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As I understand it, most UK public are in favour of this bill almost Pavlovianly. There is a clear disconnect between us, the tech know-how, and the general pub
by a_c 3y ago
As I understand it, most UK public are in favour of this bill almost Pavlovianly. There is a clear disconnect between us, the tech know-how, and the general public.
- pjc50 3y agoThe UK public are extremely conservative, and extremely misinformed by conservative news sources. That's at the root of a lot of the demand for authoritarianism.
- fauigerzigerk 3y agoConservative? Has Labour opposed any of it?
- feldrim 3y agoI believe here it is used as an adjective, not the name of a political party.
- fauigerzigerk 3y agoI think it's used as a reference to the UK incarnation of a political philosophy [1], which by no means has a monopoly on promoting the serveillance state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
- stephen_g 3y agoLabour are not “The Conservative Party” but they are definitely (at the moment) pretty solidly a conservative party.
- fauigerzigerk 3y agoThe surveillance state isn't an exclusively conservative idea though. It has a long and storied tradition on the Left as well.
- coremoff 3y agoI believe you're conflating "big-C" Conservative with "little-c" conservative. The Conservatives (aka Tories) are conservatives. The Labour party are also conservatives as much of the voting public in the uk is small-c conservative and also authoritarian.
- pessimizer 3y agoStarmer et al. aren't any less authoritarian than the Tories.
- rmilejczz 3y agoI don’t think they were talking about tories specifically just Britain as a whole being very conservative. Indeed as you’ve pointed out even the Labour Party in the UK is quite conservative. I would say the same is true of America, that much of the Democratic Party is actually quite conservative.
- fauigerzigerk 3y agoSo would you call left-wing authoritarianism conservative then? I don't think political historians would agree with this designation.
- rmilejczz 3y agoIt sort of depends I guess. I’m not a political historian but it depends on what that “authoritarianism” looks like. In general though, wouldnt authoritarianism exist to maintain a strict status quote? In that sense yes I would call it conservative. But like I said, I’m not a political historian just an idiot with a half baked opinion.
- fauigerzigerk 3y agoI think the common theme that unites supporters of the surveillance state is control, which is not the same thing as preserving the status quo. You also need control in order to make effective changes to the status quo. All political movements and all politicians are convinced that their power is 100% legitimate and they should therefore be able to have 100% control of and visibility into everything that's going on. The idea is compatible with most peoples' definition of democracy. You don't need to support other aspects of authoritarianism usually associated with right or left wing dictatorships.
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- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago> The UK public are extremely conservative, and extremely misinformed by conservative news sources. While conservative news sources historically act in bad faith here, non-conservative news sources lose all reasoning ability, when it comes to Gov surveillance. They rarely hold Gov accountable unless they have little choice. The latter probably happens because the public endlessly gives news orgs a pass about it.
- ekianjo 3y agoPropaganda works wonders as usual
- raxxorraxor 3y agoThe UK had some pop celebs get mocked as far as I understand it and they advertised online control. I think this is a case of well-meant idiocy that disregarded the cost of being public. You can discuss how high that cost should be, but there is a cost to state surveillance as well.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoUnfortunately, I think the only way for that situation to change is for enough members of the general public to be caught up in some kind of accidental suspicion or publication of their personal data. And I think those who are proposing these kinds of bills know this, and are protected by how unlikely it would be to reach any kind of critical mass organically. I'm sure there are laws against the encouragement of others to commit a crime, but ... wink wink.
- aembleton 3y agoOr for WhatsApp to stop working.
- ben_w 3y agoThe UK conservative party suddenly realising they can no longer communicate privately with each other over the internet should cause them to understand the consequences of their bill. Should — but based on what else this particular group have demonstrated about understanding cause and effect, won't.
- pessimizer 3y ago> As I understand it, most UK public are in favour of this bill Do you understand this from polling? Can't trust UK media outlets on public opinion, they push, they don't pull. If the public doesn't agree with them, they all will run variations of the same story, aimed at the same targets, for years until they do.
