12 ms·

Britain should scrap its online safety bill

261 points by samizdis 4y ago

jazzythom 4y ago
- gorgoiler 4y ago
  Fealty and forelock tugging to the class above you and passive aggressively restricting the freedoms of the class below you is as much a part of British culture as the single digit amendments to the constitution. Changing it would be like changing the language to French.
  - Trombone12 4y ago
    You guys got a constitution now?!
    - foldr 4y ago
      The UK has a constitution, just not one that is codified in a single written document with a special privileged status. (In practice, there is also a lot more to the US constitution than what’s written down in the document referred to as ‘The Constitution’.)
      - h2odragon 4y ago
        "The Annotated Constitution" is that more full version you refer to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan Kindof a look inside the sausage.
- Guthur 4y ago
  I think even just doing the former couldn't make it much worse and at least the imbeciles won't have access to so much power. Frankly at this stage I'd welcome the queen just scrapping the whole lot of them.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    As long as she scraps herself afterwards.
    - jazzythom 4y ago
      Right the monarchy has to go, or should have no part in government affairs. That’s not democracy.
      - verisimi 4y ago
        'Representative democracy' - where you vote for someone to represent you and thousands of others for years, over thousands of governance decisions - is not democracy. Even if we call it 'democracy'.
        Youden 4y ago
        Representative democracy can be augmented by direct democracy though. Switzerland for example has elected representatives who operate in a similar manner to other countries. The difference is that when the people have an issue with something the representatives did, they can trigger a referendum on the issue. I think it's a good tradeoff between both systems.
        indemandgirl 4y ago
        I'd hate to see decisions delegated directly to the Great British Public in an endless series of referendums, though. For a start, I don't think I could stand to live in a state of endless political campaigning - it's bad enough reading the "culture war" nonsense in every paper now. Secondly, within months, we'd have the immigrants deported, a statue of Maggie in every town square, transgender people made to wear badges with their birth sex and the BBC removed from the airwaves and replaced with a perpetual loop of the Nigel Farage show.
        throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
- lordnacho 4y ago
  Too ambitious. Start by not scrapping the bit in the ministerial code where ministers have to have honesty and integrity. What a complete joke.
- ButterWashed 4y ago
  Until a major party comes out with a manifesto pledge to offer a public vote on moving to Proportional Representation I'm not sure why anyone would bother voting Conservative or Labour anymore.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Why would the new PR referendum give a different result to the previous PR referendum?
    - blibble 4y ago
      because, uh, the previous referendum was on AV, which isn't PR?
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      There has never been a referendum on PR.
      - ChrisKnott 4y ago
        Why would you expect a PR referendum to get a different result to the AV referendum? Every PR supporter I know voted Yes for AV
        chrisseaton 4y ago
        > Why would you expect Where did you read that I'd expect anything? > Every PR supporter I know voted Yes for AV Lol well we don't need referenda then - we'll just ask what your mates want in the future /s
        ChrisKnott 4y ago
        I was just restating the question in a way that acknowledged your nitpicking response. It's a pretty natural inference from what you said. If you weren't suggesting that the referendums would have different results then I don't see the point of your original response.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Most countries should. The USA should lead by example, and scrap its government and replace it with a democracy and free speech.
- bratbag 4y ago
  How do you see that being done in the real world?
- bluescrn 4y ago
  These days, free speech is a far-right idea, apparently...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
smartbit 4y ago
https://archive.ph/ZPjIJ https://archive.ph/ZPjIJ
tgv 4y ago
Their core issue is this, even though they present it as a kind of afterthought: > ... the awkward fact that the sheer quantity of stuff posted to social media every minute means that most of the time, humans will not be making those judgments at all. Why conflate that with free speech? Even if algorithmic moderation blocks some of your utterances, that doesn't mean your right to free speech has been violated. Social media have a detrimental effect on everything they touch, so why pick that hill to die on? Just for the money?
- verisimi 4y ago
  What do you mean?! Its obviously true that if your comments or whatever are suppressed (by a machine) that your free speech has been violated!
  - why_only_15 4y ago
    Here the problem is not that a machine is suppressing your comments but that the government is telling the machine to suppress your comments, which is a pretty clear violation of the principle of free speech. Come to think of it I'm not sure whether this would be constitutional in America.
    - verisimi 4y ago
      People don't realise that government is slavery. Very simple really.
