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I've said it before and I'll repeat it here - as someone who lives in the UK the thing that bothers me the most about it is a complete apathy from everyone I kn

I've said it before and I'll repeat it here - as someone who lives in the UK the thing that bothers me the most about it is a complete apathy from everyone I know, and I work in IT. People just go "meh what are you going to do", or recently very common "I don't have strength to be angry at this government all the time over everything, I just carry on forward and hope things improve". And of course the fact that this is getting 0 coverage from mainstream media doesn't help.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
I think this hits the nail on the head. Pretty much everyone here in the UK is just waiting for the general election to remove the incumbent right wing party. The government itself seems utterly internally divided and unable to find a direction and after a while everyone (cabinet ministers included) is just waiting for it to be over. So this slips in and most peoples reaction if they know about it at all is "this is not legitimate because the people enforcing it are so weak" Basically it's set up to be ignored - a populist press release dressed up a legislation. Worrying
- nly 3y ago
  The current government isn't even that right wing. Whole I agree with everything you said, it's actually worse... nobody really believes the next (Labour) government will improve things either.
  - cs02rm0 3y ago
    Economically it seems hard to differentiate as much further right than the previous Labour governments. It's certainly spending a lot more on the NHS (in real terms). Furlough was a pretty eye-wateringly expensive state intervention. Traditional conservative economics don't seem to be on offer in the UK these days.
    - polshaw 3y ago
      Furlough has driven an enormous increase in inequality though, thus not as left-wing as it might appear on the surface. Money was given to ordinary working people (whose outgoings, being essentials, didn't change much), and then went straight to the landlords etc (whose outgoings, being more discretionary, were massively cut during the pandemic). So everyone who hasn't significantly increased their wealth over the pandemic in nominal terms (and many did, we had rising stocks and housing prices.. during a pandemic!!) is today poorer than before.
Ylpertnodi 3y ago
So, 'the brexit' wasn't all that much out of character? *sadly
- dijit 3y ago
  I mean, people are consistently voting conservative. Its hard to fathom for me, true that I was raised in a labour strong-hold; but the decimation of industry, housing and the selling of previously nationalised infrastructure has had long reaching and devastating consequences for a large contingent of the population. But people keep voting them into office, literally the worst of all alternatives. (except maybe UKIP/Brexit/Reform which is the same party that keeps rebranding)
  - sph 3y ago
    While I believe this might not have come out under a Labour government, do you think Starmer will backpedal on it? Of course not, and his excuse will be "the Tories will use that to paint us as anti-children", when in reality, the surveillance state is older and more engrained than any party. The Tories have ruined the country, but I wish people stopped seeing them as pure evil against the pure good that is Labour, which is far from the case. They're all rotten in their own way, and it's not them pulling the pervasive surveillance strings. I wouldn't know who is for certain, but it's a combination of being in the Five Eyes, our friendship with the USA, the very favourable media, and the cultural fact that British people have been OK with total surveillance for decades.
    - dijit 3y ago
      The weird effect right now of conservatives winning elections is that more parties will be more like them in order to attract voters away. We all lose. That's why "starmer is a red tory" doesn't jibe with me, Blair is also a "red tory" and is/was painted as such; but he won by a landslide on that. The media was so against Corbyn, progress away from conservative ideology will be long and it requires people to show determination to move away. Even if it's little by little.
    - pydry 3y ago
conjectures 3y ago
It is depressing, but is it untrue? Yes, the prophecy can be self-fulfilling. But we have an impressive recent record of pulling the trigger on foot-guns.
bowsamic 3y ago
I’m British, living in Germany now, and one thing that moving here made me realise is that in the UK almost everyone, even young generations, act as if the blitz is still going on. Somehow the British psyche became mortally wounded from WW2 and hasn’t recovered since. Everything is still “keep calm and carry on”. Any attempt at having a political effect is met with dismissal or even total anger
- conjectures 3y ago
  I a fellow Brit, I note that you still bring up the war! But yeah, this is true. Honestly, I don't think we get out of this hole until demographic churn (ugly phrase yeah) rebalances the electorate. If we look at the 1992 election there's a 13% gap in conservative votes between the youngest and oldest brackets [1]. By 2019 that's a 36-46% gap [2]. [1] https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1992 https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1992 [2] https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/26925-how-britain-voted-2019-general-election https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/26925-how-britain-vot...
  - polshaw 3y ago
    2019 was as much as there could be a single-issue election about brexit. It's an anomaly as such and shouldn't be used to make trends. That said, I don't think it was any different in 2017 and I don't discredit the trend. 2017 was also out of the ordinary as there was an actually left-wing alternative offered.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    I would agree but young people seem prone to it almost as much. It isn’t just voting conservatives, it goes deeper than that
  - kawhah 3y ago
    [flagged]
- simonbarker87 3y ago
  Interesting take, I was having a conversation the other week where I reused a fun line from the Expeditionary Force books: “Britain: striving for mediocrity” People are run down, fed up and have no idea what to do about it because as a nation we have culturally been conditioned (over generations) to accept our lot. Striving for better (not just individually but societally) is sneered at and things going badly is shrugged at as the norm. I sometimes feel we have this idea that the the UK is feature complete. Any new infra project is protested, new initiatives to try to improve things are eye rolled at - even talking about new ideas leads to back lash. I honestly don’t think it’s some top down grand plan for control, I think it’s just incompetence, lack of leadership and fear of the above points. So yeh, heads down, carry on and hope for the best (well, hope for “not too bad” really).