- a_c 3y agoHonestly It is more an impression than understanding. Maybe the lack of attention in various petitions, e.g. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/601932 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/601932 Maybe the lack of mentioning of "caveats" of the bill from major news outlet
- stephen_g 3y agoThe public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists. It happens everywhere, and has been happening for a long time - it’s more about the narrative made up by the people pushing a law than what the law actually does. It would take a particularly free, particularly good media to inform the public that just doesn’t exist in most of the world.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago> The public have been sold a lie. Just like the “Patriot Act” was just to keep everybody free and protect people from terrorists. The public tend to believe what they've been informed and the press tend to be inept when it comes to Gov surveillance. The history of editors and journalists is 1) they reprint Gov Natsec claims w/o analysis or a single thought about Gov's history and 2) will only report surveillance wrongdoing when their nose has been dragged to it and they've been booted from behind. And to clarify here, NatSec and Child Safety are just different food colors in the same poisonous water.
- Given_47 3y agoThere’s some irony here about being a journalist yet not even considering individual privacy. Seems indicative of a missing journalistic quality lol
- Loquebantur 3y agoThe complacency of researchers knowledgeable in these topics should be noted as well. With great power comes great responsibility, as Spiderman states correctly. This letter is a "nice try", but pretty late and lacking media-awareness. People certainly won't read a 4-page PDF. They should have led with: > There is no technological solution to the contradiction inherent in both keeping information confidential from third parties and sharing that same information with third parties.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoyour lead statement would still confuse a non-trivial amount of the general population.
- zarzavat 3y agoYou much overestimate how politically involved the UK public is. Most people don’t know what this bill is. In the UK there’s a concept of the “Westminster bubble”. Politicians believe that people care deeply about “online safety”, which is all that matters really.
- bavell 3y agoKnown as "DC brain worms" here in the US
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- daniel-cussen 3y ago[dead]
- anigbrowl 3y agoPoliticians don't believe that. But they know that the newspapers will vilify them at election time if they don't play along with the security & safety lobby, and the news media shapes voter preferences.
- isaacremuant 3y agoMost of the populations around the world were in favor of locking people down because the governments, media and tech companies told them to. They were ok with debate being censored because "It was too important and risky". Same thing happened in many countries with terrorism and loss of rights/super authoritarian/inconstitucional powers for govs, and it was fine... Because the risk is too great and "are you a <insert label here, such as terrorist sympathdizer, grandma killer, etc> Let's not pretend the UK is particularly bad. Many countries are pushing the same old "destroy encryption" because I need to "tap the bad guys" and people are always fine when given the flimsiest of excuses/narrative. Yes, HN "tech crowd" too.
- scarface_74 3y agoThe idea of isolating people who have communicative diseases and limiting crowds goes back centuries https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/past-virus-containing-pandemics-throughout-history https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/past-virus-...
- isaacremuant 3y agoThat's such a poor response to everything i said but it's par for the course. A telling thing is that you said people who have diseases and here it was prevent movement from everyone. Prevent the movement of the non sick. Remove human rights and civil rights. Implement inconsistent security theater and censor debate, and a long etc you don't care for because you just answered in the laziest of ways.
- scarface_74 3y agoYour statement blaming the “media”. > Most of the populations around the world were in favor of locking people down These were common sense measures known by people in the 500s From the article about what happened centuries ago: > He imposed isolation for both travelers and food coming to Constantinople from North Africa, hit by the terrible plague outbreak (541-542 A.D). > Freedom of movement was only granted to those who obtained "a sanitary certification" from the authorities. In Venice, foreigners and passengers coming on ships needed to show a "certificate", to prove that they came from contagion-free places. In times of plague or cholera those who entered the cities were obliged to present a "health certificate" ("Patente di sanità") But the same people were arguing right here on HN about studies showing that preschoolers in day care spread Covid even though every parent knows that preschoolers in day care have always been walking Petri dishes that spread diseases like a hooker on a crack. Heck, since many of the people who were complaining about masks are self proclaimed “Christians”, even the Bible had “mask mandates” https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/LEV+13.html#:~:text=%22The%20person%20with%20such%20an,Unclean!'&text=As%20long%20as%20he%20has,must%20live%20outside%20the%20camp https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bible/NIV/NIV_Bible/LEV+1.... >The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, [4] cover the lower part of his face and cry out, `Unclean! Unclean!' As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]