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UK lawmaker John Penrose proposes dystopian idea to give citizens a truth score (reclaimthenet.org)
28 points by Jerry2 on July 13, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 32 comments


This headline appears to be false, since the stated intent is to target high reach accounts, which would mostly be corporations.

The could be using that as a secret wedge, but if we're lying about this on the internet then that only gives support to their misdirection.


From the actual bill:

> whose content is viewed more widely than a minimum threshold to be defined and set by OFCOM.

Given the recent history of UK online regulation [2], I think it's save to assume the "minimum threshold" will be extremely low.

[1] https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/onlinesafety_rm_rep_0708.pdf [2] https://webdevlaw.uk/2022/07/11/your-compliance-obligations-...


First they come for...


What a lovely suggestion. Let's start by applying it to UK lawmakers.


So the Police choose what laws they enforce according to their own agenda, and with PartyGate back over Xmas, the Scottish Police decided to arrest/prosecute someone who tweeted Nicola Sturgeon's residence address as a Scottish Hogmanay party was arrested under the malicious communications act because Nicola Sturgeon's residential address declared for political reasons is actually a relative's of her's.

https://www.ladbible.com/news/man-arrested-for-organising-st...

Anyway the Politicians with the help of the media are engaged in malicious communications all the time, never seen the Police enforce that act on the political class, suggesting the Police are bias and interfering in politics like we have just seen with Labour's Keir Starmer and Beergate.

On the point of this proposal, I think it will kill off elements of the British Humour... or not!


The police are just there to suppress the working class. Same as in the US


I know, if you dont pay their wages via taxation, you get done over by them! Same goes for a lot of govt employees!


I was more talking about their role as road pirates who harass and selectively enforce laws against minority and poor communities while breaking up protests when people get fed up with the treatment, but that's a US centric view


Every entity has good and bad because everybody has a different of opinion of whats right and wrong and thats why the world is like it is.


That must be why the capital owners and corporations constantly lobby for more subsidies yet talk about how giving money to poor people is a moral hazard. Just different perspectives, huh?

The reality is that governments are captured by those with capital at the benefit of them and them only


This is actually a good tactic if you want to crash and burn a bill. Put in an amendment that people have to be naked everywhere for security reasons or similar stuff.

Would of course be awesome if Facebook mods would assign scores to users and government would collect that data to determine pension and health care service quality. No real patriot could be against this.


this would actually be a great idea, applied for UK MP's.


This way it seems much less dystopian


more I think about it, it would actually be a great idea. Same goes for journalists. Or actually maybe there is a way to score folks who have amplified voices, perhaps there could be some levelling


I think there are websites that publish trustworthiness scores for news outlets, but after all, the big questions is always who defines what truth is.


yeah indeed, who gets the define truth is the true power. Maybe the score could be on contradiction tho, or failed predictions.


There is no truth. There is only repetition.


Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real. Truth is real...

The idea that there's no objective truth is a cynical position pushed by people attempting to convince you of untrue things.


Reality is an agreement. Agreements change.


No, it's not. Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away.


Cute that you think we all know what reality is on the basis of beliefs.

Reality is what you and I agree it is.

If you think the world is flat, and I think the world is flat, then for us: the world is flat.

Disagree? Well then, we don't share the same reality.


Nah. World's still round. Your weaselly "for us" is just begging the question. You can't just redefine belief as fact, that's why we have different words for them.

Claim we don't share the same reality if you like, repeat it a hundred times, but if I punch you in the nose, it will break in both our realities. And when you protest, my repeated assertion that your nose doesn't hurt in MY reality is unlikely to cut much ice with you.

Your philosophy holds no practical value.


.. and thus you understand the nature of the world we live in today.


this appears to be the case. The question is, how do we not fall into despair. Got to get comfortable with uncertainty


Terrible suggestion, but this site is also terrible tabloidy clickbait.


If you look at the proposal, it clearly says this would only apply to (de facto) broadcasters, not to ordinary people; look at the sentence mentioning OFCOM.


One of the central planks of this bill is to make OFCOM the regulator of all websites (and messaging services) that serve content to British citizens, including demanding that any site with user generated content verifies the age of viewers and scans everything and anything for CSAM (and apparently truthiness, for Tory values of "truth")


Can you quote the part that requires CSAM?

As for age - it's already there, you can't serve underage content to minors. As for "truthiness" - I'd say this part makes a lot of sense, given the current pandemic of fake news.


I am tired of negative politics news. Where are all the good politicians doing a good job? Wasn't that the point of Brexit?


The point of Brexit was to let bad politicians off the hook for their terrible policies and give them a way to escape further attention and eventual prosecution.


No, that was the point of the attempt to reform the voting system to better reflect "the will of the people" that the team behind brexit defeated.


This could backfire on politicians in a spectacular way.




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