      - tgv 4y ago
        It isn't. It's a system to organize society and protect interests. These might not be the interests you take at heart, though, but that's politics, and politics are everywhere, even where there is no government.
    - tgv 4y ago
      So every letter to the editor must be published?
Havoc 4y ago
Prime minister just watered down ethics code and ethics watchdog powers because he ran into trouble with it. Anyway expecting a strong principled freedom stance out of this gov is not paying attention to how these guys roll
- azalemeth 4y ago
  I genuinely don't think they care unless you're a wavering Tory Brexit voter who has (amazingly) reached their limit – at which point, they'll do anything to try to keep you coming back for more punishment. From the recently-announced plans to reintroduce imperial measures [1] to the fact that 96% of respondents to the Government's consultation on the sale (privatisation) of Channel 4 disagreed with it [2], this government is stupid, antidemocratic, nepotistic and downright dangerous. The list of rules broken and scandals encountered could not be larger, and still, Boris does not go. Urgh. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/boris-johnson-set-to-bring-back-imperial-measurements-to-mark-platinum-jubilee https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/boris-johns... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-a-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation/outcome/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-a-potential-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-...
  - Svip 4y ago
    Well, if things get worse, he can always introduce the reversing of decimalisation. Bring back the guinea!
    - arethuza 4y ago
      In case anyone is wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_monetary_system#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_monetary_system#Un...
    - tragomaskhalos 4y ago
      The guinea was imo a rather elegant thing, as it allowed retailers to impart additional value or eminence to a good simply by pricing in guineas rather than pounds. From wikipedia: "Savile Row tailors, bespoke boot makers, fine jewelers, and expensive motorcars were always priced in guineas".
matthewmacleod 4y ago
This thing is just the absolute worst fucking mess. A stupid idea, which won’t work, proposed by stupid people, to achieve a stupid goal. “Britain” should focus on basically anything except this waste of time.
mmarq 4y ago
The most important constituency of the UK government is old people, that want their pension to increase and the price of their house to go up and foreigners to go away (or at least to be pestered beyond reason), at all cost and with a 5 weeks planning horizon. This is all the government has been doing since 2008. Now they are somehow upset about the internet and here you have this bill. While taxes on labour increase to finance this madness, while inflation skyrockets and the government sabotages the country’s supply chains and exacerbates the labour shortage to reach questionable immigration targets, some are still wondering why the UK has a productivity problem.
- nbevans 4y ago
  Pensions have not been going up. The triple lock was suspended. Inflation is wrecking the pensions of millions. The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. All countries tend to have polarisation around the topic of "immigration". Statistically the UK is one of the most welcoming and least racially prejudicing countries in the world. There are numerous independent studies and reports that you can find to support this. You do need to pay though; the visas and healthcare surcharges ain't cheap. The same as any top tier country though.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    As mmarq was saying the government doesn’t represent the people, it is entirely possible for the British population at large to be welcoming and friendly to immigrants while at the same time the government is being as hostile as they can get away with. Which countries do you count as “top tier”? I migrated to Germany, I pay the same healthcare costs as anyone else here. I can’t remember exactly what my combined ID card and work permit cost, but it was a 2-digit number. I think naturalisation here is about a tenth the cost of the U.K. also.
  - cameronh90 4y ago
    > The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. I assume you just mean the state pension here. Occupational pensions have long been a significant part of our pension system that tends to get ignored. The auto-enroll workplace pension introduced in 2008 seems to have been very successful too. Overall, if I remember correctly, the UK actually has the second total pension assets in the OECD, and one of the highest per capita.
fareesh 4y ago
UK Facebook in 2023: oi, do you have a license to post this news article?
- danpalmer 4y ago
  *licence ;)
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    *loicence
DeathArrow 4y ago
That's quite hilarious accusing the right for wanting to do just what the left is always preaching, censorship and limiting the people rights. Leting the left vs right apart, I strongly believe in free speech and I believe that Internet should be a free place for opinions. And it should be a free place for anything that doesn't break the criminal law. But this last sentence is hard for maintaining freedom since every country is criminalizing different things and every country is going to try to control the Internet. If we want some freedom of the Internet and avoid breaking the Internet in many controlled and censored national networks communicating to each other through gateways behind Great Firewalls, we should all come up with a set of rules enforceable at the international level. So, we can begin with some framework that only forbids selling weapons, drugs, forbid child pornography and anything that might help someone committing murders, committing theft and so on.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  It is quite hilarious that "the right" in UK is more leftist that the left in other countries. You don't have left and right, you have various degrees of left.