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
> "I don't have strength to be angry at this government all the time over everything, I just carry on forward and hope things improve" And I'm confident this is intentional, and happening all over; on the one side we live a dystopia where more and more people have to worry about themselves, what they'll eat next, whether they can pay the bills, etc. That leaves them with no headspace to look beyond themselves. On the other there's entertainment and distractions everywhere. But then there's the endless torrent of shitty policies and noises. Take Donald Trump; one thing he did was post something outrageous on Twitter pretty much daily, so all the media outlets homed in on that, pushing less interesting but no less important things down the list of things that demand your attention. And another thing was to push far-right ideas, and keep pushing them, so that on a long enough timescale, the less extreme ideas gain more support because "well it's not as bad as proposed".
switch007 3y ago
This is a short list of issues many people are dealing with right now: - affording heating - affording food - affording their mortgage - being kicked out of their rented accommodation - unable to find somewhere to rent - unable to afford somewhere to rent - badly maintained rented properties - bad public transport making commutes miserable - increasing petrol prices - unaffordable nursery fees - long NHS wait times - unable to find an NHS dentist - crime Please explain why and how privacy can rank above this on a day to day basis about things they have the energy to care about. You kind of acknowledged this but then disregard it
- trackflak 3y ago
  It seems like the government playbook reads as follows: - Make the practicalities of everyday life extremely miserable - Make the population worn down and apathetic because things are so bad, a better life unattainable for all but a few - Then, no one will notice while we pass bills that heavily restrict your liberty and vastly entrench our power - Profit It's a sinister genius, and smacks of contempt for the governed.
  - gnfargbl 3y ago
    Who is the evil bond villain behind this dastardly plan, exactly? The UK government has made the practicalities of everyday life extremely miserable through a combination of (a) ham-fisted political decisions (Brexit referendum held for party-political reasons, followed by the multi-decade car crash that is still ongoing); plus (b) plain and simple not giving a single shit about the majority of the population, because it isn't in the personal interests of most of the current set of ruling MPs to give said shit. There's no overarching devious plan to enslave us all, here. It's just classic honest-to-goodness incompetence and disinterest.
    - xeonmc 3y ago
      So what you’re saying is, they’re just incompetent rather than malicious?
sph 3y ago
I, for one, am not apathethic, but still feel completely powerless. Politicians do not represent me, the people have stopped protesting because it's been outlawed and it's completely useless. But I am still looking to spend my energy in decentralised, fully-encrypted networks, I'm still banging on about the sham that is our democratic Western world, and researching modern technological ways to protest against the status quo (agorism, etc.) It's small but honest work, yet the vast majority of people, here included, think working with the system and the thieves is better than accepting we've been lied to for decades. But the point is, we are powerless against any decision Westminster does. We are all waiting to vote the other party next year, and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? After all, they too care about the children, and it is us that want to harbour pedophiles. (I am thoroughly disgusted by how major newspapers have framed this law as a win, or relegated it to a footnote.)
- kmlx 3y ago
  > and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? step back? they're criticising the government for not doing more/watering it down. if anything the next government will strengthen these rules, not water them down.
  - sph 3y ago
    Anything for children safety, right? I have said years ago that all our rights, in all Western nations, will be stripped with that excuse, because it's so damn easy to convince the laymen that it's for the good of the children, and paint protestors are pedophile apologists. Child safety laws are the Trojan horse of surveillance.
    - jjgreen 3y ago
      Child safety is what is pushed in the press, the act itself is filled with "content harmful to children and adults", see section 46 for the details. Nice to know that Bravermen and the rest of them are protecting us from harm.
yungporko 3y ago
yep, we're a nation of cowards and we deserve it.
makingstuffs 3y ago
I said it in another post and it got downvoted but the fact is democracy just simply does not exist. This political apathy from the masses is the outcome of people being slowly ground down over the past decade+ and is intentional. Whether it is by carefully curated news articles aimed at pushing a specific agenda via complex algorithms, or just the complete omission of important current events (London Riots, anyone?) we have all been getting moulded into apathetic sacks of flesh and bone, spending the majority of our lives accruing tax bills to pay the salaries of those whom avoid tax altogether.[0][1] We have allowed ourselves to get into a situation where a paedophilic monarch walks freely and part-takes in elaborate, televised, celebrations while those whom call him a paedo end up being arrested.[2] We are in a situation where our most vital services are underfunded, their staff are grossly underpaid/overworked and our government have the audacity to tell people to go outside on a Thursday night and make some noise for them. All the while refusing to pay them what they are worth.[3][4] We are in a situation where a young girl gets kidnapped, raped and killed by a police officer which then leads to protestors being arrested[5] How can the 'will of the people' be enacted when 'the people' are constantly lied to and manipulated? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/09/rishi-sunak-akshata-murty-accused-avoiding-millions-taxes-labour https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/09/rishi-sunak... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64360260 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64360260 [2] https://www.insider.com/heckler-arrested-after-calling-prince-andrew-sick-old-man-2022-9 https://www.insider.com/heckler-arrested-after-calling-princ... [3] https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/information-for-the-public-on-industrial-action/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/information-for-the-pub... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/clap-for-our-carers-the-very-unbritish-ritual-that-united-the-nation https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/clap-for-our... [5] https://theconversation.com/sarah-everard-vigil-shows-the-urgent-need-to-protect-the-right-to-protest-156546 https://theconversation.com/sarah-everard-vigil-shows-the-ur...
