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I suppose it's easier to "ban the internet" rather than fix the societal issues that have lead to people integrating with the sort of communities that share har

I suppose it's easier to "ban the internet" rather than fix the societal issues that have lead to people integrating with the sort of communities that share harmful content - that requires serious effort. Having said that, Facebook et al. are US-based corporations, they'll take as much notice of this as me whinging about privacy violations. We've also got that porn-pass coming in soon, apparently. Both of these government internet plans are completely routed with the use of a VPN.

arethuza 8y ago
They may be US-based corporations but they will have wholly owned subsidiaries here in the UK - looking at Companies House (where you can see their audited accounts) in 2017 Facebook UK had a turnover of a billion pounds, probably a good bit higher by now: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310 https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310
- csmattryder 8y ago
  When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them to demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I'll concede that the law can take on these corporations. Last I noticed, best they've had is some third-party contractor for Facebook, and they had to get the serjeant-at-arms to pin him down at his hotel. If it hits the fan and they go to take profits, nothing stopping them pulling an Amazon and taking the cash out to a subsidiary abroad.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Right now, Brexit is consuming over 100% of the sustainable effort of the UK government. If the UK government decided Facebook was no longer welcome, it would not be able to operate in London. On the other hand, if the UK government was functioning correctly, it also wouldn’t need to be that heavy-handed.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Well above 100% of the sustainable effort. It's being run like a failed software project, with important decisions running on until 10pm. All kinds of normal leave has been cancelled; MPs are being wheeled out of hospital or missing the funerals of their parents for this.
  - jamespo 8y ago
    I'm sure you can think of lots of ways a government can coerce a company if they really want to
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them to demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I'll concede that the law can take on these corporations The UK has broad extradition rights with the United States. If Parliament wanted to get nasty, they could.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      In a world where the UK might be struggling to find international friends I don't think anyone would be daft enough to try and extradite a leading citizen of the US. The chances of the US agreeing to any such extradition are even smaller.
      - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > a leading citizen of the US If the UK charged him and got British court approval, American courts would defer. Given Zuckerberg’s present standing, it’s unlikely Congress would attempt to intervene.
rjf72 8y ago
A more optimistic view is that if nations hit on the centralized bodies hard enough, it may end inadvertently end up driving the creation and adoption of truly decentralized internet options. Consider how crack downs on things such as Kazaa are what ultimately helped spur on the creation and rapid adoption of things such as torrents. The UK porn ban in particular has some major potential. All it's effectively doing is creating a huge vacuum in the market for a decentralized PornHub. The irony of the world is that progress often requires egregious action to finally drive counter-action. We should've long since been moving towards a decentralized internet, but 'meh, why? what we have works.' is typical. Until it doesn't work. And so for that, cheers to the UK!
pjc50 8y ago
> We've also got that porn-pass coming in soon, apparently The implementation of this was delayed because they couldn't make it work, which is something of a hallmark of this government. I suspect something similar will happen to anti-Facebook legislation.
sametmax 8y ago
Besides, I'm pretty sure banning is only gonna make those community feels like they are being persecuted for being right and itching the man. They then will proceed to find another place that is less easy to control to carry on with their message, and will have a renewed feeling of legitimacy and urgency. What's even worse is that it may very well be used to censor even more things in the future, as people with a new toy tend to make use of it. In the end, removing space to debate about hot topics like those will make the angry people feel like loosing even more respect (a big motivator in their initial believe), while preventing anybody else to build a sane approach to it (you need to be exposed to hate to be a functional member of an imperfect society).
- HNthrow22 8y ago
  >> "Besides, I'm pretty sure banning is only gonna make those community feels like they are being persecuted for being right and itching the man. >>They then will proceed to find another place that is less easy to control to carry on with their message, and will have a renewed feeling of legitimacy and urgency." You left out the most important part, by forcing them to 'another place' you cut off their entire supply of fresh young, disenfranchised lonely young men to indoctrinate and recruit into their hateful belief system. Yes they will claim they're persecuted and play that up but by denying them the platform they'll also lose relevance, reach and impact. This is just a small step in the right direction. Despite warnings from many we've let the internet became a hate indoctrination tool under the guise of free speech. Only now that multiple shooters motivations can be directly connected to 'internet indoctrination' is action being taken. This is long overdue and truthfully just a good first step, closing this pandoras box will require a concerted global effort and even that may still prove to be unsuccessful.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    The problem with this logic is that the exact same arguments are used by totalitarian systems to shut down the opposition. And like with this comment, they are sure they are the good guys and are doing what's right. What's more, we had plenty of hatred before internet. They managed to recruit enough people way before we had internet or even television. The fact is, this "solution" is just hiding a symptom, which not only gives a false sense of security, but makes treating the disease even harder. And of course, it's a slippery slope.

