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Holy shit this headline is terrible.

Reform is not the majority party in government. They're not even the opposition. Stop treating them like they are. You do not need to report on everything Nigel Farage and his far-right cronies say - that's how Trump got elected twice in the US. This irresponsible journalism is prevalent throughout British media and needs to stop.

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A serious (and seemingly obvious) problem with the implementation of the Online Safety Act is that it requires malicious actors to not exist.

Since the UK govenment in any form hates paying for things, especially things required for their goals, the current situation is that websites have to work out to do age verification themselves. There is no government-approved or provided service for this - it's a free-for-all of third-party verification providers.

Now, some people are pointing out that depending on how these companies handle the data given to them to perform verification, it's possible this data could be stolen or leaked. This is a worrying possibility. This danger is primarily one of passive incompetence, although if your driver's licence gets leaked, you won't be happy either way.

But passive incompetence probably isn't going to hurt anyone before active malice does.

Normalising showing your face or identity documents to random websites is an incredibly stupid thing to do. You know who benefits from this? Actual criminals! Phishing attacks continue to be successful because people will put their banking details into websites that are very much not their banks. And while random websites asking for your banking details is suspicious, the OSA makes it so that random websites asking for your driver's license or passport or other such things will now be expected.

Meaning an enterprising criminal can set up a website, stick a fake age verification pop-up on it, and harvest a whole bunch of things that come in useful for committing identity theft. Or blackmail perhaps.

The overall point here is that in this respect, the Online Safety Act is going to make the internet more dangerous, in a way that should be obvious if you actually think about the potential negative consequences.

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The cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late night show is a clear sign of censorship in a fascist state, but if they were making mistakes like this, I'm no longer as disappointed.

Jack Lowden is not English. He's Scottish.

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Uk media reporting on the OSA:

Reality:

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Reading through this article (or, should I say, puff piece),

I was reminded of someone I went to school with. They had the same ambition to become a history teacher, and they shared the same views on culture war politics (lgbtq+ issues, "wokeism", etc.), but were made a social pariah after it emerged that they were sexually harassing multiple girls at the school. They then tried to spin it as though they were the victim and used that narrative to help them get into university. That person sickens me, and this council leader gives me the major ick.

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I’m just saying if Daniel Radcliffe, the literal protagonist of the Harry Potter franchise since the age of ten years old, was able to disavow JK Rowling and move on from the HP universe then actually what the fuck is anyone else’s excuse. There is no one else on the planet who can say their entire childhood was HP more than that guy and he still cared about trans people more than the average tumblr user who says “we’re protesting by making all her characters queer and trans!!” like you can do better. You should do better.

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time loop fans when it happens again

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What a surprise! The move to proscribe a direct action group which was criticised as setting a dangerous precedent that would curb freedom of expression has indeed curbed freedom of expression. Laura Murton did not express support for Palestine Action whilst publicly protesting Israel's Palestinian genocide, but was nevertheless threatened with arrest under terrorism charges by Kent police for doing so. Of course, they have taken no accountability for making a mistake, because it is not a crime to show support for Palestine, and doing so does not make you a terrorist.

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Let’s take this at face value first. Ash Regan has brought a discussion about raising the minimum marriage from 16 to 18.

So Scottish 16 year olds would be able to:

Join the Army

Get a full time job and pay tax

Vote

But they wouldn’t be able to get married.

So, again at face value, that change is simple idiocy. It goes against everything else 16 year olds are able to do.

So let’s walk the argument through:

One counter is that so few 16 year olds are getting married anyway that this is pointless. The counter to that will be “Oh if so few are getting married then let’s raise it anyway.”

To which the response to that is denying personal liberty that’s not in tune with anything else 16 year olds can do.

To which Ash Regan will argue, “You’re right, let’s make sweeping changes to everything 16 year olds are permitted to do and raise all minimum age to 18.”

This will:

Disenfranchise 16-17 year olds

Continue to allow them to join the army as that’s dictated by the UK Government

Infantilise a group of young people who will have rights removed from them

And let’s be serious, in the context of Ash Regan:

It allows the continued assault on gender affirming care for young people, who will be deemed not adult enough to make decisions

The fact the Scottish government is wasting time and money on a consultation for this is ridiculous.

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If Labour continue on the highly unpopular path they've taken this last year and the Lib Dems/the Greens don't step up or Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's potential new party doesn't pan out or become a major player, everyone should be worried about the possibility of Reform as the opposition or, god forbid, ruling party (although I think this is very unlikely as I doubt they'd win enough seats to form a government without a coalition, and none of the other parties will form one with them unless the tories get desperate).

What we need to do is continue to publicly dissect and dismantle every dumb thing they do. Like this,

Appointing unqualified, out of touch, people who have no idea about what/who they're dealing with, and who don't engage with the truth (and have extremist sympathies, as is par for the course for Reform). Or,

Making blatantly false claims whilst trying to ape US censorship practices. The BBC are complicit with this one, as their headline on the subject originally read, "trans books removed from children's library, Reform council says," and currently reads, "backlash as Reform claims trans books removed from children's library section" - neither of which state that what is being said is misinformation and that a trans book was moved from one part of the adult section of the library to another, and only holds the councillor to account for lying within the article (which isn't good enough, I know I don't read every article that comes across my way).

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Maybe it's because I'm immune to inspirational sports biopics, but I don't understand how Will Smith won the Oscar for King Richard. Washington, Garfield (the actors, not the US presidents) and Cumberbatch's performances in their respective movies body Smith's any day.

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Hold up, they arrested a vicar. That's a good look.

I had to do a double take upon seeing this picture. I thought the man in the middle, standing to the left of the brown sign, was Gary Lineker. Doubt the police would actually arrest Lineker, but imagine if a national treasure was branded a terrorist for showing support for a protest group.

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I had to do a double take upon seeing this picture. I thought the man in the middle, standing to the left of the brown sign, was Gary Lineker. Doubt the police would actually arrest Lineker, but imagine if a national treasure was branded a terrorist for showing support for a protest group.

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On this subject, I really don't understand how independent artistic expression can break impartiality rules, but editing said independent artistic expression doesn't.

Gonna be so pissed off if Rod Stewart is welcomed with a warm hug during his Glastonbury set by those in attendance and the press given his recent comment in support of the worst man in British politics, while Bob Vylan and Kneecap are being censored and subjected to witch hunts for calling out media complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

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Cues to the evenin' news, make sure you're ill advised/Got you celebrating the generators of genocide

Any good deed is pummeled, punished, and penalised

Rulers of the world will slice it up like a dinner pie