aftergibson 4y ago
My local MP is championing this garbage. It’s really nice to know I don’t need to keep abreast of his opinions on anything because I’m already guaranteed whatever it is I’ll whole heartedly disagree with it. He was huge fan of the whole Rwanda idea too. Pure trash.
- bratbag 4y ago
  That seems like a good way to build a bubble around your political views. Engaging with people you disagree with on new topics is a good health check for your political views
  - maxique 4y ago
    "Let's treat the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda as an intellectual exercise in the free marketplace of ideas instead of a humanitarian crisis"
  - aftergibson 4y ago
    Or to phrase it another way, let’s listen whatever racist, draconian, bigoted policies or statements my local leader(who I am powerless to influence, I’ve tried) has to say today. If a good health check to my political views comes at the price of an awful mental health check, I’ll pass. I will seek balanced views. Not a car salesman with the power to influence lives.
  - agoose77 4y ago
    I hear this kind of discussion mentioned, particularly in the lead-up to the Brexit referendum. I don't think it accurately reflects the status of contemporary discourse. The UK media is more right-leaning than right: - https://www.pewresearch.org/global/fact-sheet/news-media-and-political-attitudes-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/fact-sheet/news-media-and... - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/0... I've personally noticed a tone shift since the referendum towards stronger conservative views in the Telegraph and Times. This doesn't seem to be borne out in polling, but I wonder whether that is because the entire political discourse has shifted: - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-the-daily-telegraph-more-favourable-towards-labour-the-left-or-the-conservatives-the-right https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-the-daily-t... Because the media are fairly non-central (particularly the right-leaning media), it's not very easy to find compromise. The stances taking by e.g. the Telegraph on transgender rights is fairly non-subtle. I don't think the rights of immigrants qualifies as a discussion where "it's just politics" applies. Since the referendum, the very core rights and institutions at the heart of the UK have been damaged and eroded, and that makes for conflict. I think the context of with whom one is discussing really matters, and online for the most part, there is a strong in-group/out-group identity that makes it very hard to have reasonable discussions that don't dissolve into flame wars. In person, I agree that it's good to be open minded and discuss things with people whose views you might usually not align with. Indirectly related is the Paradox of Tolerance: that tolerance without limit is eventually destroyed by the intolerant.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
We've said a lot of puff about what a shite government we have, but very little comment about this so-called "online safety bill". What is so wrong about it?
- agoose77 4y ago
  https://cps.org.uk/media/post/2022/online-safety-bill-still-faces-serious-problems/ https://cps.org.uk/media/post/2022/online-safety-bill-still-...
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Thanks for the link. I read that and largely agree with it's position. Some of it I disagree with as I think many aspects of digital technology pose a genuine hazard to young people. But my remark is really about how, in almost 200 comments we've gotten distracted and almost entirely avoided dealing with the arguments on their merits. While made of smart and sincere people, in-toto governments are idiots, and dishonest idiots at that. We can surely take that for granted. But they remain idiots because we, as citizens, fail to correct them. Have all the "experts", advisors, consultants, lobbyists, think-tanks, specialists and witch doctors not understood the first thing about the complex dynamics of strategic limitation of information hazards, scale, freedoms, or enforceability, to come up with such a blunt and naive bill? How can we "hackers" help them see better? Or do we also not understand, and the only solution that will prevail is "Shut it all down!"
- runeks 4y ago
  > What is so wrong about it? This is the topic of the linked article.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Thanks, I understand that. My point, however, was that the comments might better reflect the contents of the linked article and that the various distractions into the personal failings of Boris Johnson etc were disappointing.
newsclues 4y ago
Given multiple countries at the same time are trying to ram through this BS, we need an international convention to permanently enshrine online freedom and prevent the future of surveillance from becoming normalized everywhere
- momirlan 4y ago
  amen
westmeal 4y ago
Wow yet more reasons to hate Britain, very cool.