- Nursie 3y ago
  While I agree with a lot of what you’ve said … Prince Andrew isn’t the monarch. He’s a Royal, certainly, but we * only have one monarch. I’d prefer it be zero, of course… And I would add to your list the arrest of the anti-monarchy protestors before the coronation. That was awful. * I say ‘we’, I’m watching on from Australia these days. Unfortunately they’re our bloody royals too.
varispeed 3y ago
There is nothing you can do, because the "opposition" also supports this.
corobo 3y ago
What are we going to do? This went through with no vote that I am aware of. I emailed my MP a while back when I first heard of this, I'll let you know when she gets back to me. Short of a 1-man protest (is protesting still legal?) I got nothing.
- gpderetta 3y ago
  You can protest from the comfort of your own ho NO CARRIER
guntherhermann 3y ago
I'm not apathetic, I write to my MP, and I tell my non-techie friends about the implications. I donate to the EFF (used to donate to ORG until they decided other issues are more important than this one...). Still, nothing is done, and the slow decline into authortarianism continues. What do you do?
- crtasm 3y ago
  What happened with ORG? Their email on Tuesday was how I heard the bill had passed.
  - guntherhermann 3y ago
    I still get their updates and saw that email, too -- but I get the idea that their main focus seems to be on immigration law (e.g. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/fines-hiked-for-firms-employing-illegal-migrants/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/fines-hiked-for-firms-e..., https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/migrant-rights-update-july-2023/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/migrant-rights-update-j...) I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of migrants, but I didn't think that was the purpose of the ORG, so I stopped donating. I'd really rather they focus their entire resources on internet privacy/democracy, instead of spreading their limited resources thinly on a bunch of other - however important - issues
- gambiting 3y ago
  Same things really, never got a reply from my MP, but the only action that feels like it achieves "something" is donating to the EFF since they are somewhat effective at lobbying.
  - guntherhermann 3y ago
    Sorry, I can see how my last sentence may have come across as accusative; I meant it as "What does one do?" -- Short of a grassroots level / peasants revolt I don't know what we can do (and realistically, I'm too lazy to organise such an event)
tim333 3y ago
Brit here. I'm apathetic going on mildly in favour. On the downside it limits the privacy of people who can't be bothered to turn on a VPN. On the plus it may protect kids from being bullied to suicide etc (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11707945/Britain-war-tech-giants-proposed-online-safety-bill-desperately-needed.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11707945/Britain-wa...). I'm in favour of protecting kids and capable of clicking the VPN button. That said I'm a bit meh as it's unclear how well it will work if at all.
- deleted 3y ago
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- alt227 3y ago
  The whole point of this bill is that your VPN will either be backdoored, or your ISP will be forced to block it. Then you have 0 options. Governments have legislative control over the companies which provide you an internet connection, physical infrustructure which your connection runs over, and network/IT hardware which is allowed to be sold and imported in your country that makes the internet possible, as well as the vendor which made and sold you your device you use to access the internet. There is no way to win against this.
ekianjo 3y ago
> mainstream media Mainstream media is just another name for propaganda at this stage
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> fact that this is getting 0 coverage from mainstream media doesn't help. That's not true. Maybe the Times HE isn't "mainstream" any more, but I just wrote a scathing piece which is leading the magazine this month, about how we got the Online Safety Bill as the wages of technical ignorance and abandoning basic digital literacy for three generations. The OSB is essentially a good thing. It's designed with a good heart, and addresses many abuses of technology that government should rightly legislate on. The implementation is garbage. It was written by people who were not competent to do so, since they were advised by deceptive and self-interested parties, and were not able to distinguish computer science from wishful thinking. The Times article places some of the blame on our crumbing university system (which is now run by professional managers instead of academics and no longer serves the public interest). UK universities now provide only expensive training certificates and no longer strive for education of the kind that produces leadership. As a result we get Michelle Donelan serving as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, because there nobody else to fill the post except someone with a degree in History and a career in Marketing. Besides, government and the state institutions cannot compete with Big Tech, and so we cannot recruit conscientious and technically capable people to key roles (Sunak plays up to the "tech savvy" persona, but is another PPE grad who blags his way by association and bluster).
easytiger 3y ago
They are right. This bill has cross party consensus. The opposition once said it didn't go far enough. There's nothing you can do. The blob cometh.
globular-toast 3y ago
People in the UK are either: - Descended from the very rich (and therefore still very rich), - Descended from people who said "meh, what are you going to do" and didn't move to America.
DrBazza 3y ago
It is getting coverage from the MSM in the UK. The BBC's angle is teenage sexting and premeditated teenage gang attacks (especially one that ended in murder). Of course those things should be prevented. As usual with the UK government, there's a guy at the bottom of the pile that "knows tech" and can make a real world assessment and comes up with a pragmatic approach. That is then diluted by the increasingly tech-ignorant layers of the Civil Service, to the point where they might as well not have bothered, and we get our Dear Leader promoting a "safety bill" that isn't fit for purpose. On the plus side, I expect we'll see an uptick in Mullvad subscriptions in the UK.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

