• 12 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • The worst outcome is someone reading it (not necessarily an asylum seeker), thinks it’s accurate because it’s from the government, then uses that to justify harassing people with cameras. People legally going about their day, taking photos in public legally, but contradicting the advice in this leaflet, being harassed due to this leaflet.

    The long term worst outcome is that this sentiment spreads until a new law is introduced that actually does prohibit taking photos without permission.


  • Never forget that the main age verification method baked into these laws was card transactions. The ID and face scanning technology didn’t really exist when the laws were written, so it describes them more generally, but card transactions were the established method of verifying age. The new technology came in as a cheaper option for service providers.

    MasterCard and VISA were the primary promoters of these laws. Even with new technology taking some of the share, the laws would still cause an increase in card verifications at a time when many businesses try to minimise the card verifications they do to limit their transaction fees (ie pay MC and VISA less).


    1. You’re applying the technical terminology from The Highway Code, it’s not clear that this applies here.
    2. The leaflet itself shows no explanation of the terms “should” and “must” like there is in The Highway Code.
    3. That kind of nuanced language really isn’t appropriate in literature meant for people with a poor grasp of the English and English culture.
    4. “Should not” and “can not” are not “legally different” - the terms have no formal legal definition, they’re just used in The Highway Code like that. But The Highway Code is not written by the government, it’s written by a private business called The Stationary Office. They don’t come up with legal definitions, they provide a specific layman’s explanation of the rules of the road, as defined in both legislation and case law.


  • Everything in the information is fine, except the bit about “you’re not able to photograph people without their permission”.

    While in the context of the topic that’s true, in general you are allowed to photograph people in public. It’s what you do and the intent behind taking the photos that matters.

    The big concern is that people will think this strict “you can never photograph without permission” take from the Home Office is accurate, and then use it to justify harassment of anyone with a camera that they don’t like.


  • where it effectively means you can’t focus on a person as the main subject of the picture or video without their permission, but it’s OK if they are just in the background.

    The law allows for that, however the implication of the literature released by the Home Office implies otherwise. They literally said “you can’t photograph others without permission”.

    The main issue is that this is an official government publication, and as such people will regard it as factual. It’s less that the law could come down on someone taking photos in public, but more that some self-righteous asshole might start a fight with someone taking photos, thinking the more strict version of the law the Home Office implied is accurate.

    And there’s also the slippery slope aspect of this being a potential first step to removing the right to photograph others without permission altogether.


  • The arrests are on conspiracy to commit murder, sounds like the police found messages on their phone about them targeting this guy.

    Also they keep showing that picture of him dressed up, like from a wedding or something. This is probably a more recent picture:

    Not sure how old the other photo is - looks like the same glasses, but also in the other photo he looks more like a young kid than a 27 year old man.

    Hopefully they find enough to convict.



  • The point is to put them on medication and release them from prison. The suppression drugs are at least temporary.

    However, ministers are re-evaluating whether to press ahead with Shabana Mahmood’s pledge to explore mandatory chemical castration of serious sex offenders, such as paedophiles and rapists.

    This part is the cruelty is the point part.

    Not to defend rapists and paedophiles, but chemical castration was what they did to Alan Turing. The government and the legal system cannot be trusted to implement such harsh punishment and not inflict it on innocents.

    And more poignantly, Turing’s castration was voluntary as a condition of his early release.