261 points by samizdis 4y ago

jazzythom 4y ago

gorgoiler 4y ago
Fealty and forelock tugging to the class above you and passive aggressively restricting the freedoms of the class below you is as much a part of British culture as the single digit amendments to the constitution. Changing it would be like changing the language to French.
- Trombone12 4y ago
  You guys got a constitution now?!
  - foldr 4y ago
    The UK has a constitution, just not one that is codified in a single written document with a special privileged status. (In practice, there is also a lot more to the US constitution than what’s written down in the document referred to as ‘The Constitution’.)
    - h2odragon 4y ago
      "The Annotated Constitution" is that more full version you refer to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan Kindof a look inside the sausage.
Guthur 4y ago
I think even just doing the former couldn't make it much worse and at least the imbeciles won't have access to so much power. Frankly at this stage I'd welcome the queen just scrapping the whole lot of them.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  As long as she scraps herself afterwards.
  - jazzythom 4y ago
    Right the monarchy has to go, or should have no part in government affairs. That’s not democracy.
    - verisimi 4y ago
      'Representative democracy' - where you vote for someone to represent you and thousands of others for years, over thousands of governance decisions - is not democracy. Even if we call it 'democracy'.
      - Youden 4y ago
        Representative democracy can be augmented by direct democracy though. Switzerland for example has elected representatives who operate in a similar manner to other countries. The difference is that when the people have an issue with something the representatives did, they can trigger a referendum on the issue. I think it's a good tradeoff between both systems.
        indemandgirl 4y ago
        I'd hate to see decisions delegated directly to the Great British Public in an endless series of referendums, though. For a start, I don't think I could stand to live in a state of endless political campaigning - it's bad enough reading the "culture war" nonsense in every paper now. Secondly, within months, we'd have the immigrants deported, a statue of Maggie in every town square, transgender people made to wear badges with their birth sex and the BBC removed from the airwaves and replaced with a perpetual loop of the Nigel Farage show.
        throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
lordnacho 4y ago
Too ambitious. Start by not scrapping the bit in the ministerial code where ministers have to have honesty and integrity. What a complete joke.
ButterWashed 4y ago
Until a major party comes out with a manifesto pledge to offer a public vote on moving to Proportional Representation I'm not sure why anyone would bother voting Conservative or Labour anymore.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Why would the new PR referendum give a different result to the previous PR referendum?
  - blibble 4y ago
    because, uh, the previous referendum was on AV, which isn't PR?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    There has never been a referendum on PR.
    - ChrisKnott 4y ago
      Why would you expect a PR referendum to get a different result to the AV referendum? Every PR supporter I know voted Yes for AV
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        > Why would you expect Where did you read that I'd expect anything? > Every PR supporter I know voted Yes for AV Lol well we don't need referenda then - we'll just ask what your mates want in the future /s
        ChrisKnott 4y ago
        I was just restating the question in a way that acknowledged your nitpicking response. It's a pretty natural inference from what you said. If you weren't suggesting that the referendums would have different results then I don't see the point of your original response.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Most countries should. The USA should lead by example, and scrap its government and replace it with a democracy and free speech.
bratbag 4y ago
How do you see that being done in the real world?
bluescrn 4y ago
These days, free speech is a far-right idea, apparently...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

smartbit 4y ago

https://archive.ph/ZPjIJ https://archive.ph/ZPjIJ

tgv 4y ago

Their core issue is this, even though they present it as a kind of afterthought: > ... the awkward fact that the sheer quantity of stuff posted to social media every minute means that most of the time, humans will not be making those judgments at all. Why conflate that with free speech? Even if algorithmic moderation blocks some of your utterances, that doesn't mean your right to free speech has been violated. Social media have a detrimental effect on everything they touch, so why pick that hill to die on? Just for the money?

verisimi 4y ago
What do you mean?! Its obviously true that if your comments or whatever are suppressed (by a machine) that your free speech has been violated!
- why_only_15 4y ago
  Here the problem is not that a machine is suppressing your comments but that the government is telling the machine to suppress your comments, which is a pretty clear violation of the principle of free speech. Come to think of it I'm not sure whether this would be constitutional in America.
  - verisimi 4y ago
    People don't realise that government is slavery. Very simple really.
    - tgv 4y ago
      It isn't. It's a system to organize society and protect interests. These might not be the interests you take at heart, though, but that's politics, and politics are everywhere, even where there is no government.
  - tgv 4y ago
    So every letter to the editor must be published?

