Ross Batchelor

Avid film watcher/projectorer and long-suffering 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 sports fan (Dundee FC, Michigan, Blackhawks, Patriots). Internet laugher-atter.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@vermilionpixie @JoeGallacher_ lol, lmao even for questioning the goat

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@DarrylRMFC That bitch is burning

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@regularaugust I did and I nearly died laughing.

[Chris Heatherly @chrisheatherly]

I’m actually a child online safety expert and was one of the pioneers in this space with Club Penguin and so I feel uniquely positioned to critique this.

The groomer problem is real but it’s also vastly overstated. The far larger issue we saw at Penguin was suicidality or reports of sexual abuse in the home.

There is no solution for lazy/bad parenting. You can implement all the ID laws you want but if parents are going to just hand kids their phones unlocked, those kids will have access to all the same things the parents have unfettered.

What I found is that these draconian safety laws actually make it harder to be an honest operator of kids apps because on one hand it’s so much legal risk and so much user friction that it simply becomes uninvestible as a business.

Parents will just lie to let their kids use the unfettered internet. For example, I have a friend who works in mobile gaming who has two kids, one above and one below the age limit but separated by just 2 yrs, and the two wanted to play and chat together on Roblox - which is reasonable. To do this, he just verified that his younger kid is old enough for the chat feature when he’s not.

This happens all the time and will happen with these laws to. How far do we want to go with this? Scan the face of the user in real-time to make sure it’s not a kid using the device? We could do that but it feels like a massive unwanted intrusion of privacy.

That’s how you know this law isn’t about kids. COPPA and GDPR-K and so forth already make it illegal to allow chat and other grooming vectors to kids.

What’s really being done here is trying to eliminate online anonymity. And this is a far bigger issue that goes to core speech rights because if you cannot criticize the govt anonymously and if wrong speech is a crime then it becomes easy to identify all the detractors of the govt in power, and ban, fine or jail them for speech crimes.

Starmer has already been doing this and he wants to do it at a much bigger scale. Starmer won’t even acknowledge the problem of actual grooming gangs in Britain’s neighborhoods but he’s worried about online grooming?

No he’s not, and this hypocrisy gives away the game. What he wants is to kill online anonymity so he can enforce censorship of his unpopular policies. No politician should have this power.

[respawnedtargaryen @respawnedtarga1]

It went from “porn” to everything like we all predicted

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@honestm4tty @NS_1872 pedo alert

[NBC Sports @NBCSports]

Please enjoy the musical stylings of Fenway Park. 😂

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@IndyWummin @TartanArmyGroup @RedSox Wish I'd known that before buying the ticket for the 16th 🙃

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@Mercado_Ingles God does not favour England, and nor should He.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@FrankoTheMan3 @BostonConnr lol ok
https://t.co/7LTbYCzejD

[Mike Morrison @MDMorrison82]

Update. I have made contact with the Scots and was offered an 8:00 am World Cup beer. If only I had taken the day off.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@Ratanaba_pov Morocco hates Africa and tried to join the EU.

[JAMES 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @jamesscott_ish]

sat down for a McDonald's in my Scotland top in NYC and some lassie has just asked me "what's your number in team", so some woman now thinks she's met Scott McTominay in a maccies tucking into a pre match McMuffin

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@smashbaals @andybfaedundee

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@KobeissiLetter So fucking bored of this.

[WhoRemembersPod @whorememberspod]

As mentioned on the podcast — the funniest commentary moment of all time.

Mark Saggers, TalkSport, 2010.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@theofrom5to7 It's gonna get the exact opposite treatment to Sinners and you know it.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@moistpendulum @chernovlosya turn tree sissy, more like

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@volantleander Even I, an avowed Ridley hater, pricked up at this news. This could actually be a good time.

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@bbccumbriasport I'll drive him down myself

[Ross Batchelor @RossBFD]

@HollywoodHandle You don't get to say this type of shit off the back of a pile of garbage like After the Hunt.