I think this hits the nail on the head. Pretty much everyone here in the UK is just waiting for the general election to remove the incumbent right wing party. The government itself seems utterly internally divided and unable to find a direction and after a while everyone (cabinet ministers included) is just waiting for it to be over. So this slips in and most peoples reaction if they know about it at all is "this is not legitimate because the people enforcing it are so weak" Basically it's set up to be ignored - a populist press release dressed up a legislation. Worrying

nly 3y ago
The current government isn't even that right wing. Whole I agree with everything you said, it's actually worse... nobody really believes the next (Labour) government will improve things either.
- cs02rm0 3y ago
  Economically it seems hard to differentiate as much further right than the previous Labour governments. It's certainly spending a lot more on the NHS (in real terms). Furlough was a pretty eye-wateringly expensive state intervention. Traditional conservative economics don't seem to be on offer in the UK these days.
  - polshaw 3y ago
    Furlough has driven an enormous increase in inequality though, thus not as left-wing as it might appear on the surface. Money was given to ordinary working people (whose outgoings, being essentials, didn't change much), and then went straight to the landlords etc (whose outgoings, being more discretionary, were massively cut during the pandemic). So everyone who hasn't significantly increased their wealth over the pandemic in nominal terms (and many did, we had rising stocks and housing prices.. during a pandemic!!) is today poorer than before.

