Nobody Cares about Britain

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

MPs vote to decriminalise abortion for women in England and Wales

The vote to decriminalise the procedure is the biggest change to abortion laws in England and Wales for nearly 60 years.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales – UK politics live

More detailed account here

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/20/assisted-dying-law-england-and-wales-bill-passed

To my mind, the bill's opponents have made a good point when they argue that, rather than assisted dying, we should have better palliative and end-of-life care. However, while we *should* have those things, parliamentarians have to legislate for the world as it is rather than as it ought to be, so until we *do* actually have this improved palliative and end-of-life care for people to choose if they want to, I'm not at all sure the point has much weight.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Palestine Action to be banned after RAF base break in

The home secretary will move to proscribe the Palestine Action group in the coming weeks, the BBC understands.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[detrius]

Not a fan of American bread, but it looks better than my attempt to make a lard-gherkin-banana-tabasco sandwich.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Not a fan of American bread, but it looks better than my attempt to make a lard-gherkin-banana-tabasco sandwich.

It's Marks and Spencer, a British supermarket and department store chain.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Palestine Action to be banned after RAF base break in

The home secretary will move to proscribe the Palestine Action group in the coming weeks, the BBC understands.

www.bbc.co.uk

Meanwhile, in the U.S., a man has murdered/attempted to murder multiple opposition party members and he's not a terrorist.

If only he had broken into an airfield and sprayed graffiti on a few planes....

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Meanwhile, in the U.S., a man has murdered/attempted to murder multiple opposition party members and he's not a terrorist.

If only he had broken into an airfield and sprayed graffiti on a few planes....

Obviously I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK, regular criminal offences like murder, arson, criminal damage and so on, are prosecuted as such. If the prosecution want to allege terrorism as the motive, they do that while they're making their case that the defendant did the actions described on the indictment. If the jury finds the defendant committed the crime, then it's for the judge to decide about the terrorist motivation and, if the judge accepts that part of the case, then it's generally a seriously aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing.

Terrorist offences, in contrast, or offences under the various Terrorism Acts, are generally lower level offences -- generally behaviour that would not otherwise be unlawful (belonging to an organisation, raising fundsor recruiting for it, displaying particular flags or emblems, collecting particular kinds of information) were it not for the terrorist connection.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

At the early stage, they will just put a serious enough offense to set or deny bail. Two counts murder, two counts attempted murder is enough to hold the alleged shooter. The formal indictment will follow with a longer list of offenses and add-ons.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

At the early stage, they will just put a serious enough offense to set or deny bail. Two counts murder, two counts attempted murder is enough to hold the alleged shooter. The formal indictment will follow with a longer list of offenses and add-ons.

In the UK the bare facts of the case -- murder plus attempted murder, targeting an elected official/political motivation, firearms involved, considerable premeditation -- would make a full-life sentence (i.e. life without the possibility of parole) almost inevitable.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

We have extra complications because usually murder and related offenses are charged in state court while terrorism is a Federal charge.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Random questions:
-Did they ever figure out who forged the Niger uranium documents?
-What was the name of that file that disappeared off Tony Blair's desk?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Pornhub to introduce 'government approved' UK age checks

It is one of a number of porn sites which regulator Ofcom says will bring in tougher age verification for users.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Beebo Brink]

Pornhub to introduce 'government approved' UK age checks

It is one of a number of porn sites which regulator Ofcom says will bring in tougher age verification for users.

www.bbc.co.uk

I don't find the counter arguments to this regulation persuasive, or perhaps they simply weren't articulated well in this article. Certainly the Click-if-you're-over-18 approach is ludicrous as a barrier. No system (virtually or in the real world) is going to be 100% effective, but the more difficult the access, the fewer numbers of kids will get through.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't find the counter arguments to this regulation persuasive, or perhaps they simply weren't articulated well in this article. Certainly the Click-if-you're-over-18 approach is ludicrous as a barrier. No system (virtually or in the real world) is going to be 100% effective, but the more difficult the access, the fewer numbers of kids will get through.

I completely agree. I think people tend to forget that this isn't teenagers sneaking looks at their father's Playboy, or furtively buying top shelf magazines of their own.

According to the research I've encountered in the media an alarming number of teens and even younger children report having encountered hard-core violent porn, frequently by accident, and I think it is important to prevent children's accidental or casual access to this kind of material.

I take the point about the potential risks to privacy this poses, but since online porn is such a lucrative industry whose needs have fuelled so much technical innovation, I feel reasonably confident that -- as appears to be the case with Pornhub and the UK -- between them online verification services and the porn industry will be able to come up with robust solutions that offer both age verification and user privacy.

The idea isn't to prevent all minors from accessing online porn, after all. It's to prevent them from accessing accidentally or casually. The argument that it won't stop all of them doesn't really impress me -- age restrictions on buying tobacco products or alcohol certainly aren't 100% effective, either, but that's no reason not to have them.

