7 ms·
Ever been to China? The internet certainly has borders and boundaries. Sometimes you can sneak across or get a visa, but individual nations make their own rules
by momonotoro 3y ago
Ever been to China? The internet certainly has borders and boundaries. Sometimes you can sneak across or get a visa, but individual nations make their own rules. Most people either follow them or remain unaware of them, and large multinational companies will typically follow local laws because they are juicy targets.
In the UK, companies which protest this law are threatening to leave the market. That would mean blocking UK users on their properties, not helping them find ways to break the law.
Or, when you say "no boarders," do you mean that the internet is not zoned for residential use? Sorry if I misunderstood.
- tjpnz 3y agoThe internet most in China have access to is best viewed as a national intranet.
- throw_nbvc1234 3y ago"and it'd be impossible to impose any without the kind of extreme restrictions of a totalitarian regime." Surely china would fall under that statement from OP's perspective.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoIf the UK implemented something like The Great Firewall of China, it would be a gigantic statement about the country's future ideological direction (arguably started and in line with Brexit), and may actually be enough to cause protests large enough to make a difference.
- alexfoo 3y agoDon’t give our idiot Government any ideas.
- Aerroon 3y ago>arguably started and in line with Brexit I disagree with this part. The EU is on that same path. The EU Great Firewall idea has been kicked around for years and it has even shown up in some policy suggestion documents.
- john_the_writer 3y agoI think the EU started down the path all on it's own. Fining someone who has google fonts is a bit over the top.
- psd1 3y agoI disagree for the simple reason that I've lived in the UK for 40 years, and I recall each home secretary being more authoritarian and pro-surveillance than the last. The RIP bill is a decade old and was strengthened, under home sec May, before the referendum. I would describe the EU as wavering. Perhaps they'll do it, but it's far from certain.
- jen20 3y ago100% correct - the EU is a relative bastion of sanity in comparison. It would be nice if the UK government used the ridiculous powers they gave themselves to hold Boris Johnson to account though.
- Aerroon 3y agoThe EU did implement snooping on every European's internet history in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive But you could make the argument that it was largely due to Britain.
- jokethrowaway 3y agoBrexit is a refusal of authoritarianism and introducing another layer of "barely elected" government, which is why the UK is being punished for following through with Brexit. Of course most governments in the UK, like everywhere else (whether right or left wing) are, more or less secretly, authoritarian so they will be favourable to a great firewall when the right time comes. The EU has been talking about it for some time and I'm sure they'll stick it together with some 600 pages policy nobody will bother reading at some point. https://diginomica.com/eu-policy-doc-recommends-building-european-internet-firewall-similar-chinas-lets-build-new-digital https://diginomica.com/eu-policy-doc-recommends-building-eur... They can't remove all our freedoms at once or people may lift their heads from their smartphones and protest. We're being slowly boiled alive.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y agoThe UK is not being "punished". All the consequences of Brexit are imposed by the UK on the UK. (Also, it seems to be leading them somewhere more authoritarian, not less.)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Peanuts99 3y agoBrexit for most people was about almost nothing at all. It was an empty shell of an idea that people poured their vision of a better country into. That's why the UK is being 'punished' - because nobody had a single actual decent idea of what they wanted.
- 7952 3y ago"Brexit" the movement has lots of meanings to lots of people but is generally a set of issues/complaints. The people that movement enabled (brexiteers) have almost universally made those issues worse.
- Thiez 3y ago> introducing another layer of "barely elected" government If the UK really cared about unelected government, why don't they get rid of their House of Lords? This would have been much less painful than Brexit. It looks a lot like this unelected government complaint is just an excuse and not something that they actually care about.
- rjh29 3y agoProtests? I would leave the country. I'm already disillusioned as it is.
- jen20 3y agoTo go where? Serious question as a UK citizen who doesn’t live there anymore. Post-Brexit, leaving is surprisingly difficult despite the refrain of the morons who say “if you don’t like it go somewhere else”, blind or ignorant to the fact they removed that option.
- FreezingKeeper 3y agoWell over a million ordinary people protested against the Second Gulf War and it may zero difference. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/15/politics.politicalnews https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/15/politics.politica...
- dmje 3y agoWe're not allowed to protest. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-government-plan-push-more-anti-protest-legislation-through-lords-must-be-stopped https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-government-plan...
- archagon 3y ago"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
- ethbr0 3y ago"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..."
- lannisterstark 3y agoUK rebelling against the UK itself would be a nice (and IMHO, deserved) end to the empire.
- LightBug1 3y agoWe're British. Our protests either don't matter or are banned. Perhaps you meant another democratic country where the idiot clowns hadn't taken over the circus ...
- giaour 3y agoThe UK doesn't need to implement a Great Firewall; if they succeed in convincing service providers to voluntarily exit the UK market, then each service provider will block traffic to/from the UK on its own. A few shitty laws may be enough to incentivize the emergence of a Great Patchwork Firewall.
- john_the_writer 3y agoI already block EU countries from my site. Wrote a gem called "GDPR safe" and it returns an http error code 457, if the IP address indicates an EU country.
- lvturner 3y agoThe borders and boundaries are bypassed with a roaming SIM card.
- hiatus 3y agoCell towers operate from within the country though and are subject to their laws. That we can bypass things as foreigners is only at the government prerogative.
- lvturner 3y agoCorrect, however the fact that this situation exists at all I feel is oft overlooked. The implications of it can be debated but the fact remains.
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago> That would mean blocking UK users on their properties, not helping them find ways to break the law. That's a sad reflection of the tech industry. Too much "we can't make money from them" and too little spitefulness of the sovereignty of foreign governments.