3 ms·

> I think they are both ineffective. So I don't believe that is true. I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful

> I think they are both ineffective. So I don't believe that is true. I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter. Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction. Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them.

ReaperCub 1y ago
> I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter. It won't be effective in this case. It been going in the same direction of travel and none of the parties (including outsider parties such as the Greens, Reform etc) proclaim to believe in in reversing this direction of travel. They are much more interested in other issues that are much more hot button. Those issues are easy for the public to understand because they are likely to have encountered them often. > Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction. No it won't. People will either find a way to circumvent via VPN/Tor or some other mechanism (which is what they already do) or they will simply shrug their shoulders and won't bother. There has already been a large number of forums/sites that have been shutdown or site been blocked in the UK and there hasn't been any significant traction on this issue. > Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them. I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level). I have personally made attempts. I wrote to my MP often. I cited links, news articles etc to back up my argument. It was an utter waste of time. At best you may get a short response. I realised I was ultimately wasting my time, I stopped and will never do it again. I actually feel stupid for believing that I could make any difference at all. I suspect this is the experience for other people and is often not spoken about. Moreover much more notable people have tried to make themselves heard around a number of related concerns about freedom of speech, threats to privacy, iffy counter-terrorism laws etc. More often than not has always been either ignored entirely, responses that completely ignored the crux of the issue, or straight up lies from successive governments for almost two decades now. Realistically our options will be to learn to live with the poor legislation, circumvent it, or leave the country.
- teamonkey 1y ago
  > I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level) This is partly a perception issue. You need to adjust your expectations. Individually you are unlikely to make a difference. You write a letter and are knocked back, you see no immediate impact and all your human senses are telling you “this didn’t work”. That is how the human mind works. It’s very demoralising (arguably by design). You feel like you are the only one acting, because you do not see anyone else acting, and therefore you feel alone on this issue, and knowing you do not have the individual pressure to move the needle, you feel it is shouting into the void. This is a human feeling but it is not necessarily reality. You don’t know who else has acted on this, who has written letters, what the various MP Signal chats are saying. You have no way to gauge support. Therefore you should make the efforts even if there is no positive feedback, because there are unseen forces. You might also need less political pressure than you think. MPs are human. Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament. Continual pressure on all fronts. Keep pushing, help efforts that gain more support and build more pressure. It’s all you can do but also the least you can do.
  - ReaperCub 1y ago
    This reply you have given me is why I don't like having these conversations. You fundamentally still believe that the democratic process can work. I don't even believe it really exists. I believe what you see happening publicly is nothing more than political theatre. > Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament. Lets pretend this did happen. What happens next is when some tragedy occurs (there are plenty that happen unfortunately) e.g. a teenage girl committing suicide because she was bullied on Instagram. Then every major news website, news paper and news broadcast runs with "Dangerous Internet Trolls caused the suicide of lovely teenage girl". Then there is a series of "discussions" about the issues on Question Time or LBC. The solutions presented will be various draconian measures which means more censorship, monitoring and surveillance. They will have a token person (that is often unlike-able) arguing against more draconian measures for "balance" which will be derided by the rest of the panel (and often the audience). After that you are back to square one, because it is now politically toxic. This is known as "manufacturing consent". I've seen this play out literally hundreds of times now.

ReaperCub 1y ago

> I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter. It won't be effective in this case. It been going in the same direction of travel and none of the parties (including outsider parties such as the Greens, Reform etc) proclaim to believe in in reversing this direction of travel. They are much more interested in other issues that are much more hot button. Those issues are easy for the public to understand because they are likely to have encountered them often. > Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction. No it won't. People will either find a way to circumvent via VPN/Tor or some other mechanism (which is what they already do) or they will simply shrug their shoulders and won't bother. There has already been a large number of forums/sites that have been shutdown or site been blocked in the UK and there hasn't been any significant traction on this issue. > Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them. I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level). I have personally made attempts. I wrote to my MP often. I cited links, news articles etc to back up my argument. It was an utter waste of time. At best you may get a short response. I realised I was ultimately wasting my time, I stopped and will never do it again. I actually feel stupid for believing that I could make any difference at all. I suspect this is the experience for other people and is often not spoken about. Moreover much more notable people have tried to make themselves heard around a number of related concerns about freedom of speech, threats to privacy, iffy counter-terrorism laws etc. More often than not has always been either ignored entirely, responses that completely ignored the crux of the issue, or straight up lies from successive governments for almost two decades now. Realistically our options will be to learn to live with the poor legislation, circumvent it, or leave the country.

teamonkey 1y ago
> I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level) This is partly a perception issue. You need to adjust your expectations. Individually you are unlikely to make a difference. You write a letter and are knocked back, you see no immediate impact and all your human senses are telling you “this didn’t work”. That is how the human mind works. It’s very demoralising (arguably by design). You feel like you are the only one acting, because you do not see anyone else acting, and therefore you feel alone on this issue, and knowing you do not have the individual pressure to move the needle, you feel it is shouting into the void. This is a human feeling but it is not necessarily reality. You don’t know who else has acted on this, who has written letters, what the various MP Signal chats are saying. You have no way to gauge support. Therefore you should make the efforts even if there is no positive feedback, because there are unseen forces. You might also need less political pressure than you think. MPs are human. Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament. Continual pressure on all fronts. Keep pushing, help efforts that gain more support and build more pressure. It’s all you can do but also the least you can do.
- ReaperCub 1y ago
  This reply you have given me is why I don't like having these conversations. You fundamentally still believe that the democratic process can work. I don't even believe it really exists. I believe what you see happening publicly is nothing more than political theatre. > Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament. Lets pretend this did happen. What happens next is when some tragedy occurs (there are plenty that happen unfortunately) e.g. a teenage girl committing suicide because she was bullied on Instagram. Then every major news website, news paper and news broadcast runs with "Dangerous Internet Trolls caused the suicide of lovely teenage girl". Then there is a series of "discussions" about the issues on Question Time or LBC. The solutions presented will be various draconian measures which means more censorship, monitoring and surveillance. They will have a token person (that is often unlike-able) arguing against more draconian measures for "balance" which will be derided by the rest of the panel (and often the audience). After that you are back to square one, because it is now politically toxic. This is known as "manufacturing consent". I've seen this play out literally hundreds of times now.