[_heimdall]

I think part of the problem at hand is when laws written poorly can be enforced in ways that don't align with the meaning behind the original laws.

The solution really is simple - write clearly defined and contained laws or don't write any at all. Most people wouldn't be comfortable with that, though, and in a world where news stories and political debates are forgotten in a matter of weeks people won't find it acceptable if legislators spend months or years writing laws that are easy to understand and don't come with a mountain of edge cases and loopholes.

[BoredPositron]

Yeah, that's a cop out no law will ever be satisfactory initially with your requirements. Every constitution gets amendments and the same can go for a law like we are discussing now. That the only conclusion is "do nothing at all" is mind boggling.

[_heimdall]

Its not a cop out. How can you as a citizen try to stay on the right side of the law when laws are horribly verbose, difficult to understand, and full of gray area?

I wouldn't expect a law to be absolutely 100% buttoned up but we're very, very far from that today.

[BoredPositron]

Laws are difficult to understand? Is it the first one you've read? Oh no you haven't read it... because the one we are talking about is pretty straight cut. Sorry but you are really not commenting in good faith here. It's just straw man argument after straw man argument.

It's just liberté and nothing else for you I guess.

[_heimdall]

For the average person, yes laws are absolutely difficult to understand. We wouldn't need to involve lawyers nearly as often if laws were easy to understand and the process, defined by laws, was clear.

It isn't just about liberté for me. The law in discussion here may be pretty straight cut with regards to understanding what's on the page, but not with understanding what power the government is actually granted or when/how it will be enforced. The whole point in this thread was that the law is unclear as to how the government will define content posted online that may turn out to be inaccurate as illegal and worthy of leading to prosecution.

Consider it this way - if you handed said law to 10 people in the UK, would they all walk away with the same understanding of where the line is that they shouldn't cross?

[BoredPositron]

Oh stop the straw man arguments ask 10 people on the street about traffic laws and you get the same results for what you are fishing now. Ofc everyone will know that a Red Light means stop but than there are more obscure ones like the "Move Over" law in the US which even varies between states.

[_heimdall]

How is this a straw mab argument? I'm not saying poll any random 10 people on what they currently know of laws already on the book, I'd expect that to end poorly.

With regards to this specific law being clear and understandable by those who must follow it, I'm proposing that asking 10 of those people to read it and they wouldn't agree what the law means and when it will be enforced. I don't see that being a straw man, though I could very well be missing something there.