12 ms·

Britain is sleepwalking into censorship?

222 points by sfusato 4y ago

sfusato 4y ago
https://archive.ph/XeDJL https://archive.ph/XeDJL
hunglee2 4y ago
"Worse, this isn’t even intentional. It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications" don't often agree with Telegraph but their analysis is accurate. Our era of soundbite politicians vulnerable to populist measures which superficially sound reasonable (sue big tech for hosting bad content) but disguise deep complexities (what is bad content, who decides this, it is universally applied?) which have profound implications for society (blaming platforms for user posted content means no more user posted content without prior moderation)
- armada651 4y ago
  > It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications I think they've thought through the implications perfectly well. Or at the very least they've been told what the implications are by their legal advisors. The real problem is that they do not care about those implications.
- licebmi__at__ 4y ago
  > Our era of soundbite politicians vulnerable to populist measures which superficially sound reasonable I’m deeply skeptical that this is a real problem. I mean, there’s defined a list of extremely popular issues which have no support from politicians (like a healthcare reform in US), and also a long list of unpopular policies enacted a lot of times with bipartisan support.
- alldayeveryday 4y ago
  "Worse, this isn’t even intentional. It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications" It might be right that the ministers/politicians have not really thought through the implications. But someone else surely has and is making censorship (of the things that challenge their power) a matter of policy. The actions of big tech are a matter of their internal policies. Which "populist" opinions politicians respond to (and which they ignore) is a matter of policy. In an age when populist opinion is manufactured through control of content and media, politicians are no longer moved by the opinions of their constituents but rather by those holding onto that control. Instances of bipartisan support in the US, for example, are merely instances where the topic is important to the elite and need bear no relationship to the opinions of the people.
- benevol 4y ago
  > Worse, this isn’t even intentional. Of course it is intentional. It's about manipulating the population. It's simply about the control of the people.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Why is that so obvious? Italics and the word “simply” do not actually make a convincing point. It seems like you’re implying that politicians never fail to anticipate the (un-)intended consequences of their rhetoric and policies.
    - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
      Laws might have unintended concequences, but that verbiage " powers to censor anything deemed “legal, but harmful”" is a strict play at a wide-ranging authority on what that means. Vague verbiage is the name of the game... Because it's their full time job as a politician... I
- blipvert 4y ago
  But this is Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, writing in the Telegraph - both publications have been the absolute cheerleaders of the Conservative administration’s descent into an idiocracy. Reap what you sow, Fraser, you dolt.
  - Mindwipe 4y ago
    Indeed, the Telegraph literally campaigned for this legislation. They had a special logo for the articles they wrote to breathlessly promote it.
boudin 4y ago
I wonder how much of it is also due to technologies making this possible. The centralisation of a huge chunk of communications via a few massive actors makes this kind ideas enforceable. So, while those ideas aren't new, the thought of generalising it comes from having layed down the technical foundation that makes it possible.
- chriswarbo 4y ago
  Agreed. I deleted my Twitter account after the UK government floated the idea of having the power to turn off such sites: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-... > And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. > So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. The fact that's even a possibility put me off such centralised platforms. (Of course, HN is centralised; but it's a niche forum, rather than a general medium of communication)
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    > I deleted my Twitter account after the UK government floated the idea [...] > when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality Were you "plotting violence, disorder and criminality"?
    - pfoof 4y ago
      Define "violence, disorder and criminality"
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Most people have something they would protest.
    - shmageggy 4y ago
      This argument fails in the same way that “I’ve got nothing to hide” arguments against privacy fail. Even if someone is not currently running afoul of the current government’s current definition of a particular illegal act, we still might not want to grant them absolute power to enforce. These definitons of illegality tend to change (read: expand) over time, and when governments change they tend not to give back powers they’ve been granted.
slackfan 4y ago
Sleepwalking? The UK has a fine and longstanding tradition of censorship. $current year is no exception.
- samwillis 4y ago
  Exactly, we have had the concept of "Libel" in uk law for over 700 years [0]. It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Fundamentally some of this is built into British culture, and is significantly different to US culture where "free speech" rules supreme. But it's the bleeding of US culture into that of the UK though the media+internet that leads to a more vocal debate around these issues than before. To quote form the Wikipedia article below: "English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world." The world is so much more connected now it's inevitable that cultural and legal differences will reduce and some sort of equilibrium will be found. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Exactly the same in Austria. Often politicians and even shitty businesses use the libel law to get undesirable negative information about them removed from public spaces An MP was called a "corrupt traitor" on Facebook and Facebook was forced to remove that comment under the libel law. Often businesses will force Google, Kununu and other websites where people can leave reviews, to remove the negative ones under the libel law, that even doctor's practices do it. Basically, your not allowed to air the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful unless you have bulletproof hard evidence, wich you can never really get as the GDPR and other strong privacy laws make legal evidence gathering nearly impossible by individuals.
    - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
      I've been legally threatened twice by a German restaurant on google for leaving a 3 star review on the basis that it damages their ability to do business. Pretty ridiculous... . Google required me to post proof I had been there, but that didn't stop the Restaurant threatening a second time...
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
This is the country where offensive tweets are illegal.
- pelorat 4y ago
  This is a thing in most countries on the planet. Try tweeting "I wish all X people were dead!" outside of the USA, and in many places you'll get a visit from the authorities (if they notice that is, they don't actively monitor for it, someone would have to give you up to the local police).
  - proc0 4y ago
    > This is a thing in most countries on the planet. Also totalitarian governments have happened everywhere around the world, except in the USA. I've lived abroad in places where it seems the citizens are property of the government. It really feels the government can at anytime do whatever they please with anyone, and it won't even be questioned. Government dissent is a privilege that apparently only USA has at the moment (and we're in a cultural battle trying to preserve it).
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      What an absolute load of American exceptionalist crap. USA is not the only country in the world where government dissent is privileged.
      - proc0 4y ago
        I honestly try to think of one. It used to be the West, but that has changed recently.
a_c 4y ago
When I come into the country in 2021, I wasn't able to visit archive.org on my Giffgaff network. Took me forever to realise it was blocked.
- xd 4y ago
  I've never had an issue accessing archive.org and I've lived in Britain my entire life and accessed it from all kinds of locations / devices.
  - ZGDUwpqEWpUZ 4y ago
    Parental controls are now the default on (most?) UK mobile providers, so a lot of archive/user-driven sites get blocked if you don't login to your provider's portal to tick the "I'm over 18" box. IIRC this has been the case since David Cameron's government made threatening noises about bringing in legislation to force it.
    - leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
      Honestly, I think that's one good thing. I believe that isp's should provide more content controls and allow fine grained controls for account owners to block content in categories. And they should have at least adult content blocked by default with an opt out. It's insane to me that parents have to be network admins to be able to make even do basic content filtering for their children in the US.
      - dbspin 4y ago
        There's a huge leap between 'parents have to be network admins' and all devices you buy are censored by default.
      - williamvds 4y ago
        When I bought a throwaway GiffGaff SIM while I was waiting months for BT to set up my broadband, it had content blocking on by default. They wanted me to send a picture of my driver's license to lift the restrictions. I'm not sure what I'm more disgusted by: the fact I need to give away my identity to have unfiltered (except the outright blocked stuff) access to the internet, or that I caved and gave it to them anyway. I guess I should be happy proof of identity wasn't required to buy or activate the SIM in the first place.
pjc50 4y ago
Previously on the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/11/29/online-safety-bill-must-protect-children/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/11/29/online-safety... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/25/watering-online-safety-bill-will-put-children-risk/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/25/watering-onl... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/social-media-giants-face-multi-million-pound-fines-fail-ban/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/social-media-gia... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/11/12/tory-women-will-kick-online-safety-bill-watered-says-nadine/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/11/12/tory-women-w... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/online-safety-bill-home-secretarys-op-ed-for-the-telegraph https://www.gov.uk/government/news/online-safety-bill-home-s... (yes, the Telegraph gave a page to a government minister; remember how much they used to pay Johnson?) Looks like they were in favour of it all the way up to this point, so long as they thought it would only censor things they didn't like. Compare on HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836666 in re TikTok
- toyg 4y ago
  Yes, but you can twist it around: if even the bloody Torygraph is against this crap, how bad it must be...
  - pasc1878 4y ago
    Or more usually if the Telegraph is against it it is worth looking into.
- mjw1007 4y ago
  I'm no fan of the Telegraph, but all those links show is that it's willing to give comment space to people with different points of view. (Or, to put it another way, the fact that they're willing to print a column by Fraser Nelson isn't a reason to suppose their home affairs editor isn't still in favour of the bill.)
- SXX 4y ago
  Every single thing started by polititians to "protect children" end up the same way.
jcampbell1 4y ago
The plan is to have a legal but harmful framework, and Elon Musk decides what is harmful. What could possibly go wrong? Threatening US multinational with billion dollar fines? Try that shit in a non-Biden administration. Has the UK gone mad?
jongjong 4y ago
We seem to be in a vicious cycle of politicians trying to suppress public discontentment by limiting free speech but this only creates more discontentment which requires even more suppression of speech. Why do people in power seem to prefer to kick the can down the road until it explodes instead of trying to resolve problems as they come? It seems to be a recurring theme of history.
- briantakita 4y ago
