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Britain Moves to Criminalize Reading Extremist Material on the Internet
- oliwarner 9y agoBritain has frequently been regressive when it comes to freedoms. It's the classic nanny state and both the parties play into it. Labour want welfare to help people into work. Conservatives want to ban everything nasty to make people nice. But while censorship in the UK is nothing new, I feel like we're entering grand new era where I can send you a few links to extremist material, an encrypted USB stick without keys and you disappear into a black hole. Forever. If that —or even the heightened fear of that— isn't terrorism, I don't know what is. I certainly feel more threatened by accidentally breaking a law than terrorists where I am.
- akerro 9y agoI hope this will efficiently solve the problem the same way problem of hard drugs has been solved for decades!
- nnfy 9y agoCan't wait to buy my kids trendy IARE shirts! Propaganda for the whole family!
- Angostura 9y agoI've been involved peripherally in working with anti-radicalisation programmes in UK schools. I imagine that the issue that authorities are bumping up against are the situations, where you know someone has been radicalised, but there is nothing effectively you can do because no law has been broken until there's evidence that they start assembling the components for the bomb or whatever. This is a hard problem and leads to all those 'the bomber was described as being on the intelligence services radar' lines in news stories. The benevolent reading of these kinds of moves is that it at least gives the authorities to intervene, though I recognise the risks to liberty.
- vt100 9y agoThen they should create a program where specific individuals can placed on a deradicalization program and be banned from extremist material. And then make it a crime to view the material while you are on that program.
- icebraining 9y agoIn a democratic society, you generally can't put adults in "programs" without their consent, unless they already committed a crime.
- zimpenfish 9y ago> you generally can't put adults in "programs" without their consent, unless they already committed a crime. Sure you can - there's plenty of precedent for e.g. sectioning people into mental hospitals for their own safety or removing people's driving licenses when they might be a danger (without committing a crime - bad eyesight, bad motor control, drug regimen, etc.)
- icebraining 9y agoA driving license is a privilege that comes with rules, taking it away is not the same as imposing unilateral restrictions. Sending people to mental hospitals is a fair example, but that's why I wrote "generally", acknowledging the existence of exceptions. In that case, it's accepted that consent is an oxymoron, which doesn't really apply here.
- pjc50 9y agoPREVENT is pretty dire, though. I agree it's a hard problem, but getting it wrong is going to lead to the Northern Ireland situation: overreaction by authorities creating political prisoners who will be martyrs to their cause. Bobby Sands is still a hero to many. > there is nothing effectively you can do because no law has been broken until there's evidence that they start assembling the components for the bomb or whatever Sure, but that is basically where we as a society have agreed the line is drawn for decades. Otherwise you start prosecuting people for "sedition". And it'll inevitably get used against peaceful leftwing groups and not against radical xenophobes, etc.
- wallace_f 9y ago2017: when mean words can land you in jail, wrongthink is about to be a crime, free speech and the ACLU is white supremacy(1), and possibly the first time in history when a man breaking a woman's skull with his fist is OK(2). 1-https://reason.com/blog/2017/10/04/black-lives-matter-students-shut-down-th https://reason.com/blog/2017/10/04/black-lives-matter-studen... 2-https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yAAlFya89aw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yAAlFya89aw
- flotillo 9y agoThe article is about a proposed change of law in the UK. Your commentary about the US seems rather off-topic.
- wallace_f 9y agoWell, through Five Eyes and other partnerships, this would be enforced with the US's cooperation and support. That said, politics in the West, and even globally, have become increasingly interconnected. These trends and topics I mentioned are not isolated to the US at all. You have a point though, so I edited my comment.
- yread 9y ago2) of course it's ok, it's a sport? Injuries happen in sports. Particularly violent ones. Myke Tyson would probably break my skull as well if I was ever so dumb to get in the ring with him. There aren't only two genders just look at Caster Semenaya https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/29/what-is-an-intersex-athlete-explaining-the-case-of-caster-semenya https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/29/what-is-an-int... or look at this mess (and that's only part of it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite#Humans
- wallace_f 9y agoHave there been any other skull fractures in boxing, mma history?
