> What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated).
As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats, with two MPs murdered in the last decade.
You and I have the luxury that we can just not be on Twitter - but when you're an MP, unless you're in a very safe seat you've got to meet voters where they are, not where you'd like them to be.
So from an MP's perspective? In one hand they've got a report about revenge porn, cyber-bullying, 4chan /pol/ and pro-anorexia facebook groups. In the other hand they've got their phone where someone's just told them to kill themselves.
They believe in these "illegal harms" because they've got a front row seat, and experience them on a daily basis.
> As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats, with two MPs murdered in the last decade.
1. Aren’t such threats already covered by existing laws?
2. They weren’t murdered on Twitter, so I fail to see how the Online Safety Act would have helped prevent this.
> 1. Aren’t such threats already covered by existing laws?
The Online Safety Act isn't about making these things illegal. It's about making it more difficult to do the illegal things in the first place. To take an analogy: money laundering legislation exists to make it harder to use the proceeds of organised crime in legitimate life. Being a drug dealer is already illegal, yet we don't use that as an argument against such laws and regulations.
"The purpose of the system is what it does." 99% of people are not drug dealers, yet we still experience the deadweight loss of KYC and AML. Therefore AML exists because agents of the state like to screw with us, waste our time, and steal our cash.
So your position is that we should allow criminals to launder the proceeds of violent and organised crime (with all the victims it causes) into the legitimate economy because…
Your response is similar to someone who opposes privacy activists and their fight for E2E encryption saying "so your position is that children should be sexually exploited online". It's an absurd caricaturization of a nuanced set of arguments with deeper ramifications.
No, a person who opposes heavy-handed, invasive KYC and AML laws does not argue that genuine organized crime figures and terrorists should do however they please with their money. The argument is instead that fighting these figures and their transactions shouldn't be designed in such a way that it also penalizes the vast majority of people who are doing nothing more illegal than tripping up some bullshit lazy, rote paranoid financial legal framework.
Also, like many other kinds of privacy, financial privacy should be a right that isn't exclusive to government black budgets and well-connected elites.
>> So your position is that we should allow criminals to launder the proceeds of violent and organised crime
> Your response is similar to someone who opposes privacy activists and their fight for E2E encryption saying "so your position is that children should be sexually exploited online".
Re-read my accusation. I never stated that you support committing crimes, I stated that you believe that, once the crime is committed, the money can be entered into the legitimate system.
With that said, let's look at your clarification:
> No, a person who opposes heavy-handed, invasive KYC and AML laws
> their transactions shouldn't be designed in such a way that it also penalizes the vast majority of people
I need to see evidence that the "vast majority" of people are being "penalized" by this system. The most "inconvenience" I ever faced was having to provide bank statements when applying for a mortgage to prove the deposit was legitimately my money. There was a post just last week from patio11 that makes me doubt your claim that the "vast majority" of people are inconvenienced by AML. In addition, I watched this video by a former financial services advisor [1] that also suggests to me that your claims are wildly overblown.
> Also, like many other kinds of privacy, financial privacy should be a right that isn't exclusive to government black budgets and well-connected elites.
Weirdly "well-connected elites" are the people most inconvenienced by AML, KYC and PEP regulations (see above references), so I think your grasp of the issue is not aligned with reality.
>Re-read my accusation. I never stated that you support committing crimes
No, you said essentially exactly that, that a person opposing AML and KYC is automatically supporting "scary" crime:
"So your position is that we should allow criminals to launder the proceeds of violent and organised crime"
The evidence of many, many people being penalized by AML and KYC is abundant. Either you're deliberately being obtuse or just haven't paid attention. On this site alone, posts and attending comments very, very regularly appear describing the numerous ways in which ordinary people and small businesses face financial difficulties and account freezes explicitly because of AML rules, sometimes in their worst, entirely algorithmic forms. This has applied with bank accounts, payment processing firms and perhaps most infamous of all, Paypal, which is almost universally famous for its bullshittery on freeing "suspicious" funds and transactions.
You saying that because you've had no problems, then there probably is no problem is like someone who's never personally been harassed by the police while driving saying that reports of police brutality against marginalized individuals are probably absurd. Good for you for turning anecdote into evidence.
Patio11's post, which I've seen, also does no favors to your argument. Using a mountain of verbiage, it elaborates how and why the crap I describe happens. The post also seems to justify the banks that do it as poor victims of something that they're obviously complicit in for the sake of their profitable bottom lines (since it's easier to just freeze someone out with no explanation than actually devote resources to better, more transparent support for customers who find themselves shafted by some mandated financial suspicion process)
If you really think that well connected elites are especially hamstrung by AML, KYC and PEP regulations, you should really take a closer look at several major financial leaks such as the Panama Papers and others.
> The evidence of many, many people being penalized by AML and KYC is abundant.
