don't know the reasons. You deleted it because I bad-mouthed Obama?

It contained offensive and insulting material and was not within the ethics of the forum and had absolutely nothing to do with what the forum is about. There is no need to discuss this further.

[9-R]

It had everything to do with this thread and this section of the forum, including censorship of posts and therefore, what I had posted has been proven to be true.

[ChrisParish]

The following is ment to be tounge-in-cheek and is in no way a criticism or fighting talk

See - our admin team is already fulfilling the requirements of the new bill, and it’s only had its first reading in parliament.