- nnfy 9y agoMeanwhile we are lobbying for net neutrality legislation which gives out own government (famous for freedoms like the patriot act) additional power over ISPs by reclassifying them as common carriers. Do you really want your government deciding what is and is not neutral content delivery? No one sees any way in which it can go wrong?
- Vinnl 9y agoDo you mean legislation abolishing net neutrality? Because AFAIA the point of net neutrality is that only the delivery of _all_ content is neutral. (Note that it's not the content that's supposed to be neutral, whatever that would mean, but the delivery.)
- nnfy 9y agoHow are people so niave as to not understand that such a broad concept like "neutrality" can easily be abused? Legislation is slow to change and adapt as is, you want to give government further power to apply law to an industry which has already been captured? Never mind the quickness with which tech like the internet changes. I feel like I'm the only sane person on HN. How are people so oblivious to the downsides of broad, sweeping regulation?
- Vinnl 9y agoIt sounds like you mean that people can redefine the word neutral to suit their use case? Because "net neutrality" is pretty well defined, and basically means "nobody should have the power to interfere with our communications". The government already has the power to apply law - what we're supposed to care about is what law they're applying, and whether those are good laws. I think the reason people are "oblivious" is basically because they're also (i.e. not only) aware of the downside of the absence of regulation, and feel that those downsides outweigh those of regulation.
- Quarrelsome 9y agoCan we not just make a worm that does this thereby rendering everyone guilty? Better: target devices in Westminster exclusively so their own names turn up on the list. I personally like how they've attempted to distinguish downloading and reading as if when you browse to a website it doesn't download the HTML and store it in a temp cache on your local disk. This suggests that today the difference between innocent and guilty is the directory path of an illicit file. :D
- throwaway613834 9y agoDownloading is saving something that's online for later offline use. I think that's pretty easy to tell apart from reading something online?
- Quarrelsome 9y agothe temp cache still exists offline. This means that if I wanted to store "illicit" files I'd just store them in my temp cache under a plausibly temp-cachy sounding file name. Effectively the crime is distinguished by the directory path. In both cases the effect on your machine is identical. It loads the content to disk, then into memory and then displays it in your viewer/browser.
- throwaway613834 9y agoWhat I was trying to say was that the intention and the reason for the action that make a difference.
- Quarrelsome 9y agoand what I was trying to say is that the intention and reason are derived from merely the directory path of a file.
- throwaway613834 9y agoOkay. So what's wrong with that? It's like saying the difference between protected and unprotected speech can be the location of the speech in question. Yeah, it very much can be. What's wrong with that?
- jlebrech 9y agofar-right but not far-left, and the left will decide how far right you are. also will certain passages or holy books be deemed extremists or not. what of movies that they don't like, will those be banned?
- danmaz74 9y agoYou're aware that Britain's government is from the right, aren't you?
- Y_Y 9y agoNot that they're universally defined, but I think the Tories would be left-of-centre in the US context even though they're considered right-wrong in the UK.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- danmaz74 9y agoWell, then also US Republicans would have been considered almost bolsheviks in the Third Reich, what with all this bullshit about voting and all... :D
- positivecomment 9y agoApparently "all the censorship comes from the left" is the new "there is no global warming".
- raverbashing 9y agoCensorship from the left is fine since the other side is "fascist"
- jlebrech 9y agoonly the left wants to ban words that trigger people.
- martinko 9y agoWelcome to 1984. Really ironic that is happening in Britain (not that its not happening elsewhere).
- staticelf 9y agoI would argue that it is not happening in EU.
- docdeek 9y agoIt’s happening here in France. A report in the free commuter newspaper in Lyon this morning recounted the arrest of a guy who had watched videos of decapitations (I presume ISIS-produced). Perhaps he downloaded the video, but likely he just viewed it online.