Ylpertnodi 3y ago

So, 'the brexit' wasn't all that much out of character? *sadly

dijit 3y ago
I mean, people are consistently voting conservative. Its hard to fathom for me, true that I was raised in a labour strong-hold; but the decimation of industry, housing and the selling of previously nationalised infrastructure has had long reaching and devastating consequences for a large contingent of the population. But people keep voting them into office, literally the worst of all alternatives. (except maybe UKIP/Brexit/Reform which is the same party that keeps rebranding)
- sph 3y ago
  While I believe this might not have come out under a Labour government, do you think Starmer will backpedal on it? Of course not, and his excuse will be "the Tories will use that to paint us as anti-children", when in reality, the surveillance state is older and more engrained than any party. The Tories have ruined the country, but I wish people stopped seeing them as pure evil against the pure good that is Labour, which is far from the case. They're all rotten in their own way, and it's not them pulling the pervasive surveillance strings. I wouldn't know who is for certain, but it's a combination of being in the Five Eyes, our friendship with the USA, the very favourable media, and the cultural fact that British people have been OK with total surveillance for decades.
  - dijit 3y ago
    The weird effect right now of conservatives winning elections is that more parties will be more like them in order to attract voters away. We all lose. That's why "starmer is a red tory" doesn't jibe with me, Blair is also a "red tory" and is/was painted as such; but he won by a landslide on that. The media was so against Corbyn, progress away from conservative ideology will be long and it requires people to show determination to move away. Even if it's little by little.
  - pydry 3y ago

conjectures 3y ago

It is depressing, but is it untrue? Yes, the prophecy can be self-fulfilling. But we have an impressive recent record of pulling the trigger on foot-guns.

bowsamic 3y ago

I’m British, living in Germany now, and one thing that moving here made me realise is that in the UK almost everyone, even young generations, act as if the blitz is still going on. Somehow the British psyche became mortally wounded from WW2 and hasn’t recovered since. Everything is still “keep calm and carry on”. Any attempt at having a political effect is met with dismissal or even total anger