Havoc 4y ago

Prime minister just watered down ethics code and ethics watchdog powers because he ran into trouble with it. Anyway expecting a strong principled freedom stance out of this gov is not paying attention to how these guys roll

azalemeth 4y ago
I genuinely don't think they care unless you're a wavering Tory Brexit voter who has (amazingly) reached their limit – at which point, they'll do anything to try to keep you coming back for more punishment. From the recently-announced plans to reintroduce imperial measures [1] to the fact that 96% of respondents to the Government's consultation on the sale (privatisation) of Channel 4 disagreed with it [2], this government is stupid, antidemocratic, nepotistic and downright dangerous. The list of rules broken and scandals encountered could not be larger, and still, Boris does not go. Urgh. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/boris-johnson-set-to-bring-back-imperial-measurements-to-mark-platinum-jubilee https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/boris-johns... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-a-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation/outcome/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-a-potential-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-...
- Svip 4y ago
  Well, if things get worse, he can always introduce the reversing of decimalisation. Bring back the guinea!
  - arethuza 4y ago
    In case anyone is wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_monetary_system#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_monetary_system#Un...
  - tragomaskhalos 4y ago
    The guinea was imo a rather elegant thing, as it allowed retailers to impart additional value or eminence to a good simply by pricing in guineas rather than pounds. From wikipedia: "Savile Row tailors, bespoke boot makers, fine jewelers, and expensive motorcars were always priced in guineas".

matthewmacleod 4y ago

This thing is just the absolute worst fucking mess. A stupid idea, which won’t work, proposed by stupid people, to achieve a stupid goal. “Britain” should focus on basically anything except this waste of time.

mmarq 4y ago

The most important constituency of the UK government is old people, that want their pension to increase and the price of their house to go up and foreigners to go away (or at least to be pestered beyond reason), at all cost and with a 5 weeks planning horizon. This is all the government has been doing since 2008. Now they are somehow upset about the internet and here you have this bill. While taxes on labour increase to finance this madness, while inflation skyrockets and the government sabotages the country’s supply chains and exacerbates the labour shortage to reach questionable immigration targets, some are still wondering why the UK has a productivity problem.

nbevans 4y ago
Pensions have not been going up. The triple lock was suspended. Inflation is wrecking the pensions of millions. The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. All countries tend to have polarisation around the topic of "immigration". Statistically the UK is one of the most welcoming and least racially prejudicing countries in the world. There are numerous independent studies and reports that you can find to support this. You do need to pay though; the visas and healthcare surcharges ain't cheap. The same as any top tier country though.
- ben_w 4y ago
  As mmarq was saying the government doesn’t represent the people, it is entirely possible for the British population at large to be welcoming and friendly to immigrants while at the same time the government is being as hostile as they can get away with. Which countries do you count as “top tier”? I migrated to Germany, I pay the same healthcare costs as anyone else here. I can’t remember exactly what my combined ID card and work permit cost, but it was a 2-digit number. I think naturalisation here is about a tenth the cost of the U.K. also.
- cameronh90 4y ago
  > The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. I assume you just mean the state pension here. Occupational pensions have long been a significant part of our pension system that tends to get ignored. The auto-enroll workplace pension introduced in 2008 seems to have been very successful too. Overall, if I remember correctly, the UK actually has the second total pension assets in the OECD, and one of the highest per capita.

fareesh 4y ago

UK Facebook in 2023: oi, do you have a license to post this news article?

danpalmer 4y ago
*licence ;)
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  *loicence

DeathArrow 4y ago

That's quite hilarious accusing the right for wanting to do just what the left is always preaching, censorship and limiting the people rights. Leting the left vs right apart, I strongly believe in free speech and I believe that Internet should be a free place for opinions. And it should be a free place for anything that doesn't break the criminal law. But this last sentence is hard for maintaining freedom since every country is criminalizing different things and every country is going to try to control the Internet. If we want some freedom of the Internet and avoid breaking the Internet in many controlled and censored national networks communicating to each other through gateways behind Great Firewalls, we should all come up with a set of rules enforceable at the international level. So, we can begin with some framework that only forbids selling weapons, drugs, forbid child pornography and anything that might help someone committing murders, committing theft and so on.