- mosselman 9y agoPeople often say 'downloading' and 'viewing online' are the same because technologically there isn't much to differentiate the two. We could start saying 'he saved the files on his computer' vs 'watched it online'. That way the difference in intent is more clear. Saving the files on your harddisk so you can look at them later and building up a collection of ISIS videos should be considered different from looking at the same videos online.
- tunisiamike 9y agoI don't understand, what's the difference in intent? Do you think it should be illegal to save a collection of isis videos?
- mosselman 9y agoNo. I am just saying there is a difference that is often ignored in order to make people seem more guilty or untrustworthy.
- fgjjgutjvnu 9y ago
- DanBC 9y agothis article is wrong. reading extremist material is already illegal in the UK. the changes are to increase the sentence for repeated visits to 15 years. since reading extremist material is already illegal the article could point to all the miscarriages of justice caused by people convicted for mere possession of a chemistry textbook or for journalistic research into terrorist organisations.
- inasring 9y agoHow would you enforce something like prohibiting reading content online? You just watch what everyone's reading all time
- libeclipse 9y agoIn the UK, your internet browsing history is stored by your ISP for one year.
- fish_fan 9y agoExcept if they invest a whole $0 in a letsencrypt cert or any service with one.... or have they persuaded the services to allow them to MITM their own citizens?
- libeclipse 9y agoWhat? Why would HTTPS prevent logging. Do you mean a VPN?
- fish_fan 9y agoHttps encrypts the path and headers. How would they know which site you’re on? I doubt they’re going to RadicalBombPlans.com.
- mverwijs 9y ago"The law would move from criminalizing the downloading of information to simply reading it." I cannot find the sources of that statement. Which law? Where is the text?
- DanBC 9y agoAmber Rudd (current home secretary) made a speech at the conservative party conference announcing the intention to criminalise viewing material online, as well as the existing criminalisation of downloading material. It's incoherent nonsense, but that hasn't stopped them making laws before.
- pjc50 9y agoThere's no text, it's just a Conservative party conference speech. It may not even happen given that the legislative timetable ought to be full of Brexit-related material.
- darrenf 9y agoSection 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41479620 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41479620
- andy_ppp 9y agoI wish we had a constition in this country; if a Donald Trump ever got in here he would have literally limitless power to lock up journalist or anyone he didn’t like really.
- peteretep 9y agoYou deeply misunderstand how the parliamentary system works. The PM does not have that power, but yes, parliament does (modulo EU Human Rights), and that's considered a feature not a bug.
- pjc50 9y agoConsidered by whom? The British constitution functions, yes, but not very well. It's a huge legacy mess of patch sets and emergency bug fixes.
- peteretep 9y ago> Considered by whom? ... the people who put it in place 300 years ago?
- pjc50 9y agoIsn't it more relevant what people alive today consider?
- peteretep 9y agoIn determining if the system is a good one or not, yes. But in determining if it's working how the creators wanted it to, and hence whether it's a feature or bug? No.
- pjc50 9y agoThe intent of the original creators was, among other things, vehement anti-Catholicism. That's what the line "That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law." is doing in the original text. Sectarianism: bug or feature?
- phatbyte 9y agoThis is just ridiculous. Where do you draw the line? Today is religion, tomorrow maybe a technical paper on hacking or whatever. We need to discuss this as a society, not hiding it.
- peteretep 9y ago> Britain has long relied on the > presumed benevolence of the > government Yes. That's what parliamentary sovereignty actually means. We don't have an actual constitution. In fairness, we've been at it for 90 years longer than the US has had a constitution, and so far it works. Most of the worst excesses of US politics seem to go back to deep mistrust of government and people taking about their "rights".
- wallace_f 9y ago>Most of the worst excesses of US politics seem to go back to deep mistrust of government and people taking about their "rights". And what would those be?
