Hacker News Reader

Comment by unglaublich | Hacker News Reader

What societal "harm" is the UK actually trying to reduce with this age verification? It almost feels like the amount of effort they're putting into this is out of balance with the actual harm.

View on HN

political dissent. Uncomfortable truths. Any speech that does not align with the official narrative.

A Labour MP foolish attended a GB News show and when pushed admitted that the Online Safety Act was also about identifying speech by adults [0].

Sorry about the quality of the link, but the video is there (higher quality is available on X) and its not like the paragon of truth that is the BBC reported on this.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/uk-government...

> political dissent. Uncomfortable truths. Any speech that does not align with the official narrative.

No, this age verification is not against that.

No, the age verification doesn't, the linking of adult profiles to real human people, which is required to enable the age verification is.

Did you watch the linked video? There's an MP admitting they are doing this

I appreciate the retraction. Thanks.

It takes just a few seconds to see that it's a random backbencher who is not in the government. We have a whole range of MPs, and some of them sometimes talk about things they have no idea about. The website you're citing is little more than propaganda, since it explicitly makes it seem like the MP has any connection to the government.

Nothing, the point is that they have a couple of fig leaf reasons while doing what they want to do anyway.

Mis- and disinformation will be captured by the Online Safety Act where it is illegal or harmful to children.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act...

Harmful accurate info is allowed, note.

The stated harms are "adult content", and social media in general (same bill includes a ban on under-16s)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com