  > Why do people in power seem to prefer to kick the can down the road until it explodes instead of trying to resolve problems as they come? It seems to be a recurring theme of history. People in power are often motivated by gaining more power & their core competency is acquiring more power, usually by manipulating social dynamics. They also also adept in manipulating organizations to have power-focused people, especially if they can be controlled, in positions of governance & management. Any other popular ideological position they publicly espouse is a mask to consolidate power. There are some books on psychopathy in governance & management...such as https://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Psychopathy-Totalitarianism/dp/1734907452 https://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Psychopa... With advances & consolidation in the state/empire, technology, automation, & global socioeconomic systems, people in power have more leverage over everybody else...Consolidation will increase until systems become too top-heavy & a collapse occurs. Most people, including people in power, tend to not desire being ruled by others, so infighting is inevitable, which also leads to collapse...Usually the breakups occur suddenly when the status quo becomes obviously untenable & it is less risky to break ranks. Political rivals that can execute a coherent long term strategy of systemic growth & power have a long-term advantage over those who are unable to execute continued growth. You can test these assertions in an analysis of the history of the various political & business empires which grew & collapsed.
  - jongjong 4y ago
    That makes sense. Unfortunately, our current system seems to support almost unlimited centralization and this is the ideal kind of system for psychopathic power-hoarders. In the past, it was far less common for companies to grow to the point that they would dominate large parts of the economy. In essentially all cases, scale is achieved through illegal or at least highly unethical practices. Mega-corporations are not a natural part of capitalism; rather, they're the result of intentional system design and manipulation at the political/social layer. I think decentralization can go a long way to protect the system from power-hoarders. All things considered, it's probably better to have small groups, headed by many low-grade psychopaths, competing and even (on occasion) fighting each other for dominance rather than a single monolithic global empire headed by top-grade psychopaths. Also, I think if we could decouple political groups from geography, we would be able to protect ourselves from existential threats such as nuclear weapons. Nobody is going to risk nuking their own people in order to destroy an opposing group if they are all intermingled geographically.
PicassoCTs 4y ago
How about talking about the source? The actual source for all those creeping towards totalitarianism? Its that governments are aware of the crisis coming and they have no solutions, no plans, no scenarios, no capabilities they want to develop to counter problems to come, except suppress the citizenry as long as they can and weather it out. Wish we could vote a whole generation of useless politicans out in lockstep.
causality0 4y ago
Sleepwalking? I believe they're wide awake and have made their choice: they prefer an inoffensive world over a free one. Maybe it helps them sleep better at night but personally I'm not setting foot anywhere I might have an illegal opinion.
- andrepd 4y ago
  Well then you probably can't set foot anywhere much. If you were thinking of the USA, remember that people have been extra-judicially killed by the state for being "communist", only 2 or 3 decades ago.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    Details? And, um, we had an official Communist Party back then, and maybe still do, and the people in it were not killed, so... maybe what you're implying isn't a reasonable inference?
    - andrepd 4y ago
      We do, the CPUSA is still a thing. However, back in the apex of its popularity and influence (interwar period) the people in it were killed, or intimidated, harassed, or imprisioned, over the course of the two major Red Scares. However I was thinking in particular of people like Fred Hampton, a young progressive with an electrifying oratory style who commanded the respect and admiration of his people, advocated for anti-capitalism resistance, self-relience, self-government. The most dangerous kind of subversive: idealist in words, pragmatist in actions. He was assassinated at the peak of his popularity by the FBI on explicit orders of the top of American government. Read the introduction of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO to get an idea of the sort of things we are talking about: intimidation, violence, imprisonment, and assassination if need be, target on people from the Black Panther Party to environmentalists.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        OK. Got anything that was only two or three decades ago, like you said you had?
Kukumber 4y ago
Not just the UK, Canada and the US also Based on that bill it seems like the ideas are similar, i wonder if, at some point, they'll merge together and form some sort of super state that gets to decide what's right to say and what's not right to say A dark era for the west
pelorat 4y ago
UK has always been a bit different. I believe they don't even have a constitution, correct me if I'm wrong?
- Toenex 4y ago
  The United Kingdom has a constitution but not a specifically written one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...
knorker 4y ago
The UK has always been authoritarian in sheep's clothing. Don't be fooled by its geographic location and shared language with the US. It's very extreme as far as western countries go, and not towards the freedom side.
- proc0 4y ago
  They still have a monarchy. They're ok with an absolute ruler, even if it's symbolic, so it's no surprise when their government reflects those values.
  - Veen 4y ago
    > They're ok with an absolute ruler, even if it's symbolic These are contradictory concepts. An absolute ruler can't be a symbolic ruler. A symbolic leader, almost by definition, is not an absolute ruler.
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      I can see a "symbol of the absolute" being a thing, both real and imagined, influencing peoples' minds and affecting the world in a very real sense. Human politics aren't exactly known for logic.
guywithahat 4y ago
I've been hearing constant news about how awful their censorship laws are for at least 5 years now. The only reason telegraph is saying Britain was "sleepwalking" was because up until now they've been exclusively benefiting from it
psychphysic 4y ago
Britain is embracing censorship lovingly. What's happening is that some are realising not everything they dislike was all Brussels fault.