- derefr 9y agoPresumably something to do with heavy resistance to even very watered-down gun-control laws.
- wallace_f 9y agoEvery month goes by and the hood in Chicago kills more people than died in Las Vegas, and no one says anything about gun control. Probably because most of the people in the hood already have illegal guns. Anyways it is very rare to die by illegitimate gunfire (not from the state). You are more likely to die in falls, slips, choking, drowning, cars, motorcycles... The list is never ending. In the West we are conditioned to be terrified of guns and terrorists, but it is incredibly rare to die of either, especially if you stay out the hood. Why not campaign against something that kills more people but which doesn't serve an arguably necessary purpose? Why try to jump for one of the highest and most questionable fruits on the tree? Tyrants always will seek to consolidate power. If your intention is altruism, try to save lives by an easier means.
- libeclipse 9y agoGun control is the elephant in the room.
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- tmnvix 9y agoHow do you know it's extremist until you've read it?
- return0 9y agoI suppose they 'll have to add an 'accept' button.
- mosselman 9y agoExactly, a very good point. You could make websites that start out with: "Once upon a time there was a girl who always wore a red riding hood...grand ma was sick... wolf... 'We should just have a big genocide' screamed grandma as she pointed her right arm in the air."
- wallace_f 9y agoYep, and what was extremist one year is not the next. It wasn't really that long ago McCarthyism made commmunism a thought crime. How can we seem to so easily forget that lesson?
- milesf 9y agoWhere is the actual text of the law? Link or it didn't happen.
- libeclipse 9y agoIt's a conservative party speech, so it's not law yet. But the censorvatives can pretty much push through any law they want at this point.
- PeachPlum 9y agoDoes that mean it will be clearly labelled ? Will I be able to check my remaining allocation at far-right-views.direct.gov.uk ? They labelled Le Penn and AFD as "far right extremists", can I only read their websites so many times ? Is Islamofacism far-right ? Can Jews be far-right ?
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y agoCan the Conservative Party of the UK be far right? Many would say that at times they are, and around now is one of those times. I'm not just talking about this proposal, there's a long list of things from Theresa May's "Racist van" initiative through to her "citizen of nowhere" comment.
- vilmosi 9y agoThe Conservative Party in the UK introduced introduced gay marriage and support the NHS, they're definitely not "far right".
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y agoGay marriage: David Cameron introduced that, but more Conservative MPs voted against it than voted for it. It passed because of 90% of the Labour MPs supporting it here are the numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_(Same_Sex_Couples)_Act_2013#First_Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_(Same_Sex_Couples)_Ac... And if I'm specifically talking about Theresa May's tenure, then that's after David Cameron's leadership. "support the NHS" is a much vaguer statement, but I don't think that's entirely true either, see e.g. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=doctors+fight+jeremy+hunt https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=doctors+fight+jeremy+hunt https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nhs+privatisation+virgin+care https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nhs+privatisation+virgin+c... https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=winter+hospital+crisis https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=winter+hospital+crisis My opinion is that the Conservative party currently does not "support" the NHS, but would not dare move openly against it, that would cost far to many votes. Rather they follow, the model of "defund, induce crisis, introduce a privatised solution" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/27/government-deliberately-creating-health-crisis-privatise-nhs/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/27/government-delibe... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-deficit-crisis-one-chart-that-shows-how-the-nhs-is-headed-for-financial-ruin-a6687926.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-deficit-cr... https://nhsreality.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/thats-the-standard-technique-of-privatization-defund-make-sure-things-dont-work-people-get-angry-you-hand-it-over-to-private-capital/ https://nhsreality.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/thats-the-standa...
- keitarofujiwara 9y agoI can't wait for them to start defining what extremist material is.
- Kequc 9y agoDon't wanna point any fingers but that sounded a little bit extremist to me.
- 0xbear 9y agoNext thing to criminalize is thinking “extremist” thoughts. All for the benefit of her majesty’s subjects, of course.