conjectures 3y ago
I a fellow Brit, I note that you still bring up the war! But yeah, this is true. Honestly, I don't think we get out of this hole until demographic churn (ugly phrase yeah) rebalances the electorate. If we look at the 1992 election there's a 13% gap in conservative votes between the youngest and oldest brackets [1]. By 2019 that's a 36-46% gap [2]. [1] https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1992 https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1992 [2] https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/26925-how-britain-voted-2019-general-election https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/26925-how-britain-vot...
- polshaw 3y ago
  2019 was as much as there could be a single-issue election about brexit. It's an anomaly as such and shouldn't be used to make trends. That said, I don't think it was any different in 2017 and I don't discredit the trend. 2017 was also out of the ordinary as there was an actually left-wing alternative offered.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  I would agree but young people seem prone to it almost as much. It isn’t just voting conservatives, it goes deeper than that
- kawhah 3y ago
  [flagged]
simonbarker87 3y ago
Interesting take, I was having a conversation the other week where I reused a fun line from the Expeditionary Force books: “Britain: striving for mediocrity” People are run down, fed up and have no idea what to do about it because as a nation we have culturally been conditioned (over generations) to accept our lot. Striving for better (not just individually but societally) is sneered at and things going badly is shrugged at as the norm. I sometimes feel we have this idea that the the UK is feature complete. Any new infra project is protested, new initiatives to try to improve things are eye rolled at - even talking about new ideas leads to back lash. I honestly don’t think it’s some top down grand plan for control, I think it’s just incompetence, lack of leadership and fear of the above points. So yeh, heads down, carry on and hope for the best (well, hope for “not too bad” really).

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

> "I don't have strength to be angry at this government all the time over everything, I just carry on forward and hope things improve" And I'm confident this is intentional, and happening all over; on the one side we live a dystopia where more and more people have to worry about themselves, what they'll eat next, whether they can pay the bills, etc. That leaves them with no headspace to look beyond themselves. On the other there's entertainment and distractions everywhere. But then there's the endless torrent of shitty policies and noises. Take Donald Trump; one thing he did was post something outrageous on Twitter pretty much daily, so all the media outlets homed in on that, pushing less interesting but no less important things down the list of things that demand your attention. And another thing was to push far-right ideas, and keep pushing them, so that on a long enough timescale, the less extreme ideas gain more support because "well it's not as bad as proposed".

switch007 3y ago

This is a short list of issues many people are dealing with right now: - affording heating - affording food - affording their mortgage - being kicked out of their rented accommodation - unable to find somewhere to rent - unable to afford somewhere to rent - badly maintained rented properties - bad public transport making commutes miserable - increasing petrol prices - unaffordable nursery fees - long NHS wait times - unable to find an NHS dentist - crime Please explain why and how privacy can rank above this on a day to day basis about things they have the energy to care about. You kind of acknowledged this but then disregard it

trackflak 3y ago
It seems like the government playbook reads as follows: - Make the practicalities of everyday life extremely miserable - Make the population worn down and apathetic because things are so bad, a better life unattainable for all but a few - Then, no one will notice while we pass bills that heavily restrict your liberty and vastly entrench our power - Profit It's a sinister genius, and smacks of contempt for the governed.
- gnfargbl 3y ago
  Who is the evil bond villain behind this dastardly plan, exactly? The UK government has made the practicalities of everyday life extremely miserable through a combination of (a) ham-fisted political decisions (Brexit referendum held for party-political reasons, followed by the multi-decade car crash that is still ongoing); plus (b) plain and simple not giving a single shit about the majority of the population, because it isn't in the personal interests of most of the current set of ruling MPs to give said shit. There's no overarching devious plan to enslave us all, here. It's just classic honest-to-goodness incompetence and disinterest.
  - xeonmc 3y ago
    So what you’re saying is, they’re just incompetent rather than malicious?

sph 3y ago

I, for one, am not apathethic, but still feel completely powerless. Politicians do not represent me, the people have stopped protesting because it's been outlawed and it's completely useless. But I am still looking to spend my energy in decentralised, fully-encrypted networks, I'm still banging on about the sham that is our democratic Western world, and researching modern technological ways to protest against the status quo (agorism, etc.) It's small but honest work, yet the vast majority of people, here included, think working with the system and the thieves is better than accepting we've been lied to for decades. But the point is, we are powerless against any decision Westminster does. We are all waiting to vote the other party next year, and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? After all, they too care about the children, and it is us that want to harbour pedophiles. (I am thoroughly disgusted by how major newspapers have framed this law as a win, or relegated it to a footnote.)