222 points by sfusato 4y ago

https://archive.ph/XeDJL https://archive.ph/XeDJL

"Worse, this isn’t even intentional. It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications" don't often agree with Telegraph but their analysis is accurate. Our era of soundbite politicians vulnerable to populist measures which superficially sound reasonable (sue big tech for hosting bad content) but disguise deep complexities (what is bad content, who decides this, it is universally applied?) which have profound implications for society (blaming platforms for user posted content means no more user posted content without prior moderation)

armada651 4y ago
> It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications I think they've thought through the implications perfectly well. Or at the very least they've been told what the implications are by their legal advisors. The real problem is that they do not care about those implications.
licebmi__at__ 4y ago
> Our era of soundbite politicians vulnerable to populist measures which superficially sound reasonable I’m deeply skeptical that this is a real problem. I mean, there’s defined a list of extremely popular issues which have no support from politicians (like a healthcare reform in US), and also a long list of unpopular policies enacted a lot of times with bipartisan support.
alldayeveryday 4y ago
"Worse, this isn’t even intentional. It’s happening because ministers have not really thought through the implications" It might be right that the ministers/politicians have not really thought through the implications. But someone else surely has and is making censorship (of the things that challenge their power) a matter of policy. The actions of big tech are a matter of their internal policies. Which "populist" opinions politicians respond to (and which they ignore) is a matter of policy. In an age when populist opinion is manufactured through control of content and media, politicians are no longer moved by the opinions of their constituents but rather by those holding onto that control. Instances of bipartisan support in the US, for example, are merely instances where the topic is important to the elite and need bear no relationship to the opinions of the people.
benevol 4y ago
> Worse, this isn’t even intentional. Of course it is intentional. It's about manipulating the population. It's simply about the control of the people.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Why is that so obvious? Italics and the word “simply” do not actually make a convincing point. It seems like you’re implying that politicians never fail to anticipate the (un-)intended consequences of their rhetoric and policies.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    Laws might have unintended concequences, but that verbiage " powers to censor anything deemed “legal, but harmful”" is a strict play at a wide-ranging authority on what that means. Vague verbiage is the name of the game... Because it's their full time job as a politician... I
blipvert 4y ago
But this is Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, writing in the Telegraph - both publications have been the absolute cheerleaders of the Conservative administration’s descent into an idiocracy. Reap what you sow, Fraser, you dolt.
- Mindwipe 4y ago
  Indeed, the Telegraph literally campaigned for this legislation. They had a special logo for the articles they wrote to breathlessly promote it.