arethuza 8y ago

They may be US-based corporations but they will have wholly owned subsidiaries here in the UK - looking at Companies House (where you can see their audited accounts) in 2017 Facebook UK had a turnover of a billion pounds, probably a good bit higher by now: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310 https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06331310

csmattryder 8y ago
When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them to demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I'll concede that the law can take on these corporations. Last I noticed, best they've had is some third-party contractor for Facebook, and they had to get the serjeant-at-arms to pin him down at his hotel. If it hits the fan and they go to take profits, nothing stopping them pulling an Amazon and taking the cash out to a subsidiary abroad.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Right now, Brexit is consuming over 100% of the sustainable effort of the UK government. If the UK government decided Facebook was no longer welcome, it would not be able to operate in London. On the other hand, if the UK government was functioning correctly, it also wouldn’t need to be that heavy-handed.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Well above 100% of the sustainable effort. It's being run like a failed software project, with important decisions running on until 10pm. All kinds of normal leave has been cancelled; MPs are being wheeled out of hospital or missing the funerals of their parents for this.
- jamespo 8y ago
  I'm sure you can think of lots of ways a government can coerce a company if they really want to
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > When a House Select Committee can get Zuckerberg or Pichai in front of them to demand answers to their Cambridge Analytica questions, then I'll concede that the law can take on these corporations The UK has broad extradition rights with the United States. If Parliament wanted to get nasty, they could.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    In a world where the UK might be struggling to find international friends I don't think anyone would be daft enough to try and extradite a leading citizen of the US. The chances of the US agreeing to any such extradition are even smaller.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > a leading citizen of the US If the UK charged him and got British court approval, American courts would defer. Given Zuckerberg’s present standing, it’s unlikely Congress would attempt to intervene.

rjf72 8y ago

A more optimistic view is that if nations hit on the centralized bodies hard enough, it may end inadvertently end up driving the creation and adoption of truly decentralized internet options. Consider how crack downs on things such as Kazaa are what ultimately helped spur on the creation and rapid adoption of things such as torrents. The UK porn ban in particular has some major potential. All it's effectively doing is creating a huge vacuum in the market for a decentralized PornHub. The irony of the world is that progress often requires egregious action to finally drive counter-action. We should've long since been moving towards a decentralized internet, but 'meh, why? what we have works.' is typical. Until it doesn't work. And so for that, cheers to the UK!

pjc50 8y ago

> We've also got that porn-pass coming in soon, apparently The implementation of this was delayed because they couldn't make it work, which is something of a hallmark of this government. I suspect something similar will happen to anti-Facebook legislation.

sametmax 8y ago

Besides, I'm pretty sure banning is only gonna make those community feels like they are being persecuted for being right and itching the man. They then will proceed to find another place that is less easy to control to carry on with their message, and will have a renewed feeling of legitimacy and urgency. What's even worse is that it may very well be used to censor even more things in the future, as people with a new toy tend to make use of it. In the end, removing space to debate about hot topics like those will make the angry people feel like loosing even more respect (a big motivator in their initial believe), while preventing anybody else to build a sane approach to it (you need to be exposed to hate to be a functional member of an imperfect society).

HNthrow22 8y ago
>> "Besides, I'm pretty sure banning is only gonna make those community feels like they are being persecuted for being right and itching the man. >>They then will proceed to find another place that is less easy to control to carry on with their message, and will have a renewed feeling of legitimacy and urgency." You left out the most important part, by forcing them to 'another place' you cut off their entire supply of fresh young, disenfranchised lonely young men to indoctrinate and recruit into their hateful belief system. Yes they will claim they're persecuted and play that up but by denying them the platform they'll also lose relevance, reach and impact. This is just a small step in the right direction. Despite warnings from many we've let the internet became a hate indoctrination tool under the guise of free speech. Only now that multiple shooters motivations can be directly connected to 'internet indoctrination' is action being taken. This is long overdue and truthfully just a good first step, closing this pandoras box will require a concerted global effort and even that may still prove to be unsuccessful.
- sametmax 8y ago
  The problem with this logic is that the exact same arguments are used by totalitarian systems to shut down the opposition. And like with this comment, they are sure they are the good guys and are doing what's right. What's more, we had plenty of hatred before internet. They managed to recruit enough people way before we had internet or even television. The fact is, this "solution" is just hiding a symptom, which not only gives a false sense of security, but makes treating the disease even harder. And of course, it's a slippery slope.