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y agoIf you can be arrested and imprisoned for what appears in your browser, this is going to take rickrolling to a whole new level. Also since this would be inspected from the ISP's end of the pipe, it's easy to simulate the network traffic of a lot of page views without the user ever seeing anything. See also "curl".
- BrockSamson 9y agoThe dawn of a new type of troll?
- k-mcgrady 9y agoAmber Rudd also said this week that techies were ‘patronising’ and she doesn’t need to understand encryption. She wants them to give her access to terrorist messages on WhatsApp etc. - but she’s not asking for a backdoor.
- return0 9y agoI don't much get the point - you 're making sure that journalists and ordinary people cannot use this material to extract information and in general find ways to deal with this plague. If anything you should find the people who read this material and send them to school.
- dagw 9y agoyou're making sure that journalists and ordinary people cannot use this material to extract information and in general find ways to deal with this plague. According to the official statement they're still going to allow a "reasonable excuse" defense for journalists, academics and others who can convince the courts that they're nice people really.
- mosselman 9y agoSometimes it seems to me that the British government is intent on making V for Vendetta or 1984 happen in real life. The things they are doing are so scary and openly oppressive that I can only hope that they are trying to be a parody of themselves.
- flotillo 9y agoThe real oppression is terrorist attacks that leave people in fear of their safety. Not oppression: arresting some radicalised extremist for preparing themselves with terrorist training manuals and suchlike.
- Joe-Z 9y agoIf oppression stems from people fostering fear in others, then the news outlets are the real oppressors. Let's face it: Terrorism is really a minor threat to almost all people's safety, yet it's constantly evoked to further restrict people's liberties.
- pjc50 9y agoIt's a real challenge for the government to write laws against "hate preachers" without including Rod Liddle or Katie "final solution" Hopkins.
- mosselman 9y agoInstead of writing laws to 'protect' people from 'hate preachers' it would be a lot more effective if we use information and education to teach people, from a young age, to be critical and confident thinkers. One time in the streets of New York there was some racist shouting things at people of a certain ethnicity, picking them out from the crowd and calling them 'baby rapers'. Several people of different races shouted at him to "shut the fuck up". Those people obviously weren't swayed into thinking that all people of that specific race were indeed 'baby rapers'. I would rather live in a society where people are allowed to say that the holocaust didn't happen and have them be judged as the idiots they are, than a society where saying things that are deemed as 'extreme' by the government is illegal.
- fredley 9y agoWhere do you even start. Firstly, this is just a law Amber Rudd wants to make, it's not anywhere close to being made into actual law, it's very unlikely it will be. It's probably more a bit of signalling/posturing by Amber Rudd to appear as the "Tough on extremists" candidate in the forthcoming Tory leadership (and hence Prime Ministerial) election. Secondly, even if this law was passed, it would never be actively used against the public. It would be used to throw more charges at people they have arrested already, or to have some charges to throw at people who they have arrested but can't charge. It's a handy catch-all (along with vague bans on pornography) that criminalises many normal people who have internet-connected devices. It means they can haul you over at Heathrow, search your device and say "Ah! You've looked at this naughty thing! Too bad!", for example - giving the state an easy way to reject people they don't like much more easily. A lot of this approach stems from Theresa May herself, who spent many years as Home Secretary struggling to deport Anjem Choudary.
- pricechild 9y ago> it would never be actively used against the public. > or to have some charges to throw at people who they have arrested but can't charge. I don't understand who else it would be used against?
- fredley 9y agoSorry for not being clearer, I'm trying to distinguish between active and passive use of the law. Active implying trying to track down those who are breaking it vs. passive implying using it against those who have been reprimanded already.
- robert_foss 9y agoSo your argument is that the law is not likely to pass and if it does pass it will be selectively enforced? Selective enforcement of laws are terrible in the sense that they don't actually dissuade anyone from breaking them. So if it isn't about preventing crimes, but rather about piling this charge ontop of other ones, isn't that missing the point a bit?