boudin 4y ago

I wonder how much of it is also due to technologies making this possible. The centralisation of a huge chunk of communications via a few massive actors makes this kind ideas enforceable. So, while those ideas aren't new, the thought of generalising it comes from having layed down the technical foundation that makes it possible.

chriswarbo 4y ago
Agreed. I deleted my Twitter account after the UK government floated the idea of having the power to turn off such sites: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-... > And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. > So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. The fact that's even a possibility put me off such centralised platforms. (Of course, HN is centralised; but it's a niche forum, rather than a general medium of communication)
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  > I deleted my Twitter account after the UK government floated the idea [...] > when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality Were you "plotting violence, disorder and criminality"?
  - pfoof 4y ago
    Define "violence, disorder and criminality"
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Most people have something they would protest.
  - shmageggy 4y ago
    This argument fails in the same way that “I’ve got nothing to hide” arguments against privacy fail. Even if someone is not currently running afoul of the current government’s current definition of a particular illegal act, we still might not want to grant them absolute power to enforce. These definitons of illegality tend to change (read: expand) over time, and when governments change they tend not to give back powers they’ve been granted.

slackfan 4y ago

Sleepwalking? The UK has a fine and longstanding tradition of censorship. $current year is no exception.

samwillis 4y ago
Exactly, we have had the concept of "Libel" in uk law for over 700 years [0]. It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Fundamentally some of this is built into British culture, and is significantly different to US culture where "free speech" rules supreme. But it's the bleeding of US culture into that of the UK though the media+internet that leads to a more vocal debate around these issues than before. To quote form the Wikipedia article below: "English defamation law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, and does not require the plaintiff to prove falsehood. For that reason, it has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world." The world is so much more connected now it's inevitable that cultural and legal differences will reduce and some sort of equilibrium will be found. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >It's this Libel and Defamation law that has often contributed to the allegations of censorship. Exactly the same in Austria. Often politicians and even shitty businesses use the libel law to get undesirable negative information about them removed from public spaces An MP was called a "corrupt traitor" on Facebook and Facebook was forced to remove that comment under the libel law. Often businesses will force Google, Kununu and other websites where people can leave reviews, to remove the negative ones under the libel law, that even doctor's practices do it. Basically, your not allowed to air the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful unless you have bulletproof hard evidence, wich you can never really get as the GDPR and other strong privacy laws make legal evidence gathering nearly impossible by individuals.
  - jan_Inkepa 4y ago
    I've been legally threatened twice by a German restaurant on google for leaving a 3 star review on the basis that it damages their ability to do business. Pretty ridiculous... . Google required me to post proof I had been there, but that didn't stop the Restaurant threatening a second time...

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

This is the country where offensive tweets are illegal.

pelorat 4y ago
This is a thing in most countries on the planet. Try tweeting "I wish all X people were dead!" outside of the USA, and in many places you'll get a visit from the authorities (if they notice that is, they don't actively monitor for it, someone would have to give you up to the local police).
- proc0 4y ago
  > This is a thing in most countries on the planet. Also totalitarian governments have happened everywhere around the world, except in the USA. I've lived abroad in places where it seems the citizens are property of the government. It really feels the government can at anytime do whatever they please with anyone, and it won't even be questioned. Government dissent is a privilege that apparently only USA has at the moment (and we're in a cultural battle trying to preserve it).
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    What an absolute load of American exceptionalist crap. USA is not the only country in the world where government dissent is privileged.
    - proc0 4y ago
      I honestly try to think of one. It used to be the West, but that has changed recently.

a_c 4y ago

When I come into the country in 2021, I wasn't able to visit archive.org on my Giffgaff network. Took me forever to realise it was blocked.