AdrianB1 4y ago
It is quite hilarious that "the right" in UK is more leftist that the left in other countries. You don't have left and right, you have various degrees of left.

aftergibson 4y ago

My local MP is championing this garbage. It’s really nice to know I don’t need to keep abreast of his opinions on anything because I’m already guaranteed whatever it is I’ll whole heartedly disagree with it. He was huge fan of the whole Rwanda idea too. Pure trash.

bratbag 4y ago
That seems like a good way to build a bubble around your political views. Engaging with people you disagree with on new topics is a good health check for your political views
- maxique 4y ago
  "Let's treat the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda as an intellectual exercise in the free marketplace of ideas instead of a humanitarian crisis"
- aftergibson 4y ago
  Or to phrase it another way, let’s listen whatever racist, draconian, bigoted policies or statements my local leader(who I am powerless to influence, I’ve tried) has to say today. If a good health check to my political views comes at the price of an awful mental health check, I’ll pass. I will seek balanced views. Not a car salesman with the power to influence lives.
- agoose77 4y ago
  I hear this kind of discussion mentioned, particularly in the lead-up to the Brexit referendum. I don't think it accurately reflects the status of contemporary discourse. The UK media is more right-leaning than right: - https://www.pewresearch.org/global/fact-sheet/news-media-and-political-attitudes-in-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/fact-sheet/news-media-and... - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/0... I've personally noticed a tone shift since the referendum towards stronger conservative views in the Telegraph and Times. This doesn't seem to be borne out in polling, but I wonder whether that is because the entire political discourse has shifted: - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-the-daily-telegraph-more-favourable-towards-labour-the-left-or-the-conservatives-the-right https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-the-daily-t... Because the media are fairly non-central (particularly the right-leaning media), it's not very easy to find compromise. The stances taking by e.g. the Telegraph on transgender rights is fairly non-subtle. I don't think the rights of immigrants qualifies as a discussion where "it's just politics" applies. Since the referendum, the very core rights and institutions at the heart of the UK have been damaged and eroded, and that makes for conflict. I think the context of with whom one is discussing really matters, and online for the most part, there is a strong in-group/out-group identity that makes it very hard to have reasonable discussions that don't dissolve into flame wars. In person, I agree that it's good to be open minded and discuss things with people whose views you might usually not align with. Indirectly related is the Paradox of Tolerance: that tolerance without limit is eventually destroyed by the intolerant.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

We've said a lot of puff about what a shite government we have, but very little comment about this so-called "online safety bill". What is so wrong about it?

agoose77 4y ago
https://cps.org.uk/media/post/2022/online-safety-bill-still-faces-serious-problems/ https://cps.org.uk/media/post/2022/online-safety-bill-still-...
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks for the link. I read that and largely agree with it's position. Some of it I disagree with as I think many aspects of digital technology pose a genuine hazard to young people. But my remark is really about how, in almost 200 comments we've gotten distracted and almost entirely avoided dealing with the arguments on their merits. While made of smart and sincere people, in-toto governments are idiots, and dishonest idiots at that. We can surely take that for granted. But they remain idiots because we, as citizens, fail to correct them. Have all the "experts", advisors, consultants, lobbyists, think-tanks, specialists and witch doctors not understood the first thing about the complex dynamics of strategic limitation of information hazards, scale, freedoms, or enforceability, to come up with such a blunt and naive bill? How can we "hackers" help them see better? Or do we also not understand, and the only solution that will prevail is "Shut it all down!"
runeks 4y ago
> What is so wrong about it? This is the topic of the linked article.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks, I understand that. My point, however, was that the comments might better reflect the contents of the linked article and that the various distractions into the personal failings of Boris Johnson etc were disappointing.

newsclues 4y ago

Given multiple countries at the same time are trying to ram through this BS, we need an international convention to permanently enshrine online freedom and prevent the future of surveillance from becoming normalized everywhere

momirlan 4y ago
amen

westmeal 4y ago

Wow yet more reasons to hate Britain, very cool.