Peter Kyle threatened to shut down X on Newsnight last night. This is where it has go to…
Ofcom rules requiring age verification for explicit content – with the onus on platforms – came into force at midnight. A gift to scammers and a massive threat to privacy which can be avoided by anyone tech-savvy enough to download a VPN…
In a bizarre conversation on Newsnight Paddy O’Connell offered to “go on X now, we can look on it together and I can find some porn” for Kyle and pressed the Science Secretary on whether he could shut down the platform if it didn’t comply with new requirements to withhold pornographic content from children:
“Britain has the power to shut down any platform.”
Onerous restrictions moving responsibility for content on platforms to the companies that run them are already threatening access to Wikipedia. If Ofcom and Labour keeps going the UK will end up a privacy-free digital desert…
Kyle promised to platforms who did not follow Ofcom strictures “we will go after you” and added “access to the British society and economy is a privilege and not a right.” To be controlled by Labour from now on…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”