xd 4y ago
I've never had an issue accessing archive.org and I've lived in Britain my entire life and accessed it from all kinds of locations / devices.
- ZGDUwpqEWpUZ 4y ago
  Parental controls are now the default on (most?) UK mobile providers, so a lot of archive/user-driven sites get blocked if you don't login to your provider's portal to tick the "I'm over 18" box. IIRC this has been the case since David Cameron's government made threatening noises about bringing in legislation to force it.
  - leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
    Honestly, I think that's one good thing. I believe that isp's should provide more content controls and allow fine grained controls for account owners to block content in categories. And they should have at least adult content blocked by default with an opt out. It's insane to me that parents have to be network admins to be able to make even do basic content filtering for their children in the US.
    - dbspin 4y ago
      There's a huge leap between 'parents have to be network admins' and all devices you buy are censored by default.
    - williamvds 4y ago
      When I bought a throwaway GiffGaff SIM while I was waiting months for BT to set up my broadband, it had content blocking on by default. They wanted me to send a picture of my driver's license to lift the restrictions. I'm not sure what I'm more disgusted by: the fact I need to give away my identity to have unfiltered (except the outright blocked stuff) access to the internet, or that I caved and gave it to them anyway. I guess I should be happy proof of identity wasn't required to buy or activate the SIM in the first place.

pjc50 4y ago

Previously on the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/11/29/online-safety-bill-must-protect-children/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/11/29/online-safety... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/25/watering-online-safety-bill-will-put-children-risk/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/25/watering-onl... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/social-media-giants-face-multi-million-pound-fines-fail-ban/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/28/social-media-gia... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/11/12/tory-women-will-kick-online-safety-bill-watered-says-nadine/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/11/12/tory-women-w... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/online-safety-bill-home-secretarys-op-ed-for-the-telegraph https://www.gov.uk/government/news/online-safety-bill-home-s... (yes, the Telegraph gave a page to a government minister; remember how much they used to pay Johnson?) Looks like they were in favour of it all the way up to this point, so long as they thought it would only censor things they didn't like. Compare on HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836666 in re TikTok

toyg 4y ago
Yes, but you can twist it around: if even the bloody Torygraph is against this crap, how bad it must be...
- pasc1878 4y ago
  Or more usually if the Telegraph is against it it is worth looking into.
mjw1007 4y ago
I'm no fan of the Telegraph, but all those links show is that it's willing to give comment space to people with different points of view. (Or, to put it another way, the fact that they're willing to print a column by Fraser Nelson isn't a reason to suppose their home affairs editor isn't still in favour of the bill.)
SXX 4y ago
Every single thing started by polititians to "protect children" end up the same way.

jcampbell1 4y ago

The plan is to have a legal but harmful framework, and Elon Musk decides what is harmful. What could possibly go wrong? Threatening US multinational with billion dollar fines? Try that shit in a non-Biden administration. Has the UK gone mad?

jongjong 4y ago

We seem to be in a vicious cycle of politicians trying to suppress public discontentment by limiting free speech but this only creates more discontentment which requires even more suppression of speech. Why do people in power seem to prefer to kick the can down the road until it explodes instead of trying to resolve problems as they come? It seems to be a recurring theme of history.

briantakita 4y ago
> Why do people in power seem to prefer to kick the can down the road until it explodes instead of trying to resolve problems as they come? It seems to be a recurring theme of history. People in power are often motivated by gaining more power & their core competency is acquiring more power, usually by manipulating social dynamics. They also also adept in manipulating organizations to have power-focused people, especially if they can be controlled, in positions of governance & management. Any other popular ideological position they publicly espouse is a mask to consolidate power. There are some books on psychopathy in governance & management...such as https://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Psychopathy-Totalitarianism/dp/1734907452 https://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Psychopa... With advances & consolidation in the state/empire, technology, automation, & global socioeconomic systems, people in power have more leverage over everybody else...Consolidation will increase until systems become too top-heavy & a collapse occurs. Most people, including people in power, tend to not desire being ruled by others, so infighting is inevitable, which also leads to collapse...Usually the breakups occur suddenly when the status quo becomes obviously untenable & it is less risky to break ranks. Political rivals that can execute a coherent long term strategy of systemic growth & power have a long-term advantage over those who are unable to execute continued growth. You can test these assertions in an analysis of the history of the various political & business empires which grew & collapsed.
- jongjong 4y ago
  That makes sense. Unfortunately, our current system seems to support almost unlimited centralization and this is the ideal kind of system for psychopathic power-hoarders. In the past, it was far less common for companies to grow to the point that they would dominate large parts of the economy. In essentially all cases, scale is achieved through illegal or at least highly unethical practices. Mega-corporations are not a natural part of capitalism; rather, they're the result of intentional system design and manipulation at the political/social layer. I think decentralization can go a long way to protect the system from power-hoarders. All things considered, it's probably better to have small groups, headed by many low-grade psychopaths, competing and even (on occasion) fighting each other for dominance rather than a single monolithic global empire headed by top-grade psychopaths. Also, I think if we could decouple political groups from geography, we would be able to protect ourselves from existential threats such as nuclear weapons. Nobody is going to risk nuking their own people in order to destroy an opposing group if they are all intermingled geographically.

