We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
“…there is a glaring hole in this legislation regarding the protection of adults” In the Guardian, April O’Neill writes,
The Online Safety Act is now partly enforceable. Paul might make you think a bit harder about it. Understandably, much of the conversation surrounding it has been focused on protecting children, but there is a glaring hole in this legislation regarding the protection of adults. Despite a 2022 report for the Ministry of Justice finding that the role of the internet in radicalisation pathways “was most evident for older rather than younger individuals”, the Tory government backed out from provisions that would have prevented adults from seeing “legal but harmful” content online over fears about freedom of speech.
April O’Neill holds that the people who need to be forcibly protected from hearing bad opinions are old people who distrust left wing media sources. Ms O’Neill is the winner of The Guardian Foundation’s 2025 Emerging Voices Awards (19-25 age category) recognising young talent in political opinion writing.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
It’s fine. Just legislate to reclassify adults as children. April O’Neill will just love losing all her adult rights, won’t she.
“legal but harmful”
The quangos will be assiduously neutral in determining what’s “harmful”, won’t they?
The “Paul” is not me.
April O’Neil is writing in the Guardian newspaper – a publication with a long history of LYING (about many things – including the deaths of millions of people under Marxist rule in various countries – mass death it denied and tried to cover up), yet it is not the lies of the “Guardian” that April O’Neil wants people “protected” from – it is “far right” opinions which she wants censored. How does the lady define “far right”? The lady, for example, defines opposition to Islam as “far right” – hence the attack on “Tommy Robinson”. The fact that such a “far right” view of Islam was that of Gladstone, John Bright and Winston Churchill and is well supported by the verses of the Koran and reliable Hadiths, and the history (the actions) of Mohammed himself and his followers down the centuries, does not matter to the lady.
In the 19th century the Manchester Guardian (as it then was) stood for liberty – now it stands for tyranny, it is that brutally simple.
They are now are more like Plato’s “Guardians” – with their totalitarianism and “noble lies” – which are not noble at all.
Happy Easter.
When I read the headline I thought “hell yeah we need to protect adults”. But what I was thinking of is protecting adults’ rights to read what they want, think what they want and not be treated like children. I assumed they were thinking to make sure that protections intended for children were not accidentally applied to adults.
Sadly, no. Quite the opposite. “Protecting adults” means “treating adults like children”.
Just call me Pollyanna.
BTW, isn’t April O’Neil the news reporter who is friends with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
Paul,
“Far Right”, “Fascist” or whatever have been utterly demeaninged as much as “liberal” has been. They are just non-specific terms of abuse now.
If anything comes from the the Supreme Court decision on defining the word “woman”* it should be a more general realisation that DEI policies are intrinsically incoherent. You simply cannot, for example, legislate to simultaneously protect LGBTQ++(like whatever**) and Islam.
*It is good Dr Johnson is long dead because even the existence of that discussion would have killed him. He would have laughed himself to death.
**This made me giggle. Being a wanker is now quite literally a specific sexual orientation. Learned people have written about it in learned journals so it must be so. Yes, I am aware of the myth of Narcissus from Ovid but let’s not go with the glory of the classics and just stick with “wanker”?
The young lady who wrote this piece is better than me.
She far more closely matches the sort of person the education system and other socializing institutions aim to produce.
Her lack of concern about state censorship is a feature, not a bug. Its part of her superiority.
All of her concerns will be exquisitely fashionable, and attuned to the cultural sensibilities of the present hour.
When watching Question Time or Adolescence, she invariably draws all of the socially correct conclusions.
She will not explicitly notice any contradictions or double standards in the orthodox narrative, while still assiduously adhering to those double standards when ettiquette demands.
Any academic institution in Britain would be proud to have such a student.
She is doing the Human/British condition correctly.
I was in a card shop last week, and noticed that there was a section for Eid Mubarak cards, which I do not think they had last year. Another section close to it was for “en-gay-gement” cards, ie cards for gay couples getting engaged.
It strikes me that a society which is so “diverse” has very little hope of surviving in the long term. There is no point worrying about pathetic nonsense like “protecting” adults from having unapproved thoughts when society is collapsing all around us.
JohnK,
It is not about “diversity” as such. It is the internal contradictions – a significant one you noted. Let’s celebrate gays! Let’s celebrate Muslims! Let’s ignore entirely what Islamic scripture says about gays. Anyway, as you hint and Jay Thomas states explictly this is not true diversity but a new orthodoxy. Just like the old orthodoxy but with different Gods, rules and taboos.
Quite recently I watched, “The Zone of Interest” – a movie about the home life of Rudolf Höss (Commandant of Auschwitz). It is a movie, like many others, that thinks it is a lot clverer than it is so I don’t recommend it. But, that is not my point here. My point is it had the usual “trigger warnings” for the offended. “Genocide”? No. “Anti-Semitism”? No. Even “Extreme Politics”? No. It was flagged for “Alcohol and Tobacco Use” because it showed Rudolf Höss, after a hard day’s genocide, relaxing with a cigar and a glass of schnapps. I mean for fuck’s sake! If that had been his only vices… Höss was personally in charge of the deaths of hundreds of thousands but the real thing to fear is liked a drink and a smoke. It would not entirely surprise me if a movie related to The Holocaust in the near future came with a “trigger warning” about death-camps not being carbon-neutral.
She was when I was a kid. I can’t speak for any of the reboots.
This is a British blog, so the locals might recognize the title better as “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles”.
Pity she’s gone woke, but it’s nice to see she’s still getting work.
Sounds like a Remainer.
Perhaps she is hoping to inherit some pearls to clutch?
April O´Neill is an example of how little recent history some young people know. Many of them think they’re the first generation to be online. Actually, the Baby Boomers created the internet, many of us have been online since before she was born. This Paul doesn’t represent old people, but rather the stereotype historically illiterate young people have about old people.
Isn’t “silly little girls lecturing their grandfathers” one of the indicators of the end times?
They know they have a path to counteract the “harmful” stuff (freedom, liberty, etc) that might corrupt the youth – that’s what daily school is for – but they lack such a day-to-day corrective power amongst us oldsters.
Thus, we need enhanced protection. We could all too easily end up thinking for ourselves, expecting agency, and choices, and stuff.
I take heart (at least in my USA-centric world) that it’s the youngest cohorts – below 30, generally – that seem to be supporting the philosophies that I like.
April O’Neill is clearly confident that she won’t be impacted by any future censorship regime. She – and The Guardian – need to be disabused of that notion.
Someone needs to go through The Guardian, looking for articles which don’t comply with the demands of the Online Safety Act. (I’d do it myself, were I living in the UK.) This shouldn’t be too difficult, as the Act is likely to be vaguely-worded and broad in its scope. Once an offending piece is found, it should be reported to OFCOM.