kmlx 3y ago
> and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? step back? they're criticising the government for not doing more/watering it down. if anything the next government will strengthen these rules, not water them down.
- sph 3y ago
  Anything for children safety, right? I have said years ago that all our rights, in all Western nations, will be stripped with that excuse, because it's so damn easy to convince the laymen that it's for the good of the children, and paint protestors are pedophile apologists. Child safety laws are the Trojan horse of surveillance.
  - jjgreen 3y ago
    Child safety is what is pushed in the press, the act itself is filled with "content harmful to children and adults", see section 46 for the details. Nice to know that Bravermen and the rest of them are protecting us from harm.

yungporko 3y ago

yep, we're a nation of cowards and we deserve it.

makingstuffs 3y ago

I said it in another post and it got downvoted but the fact is democracy just simply does not exist. This political apathy from the masses is the outcome of people being slowly ground down over the past decade+ and is intentional. Whether it is by carefully curated news articles aimed at pushing a specific agenda via complex algorithms, or just the complete omission of important current events (London Riots, anyone?) we have all been getting moulded into apathetic sacks of flesh and bone, spending the majority of our lives accruing tax bills to pay the salaries of those whom avoid tax altogether.[0][1] We have allowed ourselves to get into a situation where a paedophilic monarch walks freely and part-takes in elaborate, televised, celebrations while those whom call him a paedo end up being arrested.[2] We are in a situation where our most vital services are underfunded, their staff are grossly underpaid/overworked and our government have the audacity to tell people to go outside on a Thursday night and make some noise for them. All the while refusing to pay them what they are worth.[3][4] We are in a situation where a young girl gets kidnapped, raped and killed by a police officer which then leads to protestors being arrested[5] How can the 'will of the people' be enacted when 'the people' are constantly lied to and manipulated? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/09/rishi-sunak-akshata-murty-accused-avoiding-millions-taxes-labour https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/09/rishi-sunak... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64360260 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64360260 [2] https://www.insider.com/heckler-arrested-after-calling-prince-andrew-sick-old-man-2022-9 https://www.insider.com/heckler-arrested-after-calling-princ... [3] https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/information-for-the-public-on-industrial-action/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/information-for-the-pub... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/clap-for-our-carers-the-very-unbritish-ritual-that-united-the-nation https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/clap-for-our... [5] https://theconversation.com/sarah-everard-vigil-shows-the-urgent-need-to-protect-the-right-to-protest-156546 https://theconversation.com/sarah-everard-vigil-shows-the-ur...

Nursie 3y ago
While I agree with a lot of what you’ve said … Prince Andrew isn’t the monarch. He’s a Royal, certainly, but we * only have one monarch. I’d prefer it be zero, of course… And I would add to your list the arrest of the anti-monarchy protestors before the coronation. That was awful. * I say ‘we’, I’m watching on from Australia these days. Unfortunately they’re our bloody royals too.

varispeed 3y ago

There is nothing you can do, because the "opposition" also supports this.

corobo 3y ago

What are we going to do? This went through with no vote that I am aware of. I emailed my MP a while back when I first heard of this, I'll let you know when she gets back to me. Short of a 1-man protest (is protesting still legal?) I got nothing.

gpderetta 3y ago
You can protest from the comfort of your own ho NO CARRIER

guntherhermann 3y ago

I'm not apathetic, I write to my MP, and I tell my non-techie friends about the implications. I donate to the EFF (used to donate to ORG until they decided other issues are more important than this one...). Still, nothing is done, and the slow decline into authortarianism continues. What do you do?