PicassoCTs 4y ago

How about talking about the source? The actual source for all those creeping towards totalitarianism? Its that governments are aware of the crisis coming and they have no solutions, no plans, no scenarios, no capabilities they want to develop to counter problems to come, except suppress the citizenry as long as they can and weather it out. Wish we could vote a whole generation of useless politicans out in lockstep.

causality0 4y ago

Sleepwalking? I believe they're wide awake and have made their choice: they prefer an inoffensive world over a free one. Maybe it helps them sleep better at night but personally I'm not setting foot anywhere I might have an illegal opinion.

andrepd 4y ago
Well then you probably can't set foot anywhere much. If you were thinking of the USA, remember that people have been extra-judicially killed by the state for being "communist", only 2 or 3 decades ago.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Details? And, um, we had an official Communist Party back then, and maybe still do, and the people in it were not killed, so... maybe what you're implying isn't a reasonable inference?
  - andrepd 4y ago
    We do, the CPUSA is still a thing. However, back in the apex of its popularity and influence (interwar period) the people in it were killed, or intimidated, harassed, or imprisioned, over the course of the two major Red Scares. However I was thinking in particular of people like Fred Hampton, a young progressive with an electrifying oratory style who commanded the respect and admiration of his people, advocated for anti-capitalism resistance, self-relience, self-government. The most dangerous kind of subversive: idealist in words, pragmatist in actions. He was assassinated at the peak of his popularity by the FBI on explicit orders of the top of American government. Read the introduction of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO to get an idea of the sort of things we are talking about: intimidation, violence, imprisonment, and assassination if need be, target on people from the Black Panther Party to environmentalists.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      OK. Got anything that was only two or three decades ago, like you said you had?

Kukumber 4y ago

Not just the UK, Canada and the US also Based on that bill it seems like the ideas are similar, i wonder if, at some point, they'll merge together and form some sort of super state that gets to decide what's right to say and what's not right to say A dark era for the west

pelorat 4y ago

UK has always been a bit different. I believe they don't even have a constitution, correct me if I'm wrong?

Toenex 4y ago
The United Kingdom has a constitution but not a specifically written one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...

knorker 4y ago

The UK has always been authoritarian in sheep's clothing. Don't be fooled by its geographic location and shared language with the US. It's very extreme as far as western countries go, and not towards the freedom side.

proc0 4y ago
They still have a monarchy. They're ok with an absolute ruler, even if it's symbolic, so it's no surprise when their government reflects those values.
- Veen 4y ago
  > They're ok with an absolute ruler, even if it's symbolic These are contradictory concepts. An absolute ruler can't be a symbolic ruler. A symbolic leader, almost by definition, is not an absolute ruler.
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    I can see a "symbol of the absolute" being a thing, both real and imagined, influencing peoples' minds and affecting the world in a very real sense. Human politics aren't exactly known for logic.

guywithahat 4y ago

I've been hearing constant news about how awful their censorship laws are for at least 5 years now. The only reason telegraph is saying Britain was "sleepwalking" was because up until now they've been exclusively benefiting from it

psychphysic 4y ago

Britain is embracing censorship lovingly. What's happening is that some are realising not everything they dislike was all Brussels fault.