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Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

> [..] putting stricter legal requirements on tech companies to hunt down and remove material that encourages or assists serious self-harm, before it can destroy lives and tear families apart.

Does this include smoking, excessive eating, eating sweets, etc? What about listening to sad music?

> This government is determined to keep people safe online. Vile content that promotes self-harm continues to be pushed on social media and can mean potentially heart-wrenching consequences for families across the country.

"Vile" is very emotionally charged, who decides it? Will it be the next government that gets to decide it? Bare in mind, the (recently) ex-Deputy Prime Minister of the current government called her opposition "scum" [1], an extremely negative word.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59081482

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In the UK, 'self-harm' is used specifically to refer to what used to be called cutting [one's] wrists. It's not intended to mean any action that has negative consequences for oneself.

The quote about 'This government is determined to keep people safe online,' is a 'we're good people' statement for the media - remember, this is a press release.

Remember, these are politicians: they have no understanding of abstraction and generalisation, and think that generalisation is the act of creating stereotypes.

> In the UK, 'self-harm' is used specifically to refer to what used to be called cutting [one's] wrists. It's not intended to mean any action that has negative consequences for oneself.

Definitions slip over time. Violence, abuse, sexual assault, etc, were previously all physical acts. Then they became mental acts, and now just the perception is devastating.

> Remember, these are politicians: they have no understanding of abstraction and generalisation, and think that generalisation is the act of creating stereotypes.

In the moment. But a future politician can reasonably interpret the same idea differently.

> Does this include smoking, excessive eating, eating sweets, etc? What about listening to sad music?

Or "voting against your own interests"? I can't deny that some voting patterns amount to self harm.

Well, we only need to look a "democratic" dictatorships to see how the government helps to prevent you from voting from the wrong person.

And why stop at voting? The government could also be responsible for preventing 'harmful' thoughts. Police in the UK are regularly deployed for "non-crime hate incidents", so that they can tell people that they haven't committed a crime, but they will make a note of it in a secret database that affects your employability.

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