Like that “peer review” crap we get from the mainstream, if there ain’t money in it (ie. if it doesn’t support the assumptions of the majority of investments/capital and esp. if it threatens same), no-one will peer review hence the research doesn’t exist…
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I use a variety of browsers and search engines. By far the best so far has been yandex when it comes to the latter.
It will dredge up things the west doesn’t want you to see. Maybe it’s the evil Russians? Maybe it’s a good search engine but it proved its legitimacy with that paedo furniture company
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Online harms bill appears to step back from the brink - but does it really?
UK ditches ban on ‘legal but harmful’ online content in favour of free speech
" ‘Legal but harmful’ element of online safety bill dropped
Social media companies will have to strengthen age checks
Companies could be fined if they fail to tackle illegal content
LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Britain will not force tech giants to remove content that is “legal but harmful” from their platforms after campaigners and lawmakers raised concerns that the move could curtail free speech, the government said.
Online safety laws would instead focus on the protection of children and on ensuring companies removed content that was illegal or prohibited in their terms of service, it said, adding that it would not specify what legal content should be censored.
…"
The bit that remains, ie " ensuring companies removed content that was prohibited in their terms of service", is a step back from the alleged offence being determined at the whim of the government or health minister. But the companies will still be obliged to enforce their ToS when the government tells them to, so I’m not sure how much difference that will make as the ToS include the fabled ‘misinformation’ anyway. The govt will still be able to command that social media gives somebody or something the boot. It won’t be quite so binding, in theory at least. The social media company will have the right to quibble about whether something breaks their ToS or not, so the operation of the boot will be less direct. Optimistically it leaves the lever of public opinion on social media not to censor ‘too much’ - albeit a weak and malleable lever.
ED
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Yes, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Evvy. No doubt a big bunch of spooks have assembled a whopping database of ToS of various kinds and have already flagged the ambiguous bits that could be rephrased as “because we don’t like it”. I’m sure too that they will have developed new templates that platforms may freely adapt, and a consultancy service that will ‘enable’ platforms to get up to scratch. Liable to be costly but not at the level of 10% of gross (which may be the level of proposed fines).
Worth keeping an eye on this lot, as I have been for a while:
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