- 9y ago
- nbevans 9y agoAmber Rudd is a lightweight. She almost lost her seat at the snap general election - she's deluded if she thinks the CCHQ would let her become the PM whilst in her "unsafe seat".
- villaaston1 9y agoThis is the same minister who was talking about the "necessary hashtags" a few months ago. She's certainly not a _digital native_, or indeed even competent. > Speaking about preventing the upload of objectionable content, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the government needs to get people who "understand the necessary hashtags" talking. > That was of course in addition to Rudd's widely criticised remarks that encryption has no place in citizens' hands, in the wake of revelations that Westminster attacker Khalid Masood was using WhatsApp shortly before murdering pedestrians with his car. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/03/uk_home_secretary_amber_rudd_hashing_not_hashtags/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/03/uk_home_secretary_a...
- flotillo 9y agoIf someone is repeating watching beheading videos, engaging in terrorism forums, reading bomb-making instructions, and other such material, then I would rather prefer the police and the justice system to get involved. Better that than another terrorist attack that could have been stopped. It saddens me that a rational move to prevent terrorism in its formative stages leads to such a knee-jerk negative reaction, with commenters ranting about "1984" and "infringing our civil liberties" and "leftist censorship" and other such overreacting nonsense.
- beejiu 9y agoWhat counts as bomb-making instructions? You could probably acquire enough knowledge from chemistry books (stocked in every good government library) and common sense (please correct me if I am wrong).
- flotillo 9y agoUnless the chemistry book has a chapter titled "how to make a bomb to kill lots of people" with full instructions on how to assemble and detonate one using readily sourced materials, then I'm sure such books will be entirely unaffected by police investigations.
- BrockSamson 9y agoI was concerned by the lack of technical expertise in the home office when Theresa May was Home Sec. Now with Amber Rudd I am terrified. Here is a person who admits she doesn't understand that which she is attempting to regulate, and doesn't care either
- projectant 9y agoIt's an unpopular view but I think this is a good start. Why? Violence is supported and enabled by the narratives people use to justify it. Some element of policing & countering the narrative is going to control ideas that embolden people to commit crimes or to harm others. It's really no different than saying the way we talk about women, or PoC, or gender, or sex helps constructs the reality of how we behave. A lot of people are already shouldering the burden of trying to police and counter how other people speak and think, but they are often not backed up by legislation in doing so. Trying to stamp out the wrong ways people talk and think about other people is part of making a society that is more free and just. I think actually in this case 1984 has the unfortunate chilling effect of making it so easy to equate any sort of control with dire, evil and illogical totalitarian government. It's the sort of "short circuited" thinking that i think impedes people actually thinking clearly or deeply or even at all about these things. In that sense, having neat metaphors from literature to reach for actually harms the public discourse, because it is silenced before it can start. We do need to be talking about these things, and looking at them, not stereotyping and simplifying them, so I think a proposed piece of legislation is a good start and a sign that people are waking up to the importance of the stories we tell each other about who we are, and what's okay, in shaping and normalizing the culture and society we have.
- __alias 9y agoIt's interesting to think about how novels like 1984 have influenced society's perception of governments with total control, connecting totalitarianism to dystopia. I feel like if history took a different path, we could quite easily be living in a polar opposite world where democracy and having the freedom of choice is looked at as wild and dangerous primitive society full of crime.
- Banthum 9y agoThere are societies now with such a view of 'democracy and having from of choice'. The more conservative Muslim countries come to mind. Many of our ancestors would also see us this way. It's fully possible or descendants will look at our way of life the same way too. Really, this liberalism of ours is an aberration. It's the way of 20% of the world population for a few decades... Nobody should be surprised if your 'polar opposite world', which comprises almost all people for almost all of history, reasserts itself.
- enterx 9y agoBurn the books too! :D