crtasm 3y ago
What happened with ORG? Their email on Tuesday was how I heard the bill had passed.
- guntherhermann 3y ago
  I still get their updates and saw that email, too -- but I get the idea that their main focus seems to be on immigration law (e.g. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/fines-hiked-for-firms-employing-illegal-migrants/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/fines-hiked-for-firms-e..., https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/migrant-rights-update-july-2023/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/migrant-rights-update-j...) I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of migrants, but I didn't think that was the purpose of the ORG, so I stopped donating. I'd really rather they focus their entire resources on internet privacy/democracy, instead of spreading their limited resources thinly on a bunch of other - however important - issues
gambiting 3y ago
Same things really, never got a reply from my MP, but the only action that feels like it achieves "something" is donating to the EFF since they are somewhat effective at lobbying.
- guntherhermann 3y ago
  Sorry, I can see how my last sentence may have come across as accusative; I meant it as "What does one do?" -- Short of a grassroots level / peasants revolt I don't know what we can do (and realistically, I'm too lazy to organise such an event)

tim333 3y ago

Brit here. I'm apathetic going on mildly in favour. On the downside it limits the privacy of people who can't be bothered to turn on a VPN. On the plus it may protect kids from being bullied to suicide etc (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11707945/Britain-war-tech-giants-proposed-online-safety-bill-desperately-needed.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11707945/Britain-wa...). I'm in favour of protecting kids and capable of clicking the VPN button. That said I'm a bit meh as it's unclear how well it will work if at all.

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alt227 3y ago
The whole point of this bill is that your VPN will either be backdoored, or your ISP will be forced to block it. Then you have 0 options. Governments have legislative control over the companies which provide you an internet connection, physical infrustructure which your connection runs over, and network/IT hardware which is allowed to be sold and imported in your country that makes the internet possible, as well as the vendor which made and sold you your device you use to access the internet. There is no way to win against this.

ekianjo 3y ago

> mainstream media Mainstream media is just another name for propaganda at this stage

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> fact that this is getting 0 coverage from mainstream media doesn't help. That's not true. Maybe the Times HE isn't "mainstream" any more, but I just wrote a scathing piece which is leading the magazine this month, about how we got the Online Safety Bill as the wages of technical ignorance and abandoning basic digital literacy for three generations. The OSB is essentially a good thing. It's designed with a good heart, and addresses many abuses of technology that government should rightly legislate on. The implementation is garbage. It was written by people who were not competent to do so, since they were advised by deceptive and self-interested parties, and were not able to distinguish computer science from wishful thinking. The Times article places some of the blame on our crumbing university system (which is now run by professional managers instead of academics and no longer serves the public interest). UK universities now provide only expensive training certificates and no longer strive for education of the kind that produces leadership. As a result we get Michelle Donelan serving as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, because there nobody else to fill the post except someone with a degree in History and a career in Marketing. Besides, government and the state institutions cannot compete with Big Tech, and so we cannot recruit conscientious and technically capable people to key roles (Sunak plays up to the "tech savvy" persona, but is another PPE grad who blags his way by association and bluster).

easytiger 3y ago

They are right. This bill has cross party consensus. The opposition once said it didn't go far enough. There's nothing you can do. The blob cometh.

globular-toast 3y ago

People in the UK are either: - Descended from the very rich (and therefore still very rich), - Descended from people who said "meh, what are you going to do" and didn't move to America.

DrBazza 3y ago

It is getting coverage from the MSM in the UK. The BBC's angle is teenage sexting and premeditated teenage gang attacks (especially one that ended in murder). Of course those things should be prevented. As usual with the UK government, there's a guy at the bottom of the pile that "knows tech" and can make a real world assessment and comes up with a pragmatic approach. That is then diluted by the increasingly tech-ignorant layers of the Civil Service, to the point where they might as well not have bothered, and we get our Dear Leader promoting a "safety bill" that isn't fit for purpose. On the plus side, I expect we'll see an uptick in Mullvad subscriptions in the UK.