I asked Chat GPT for a summary of UK research, stressing I wanted reliable sources

Here are several reliable and recent UK studies detailing how children access online pornography—intentionally or by accident:


1. Ofcom’s June 2025 study

• 8% of UK children aged 8–14 visited pornographic websites/apps over a 1‑month period. Boys aged 13–14 had the highest rates (≈20%) (theguardian.com).
• Ofcom highlights that simple age declarations are no longer sufficient, and from 25 July 2025, online porn platforms in the UK must implement robust age verification (e.g., facial age estimation, ID checks) (theguardian.com).

2. Parliamentary evidence (House of Commons committee)

• Among 11–12 year‑olds, 28% reported having seen pornography, rising to 65% at age 15–16.
• Crucially, children were as likely to see it accidentally as intentionally. Many reported stumbling across content or receiving it via links (committees.parliament.uk).
• Exposure had an impact: 44% of boys (vs 29% of girls) said the pornography they saw gave them ideas to emulate, with this rising by age 15–16 (committees.parliament.uk).

3. LSE’s 2005 “UK children go online” study (historical context)

• In youth aged 9–19 who used the internet regularly, 57% had encountered pornography. Most exposure was unintentional:
  • 38% via pop‑ups, 36% ended up on porn sites unintentionally, 25% through unsolicited junk mail (eprints.lse.ac.uk). This shows that accidental exposure has long been common.

4. Children’s Commissioner report (January 2023)

• Presented strong warnings about the nature of online pornography targeting youth—describing much of it as abusive—and calling for urgent safeguards (childrenscommissioner.gov.uk).

Patterns & Insights

Key Observation	Details
Accidental exposure is common	Evidence across multiple sources shows unintentional exposure via pop-ups, misclicks, or shared links.
Intentional viewing increases with age	Data from 11–16 year‑olds shows a leap from 28% to 65% seen by intentional or accidental means.
Potential influence on behaviours	A substantial number say the content influenced them—even wishing to emulate what they saw.
Regulatory push ahead	Ofcom now requires stricter age-verification for pornography sites from July 2025 under the Online Safety Act.

Summary

Recent and robust UK research confirms:

• Children are accessing pornographic content both accidentally and on purpose.
• Accidental exposure is a significant issue, not just teens' intentional viewing.
• Younger children (8–12) are seeing content, and exposure tends to rise sharply by age 15–16.
• The UK is now implementing policy measures (e.g., mandatory age checks) to mitigate these risks.

• theguardian.com
• theguardian.com
• theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

I think it is important to prevent children's accidental or casual access to this kind of material.

My father stored his porn magazines in a ludicrously accessible place and as a child (pre-teen) I would wait for those times when my parents left the house and immediately go look at them. (That they were furtively hidden was like catnip.) In today's terms they would probably count more as soft-core porn, but nonetheless I found them disturbing in ways I couldn't articulate. Looking back, I know that I was too young for that exposure; it created sexual associations with misogynistic imagery that stayed with me into adulthood.

 

[Soen Eber]

We have extra complications because usually murder and related offenses are charged in state court while terrorism is a Federal charge.

Our attorney general has been quite eager to keep the murder charges and as much as possible within state jurisdiction, and was especially active on this during the first few hours before the Feds stepped in. Ellison is well aware about the prospect of a presidential pardon.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I had a vaguely similar experience with my dad's porn magazines as a kid. ....though I really think modern kids with unrestricted internet access have it a million times worse. When we were kids, it took actual effort to find a small amount of mostly softcore porn. Kids today can just randomly stumble into some terrible shit.

I think it's also very important for modern sex education to directly address porn and how unrealistic a lot of it is. Too many parents just assume they can keep their kids in the dark for life.

 

[Sid]

I don't find the counter arguments to this regulation persuasive, or perhaps they simply weren't articulated well in this article. Certainly the Click-if-you're-over-18 approach is ludicrous as a barrier. No system (virtually or in the real world) is going to be 100% effective, but the more difficult the access, the fewer numbers of kids will get through.

If an adult finds a way in, a kid will certainly find it's way in too.
Generally speaking kids are more savvy on devices than the adults.
Only direct physical parental guidance could stop them.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

If an adult finds a way in, a kid will certainly find it's way in too.
Generally speaking kids are more savvy on devices than the adults.
Only direct physical parental guidance could stop them.

The question isn't, though, how to ensure no one under the age of 18 can access online porn sites.

It's how to make it sufficiently difficult for them so to do that they don't access them accidentally by clicking on links (as apparently about half of the younger children who access these sites say they did), or out of idle curiosity.

The fact you can't prevent sufficiently determined teens from accessing porn sites isn't an argument for having no restrictions on access, any more than is the fact that underage teens can, and do, buy tobacco products and alcohol without much difficulty isn't a good reason to abandon age limits on the sale of such products, or is the fact that my locking my front door when I go out won't prevent a reasonably determined burglar from breaking in a good reason to leave it unlocked when the flat is empty.