My problem with all of these sorts of things is the idea of who determines “harmful.” Because that’s a term of such ambiguity that it could literally mean anything.
“Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’”
“Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest.
“Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because it promotes behaviors that contribute heavily to climate change.
“Young motorcycle racers should be allowed to train on big tracks before the age of 16” — harmful because it promotes a ‘dangerous’ sport to kids.
I could go on and you could replace whatever I said to whatever you want to say and depending on who is the arbiter of “harmful,” that speech could be regulated in a way that creates criminals out of simply stating facts or opinions.
If the lead up to WW2 were today, if these regulations existed, then suggesting that a Germans in the U.K. were a national security risk could get you in trouble for “promoting harmful stereotypes about German people.”
In my mind, if we are to regulate speech at all, it should have a very very strict standard as to what speech is demonstrably harmful rather than politically uncomfortable. I’m not an Alex Jones fan at all, but for example, nobody died from anything he said, people have been offended and perhaps disgusted, but the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist aren’t causing anyone actual harm. In the US, we have libel and slander laws, we also have laws against speech that cause an imminent threat of danger — but we should never have laws that protect people from being offended, or even misinformed. We have websites supporting Chinese Traditional Medicine despite some practices in that field being demonstrably harmful and contrary to modern medical science — should those be banned? I would think most people would say not.
This online “safety” regulation is really a regulation to regulate political speech under the guise of “protecting the children.”
Side note. But if they're banning TikTok, they totally need to ban Youtube and Instagram as both of them have what TikTok has. I.e. The never-ending slot-machine of dopamine known as Shorts and Reels.
This is a little difficult to prove. From the Parkland libels, sure. From the rest of the culture he promotes? Are you so sure?
Whenever Americans lecture us on our culture of preferring safety we tend to just count back the number of days to your last school shooting. Be aware you're on ZERO right now. A teenage girl! At a Christian school. And consider that there are other perspectives on how bad that is. Because you collectively don't seem that bothered.
There's a lot not to like about this legislation, but you're way off the mark here. The legislation doesn't impose a generic ban on anything that someone or other considers 'harmful'. It's a raft of quite specific regulatory requirements relating to specific kinds of content. There are certainly arguments to be made against it, but your examples are quite irrelevant.
What's your point? There's no examples of psychological harm under the new legislation because it's new. We can however infer from how the old legislation has been enforced.
It’s not a very specific point of comparison to serve as a response to scott_w’s question. You can infer that legislation is sometimes badly interpreted and badly enforced. I’m sure this new legislation will be badly interpreted and badly enforced in some instances. That doesn't lead us to the sort of over-the-top scenario that briandear was painting.
“Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’”
“Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest.
“Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because it promotes behaviors that contribute heavily to climate change.
“Young motorcycle racers should be allowed to train on big tracks before the age of 16” — harmful because it promotes a ‘dangerous’ sport to kids.
I could go on and you could replace whatever I said to whatever you want to say and depending on who is the arbiter of “harmful,” that speech could be regulated in a way that creates criminals out of simply stating facts or opinions.
If the lead up to WW2 were today, if these regulations existed, then suggesting that a Germans in the U.K. were a national security risk could get you in trouble for “promoting harmful stereotypes about German people.”
In my mind, if we are to regulate speech at all, it should have a very very strict standard as to what speech is demonstrably harmful rather than politically uncomfortable. I’m not an Alex Jones fan at all, but for example, nobody died from anything he said, people have been offended and perhaps disgusted, but the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist aren’t causing anyone actual harm. In the US, we have libel and slander laws, we also have laws against speech that cause an imminent threat of danger — but we should never have laws that protect people from being offended, or even misinformed. We have websites supporting Chinese Traditional Medicine despite some practices in that field being demonstrably harmful and contrary to modern medical science — should those be banned? I would think most people would say not.
This online “safety” regulation is really a regulation to regulate political speech under the guise of “protecting the children.”