Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US, so even a nation with better speech and gun laws is still not immune from the slow descent into technocracy.
Interesting that decades of government leaves half the country to rot, and their solution is to try to stop that half from rioting about it, rather than - perhaps - making society fairer?
I’m not sure what gun laws have to do with anything but guns are not unreasonably difficult to legally purchase in the UK or EU if you have a specific need for one. It’s a tool and treated as such
Interesting, since when? I'm curious about how it's turned out in practise. For web services I mean. An for anyone hosting a message board or comment section.
Also in an overpopulated world it's not a given that children should be protected if it comes at the expense of basic freedoms. We need to move away from this narrative that "think of the children" is a persuasive argument. Little Timmy needs to avoid danger or the ghost of Darwin will work his magic.
The UK law is actually a good implementation if you put child 'safety' as your number one priority, with any other considerations as, in practise, moot.
Unfortunately I think free civil discourse between adults, privacy, etc. are just as important as child safety which makes the current law a bit crap.
This is similar to the video game and MasterCard/VISA issue - you can buy games that promote sexual violence and incest. Nothing stops children downloading them for free, or using their under-18s debit card from purchasing the non-free versions. In this instance it was private companies leveraging their freedom of association rather than an all encompassing law from a sovereign state, but the intent is the same.
As a collective society we do really need to come to grips with what it is that we want. Allowing kids to freely access gang torture/execution videos and playing pro-rape entertainment should probably be tackled. I'm not sure I agree with the implementations though.
If the 'political speech' is not adult in nature, which is true 99.9% of the time, then it can't/won't be blocked under this rule.
Unless of course this political speech is happening on a porn site, or a subreddit that has been deemed 18+. Which I can't see a legitimate reason for.
A lot of LGBT content is aimed at adults. I think we should always be clear when we are making statements like this because it causes great stress, a worked example:
People will claim that LGBT is under attack because this law potentially affects some LGBT spaces. These spaces will clearly be meant for 18+ audiences and so fall correctly under the law. Then other people see the first group of people, and from their point of view that group is complaining that their 18+ spaces are blocked from children. "Think of the children" drama ensues.
It is similar to Steam taking down incest/rape games and people claiming it was an action against LGBT creators. I don't think that's an argument that should ever be made for obvious reasons.
I don't think the government, even if it were under the Conservatives, have banning gay spaces on their current agenda.
They are already suppressing left-leaning speech by defunding CPB, and ahve openly said their reasons for doing so for are politically motivated.
There's a 0% chance this move gets struct down by SCOTUS.
I simply don't want to be forced to provide my ID / face to be able to read or access politically important news on social media. Some people would be happier if the bill was limited to only pornography: they likely don't think it has a major effect on UK politics.
Yes, that sounds harsh and crude, but it's true. I've noticed it for decades. It's weird, it's not right, but it's how people react.
That's why a children's book with Mommy and Daddy is so mundane, so boring, so... nothing, that we don't even blink an eye. But Daddy and Daddy is different. Because of the implication.
Of course, only adults make the implication because they're nasty perverts. And they then project that perversion onto the innocent.
I mean, it's so fucked it's almost comical. We put babies in "ladies man" onesies and nobody cares. Do we not see how fucking weird that is? But suddenly we so much as acknowledge the existence of homosexuals and it's so risque.
No longer subsidizing left leaning speech != suppressing left leaning speech