Then provide evidence that it's affecting 99% or even just "the vast majority" of people.
> You saying that because you've had no problems, then there probably is no problem is like someone who's never personally been harassed by the police while driving saying that reports of police brutality against marginalized individuals are probably absurd. Good for you for turning anecdote into evidence.
No, I'm saying "I had no problems, therefore the claim that the 'vast majority' or '99%' of people have this problem will need to be substantiated."
> Patio11's post, which I've seen, also does no favors to your argument. Using a mountain of verbiage, it elaborates how and why the crap I describe happens.
I never said it doesn't happen. I specifically said it doesn't happen to "the vast majority" or "99%" of people. Patio11's post is very clear that, by definition, this does not happen to "the vast majority" of people.
> If you really think that well connected elites are especially hamstrung by AML, KYC and PEP regulations
I posted a link from a financial advisor that explains clearly that this is exactly what happens. In response, you have yet to provide evidence that these regulations affect the vast majority of people in any meaningful way.
> They weren’t murdered on Twitter, so I fail to see how the Online Safety Act would have helped prevent this.
I mention that because in some online communities threats of rape and murder are bandied about jokingly. That 12 year old on Fortnite voice chat isn't really going to fuck your mom! That twitter joke trial where someone threatened to blow up an airport was ridiculous. Some might wonder - why can't these twitter-using politicians ignore a few murder threats from neo-nazis and islamists, like the rest of us?
The reason is the real, non-joke murders by neo-nazis and islamists.
Wouldn't it be easier to get the jump on them by not threatening them in the first place? How does stopping the verbal threat also stop the real life attack?
Not to say that I wish harm on anyone or think anyone deserves to be threatened. The point is more that if the reasoning for this is as you say, then the laws they're putting in place don't really make sense. It's like if someone was going around poisoning the water supply and they outlawed talking about it instead of just protecting the water supply.
> As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats,
I am sure threats of violence are already illegal. If those people are in the UK, they should be prosecuted. If they are not in the UK they is not threat. I don't believe any if these online threats BTW are credible.
What these MPs do is frequently make outlandish statements, which then gets them a bunch of hate (Jess Phillips has done this her entire political career) and useful idiots will shout their mouth off online. These MPs then point to all the "hate" they are getting. There is even a meme demonstrating this very effect:
I believe the individual was deemed at risk of radicalisation.
> You and I have the luxury that we can just not be on Twitter - but when you're an MP, unless you're in a very safe seat you've got to meet voters where they are, not where you'd like them to be.
They don't need to be on Twitter. Twitter isn't their local constituents. They have surgeries for this very reason. Very few people on Twitter are relevant to what happens on election day in their constituency.
> So from an MP's perspective? In one hand they've got a report about revenge porn, cyber-bullying, 4chan /pol/ and pro-anorexia facebook groups. In the other hand they've got their phone where someone's just told them to kill themselves.
Even if that is true that doesn't mean we restrict everyone's rights because a minority are engaging in illegal/immoral acts.
> They believe in these "illegal harms" because they've got a front row seat, and experience them on a daily basis.
That is what they say to sell the narrative that they need to censor social media. If you look over the last 20 years. It is as if nobody has learned anything from the early 2000s and the war on terror. They will exploit (or create) any crisis.
You can disagree with the position, whilst accepting that MPs have been murdered, and MPs do get threatened online.
What specific level of power hunger makes a threat to life acceptable?
Further, I wasn't in favour of these proposals, but if you have people on HN of all places thinking its acceptable to threaten people, maybe we do need this law.
Every law that the MPs create is itself a threat against the people. A prescriptive law can only be described as "Do what I say, or I will hurt you." Agents of the state create laws, and then take your money and pay that money to men with guns to come after you if you fail to comply.
Murder is already illegal, and threatening to murder someone is already illegal. Any further legislation, the burden of proof is on them not on me or the parent poster. Otherwise one day they might claim that me taking a shit will lead to their murder and have my toilets removed.
Im not saying the burden of proof is on you. I'm not saying murder is legal.
I'm saying that making sarcastic comments suggesting that MPs deserve to be murdered or threatened isn't acceptable.
Its a completely separate issue from the law theyve introduced, which as I said, I'm not in favour of, and I agree they need to make the case before they remove your toilets, I've already made such a comment elsewhere in this thread.
As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats, with two MPs murdered in the last decade.
You and I have the luxury that we can just not be on Twitter - but when you're an MP, unless you're in a very safe seat you've got to meet voters where they are, not where you'd like them to be.
So from an MP's perspective? In one hand they've got a report about revenge porn, cyber-bullying, 4chan /pol/ and pro-anorexia facebook groups. In the other hand they've got their phone where someone's just told them to kill themselves.
They believe in these "illegal harms" because they've got a front row seat, and experience them on a daily basis.