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This is the only power they have left. The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island so now the bureaucrats play

This is the only power they have left. The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island so now the bureaucrats play a fantasy game where they are gonna enforce their rules and dominion in their former colonies or the digital world.

lokar 1y ago
While I disapprove of what the gov is doing here, I think it’s incorrect and unhelpful to put all the blame on them. AIUI, the UK is a democracy and these policies are generally supported by the voters.
- 123pie123 1y ago
  really? From my anecdotal evidence, is that it's fucking stupid and hated
  - lokar 1y ago
    They have fair and competitive elections, no?
    - dijit 1y ago
      our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power. The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split. It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.
      - HPsquared 1y ago
        Popular politicians tend to do the most damage.
      - rhdunn 1y ago
        I'd say it is the other way around. -- Support for the Tories/Conservatives has collapsed to the point where they are 4th or even 5th place! Reform have benefitted most from this shift. [1]-[4] The left wing is seeing Labour voters shift to the Lib Dems, Greens, Jeremy Corbin's new party, and Reform. [1] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/services_lsdm.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/services_lsdm.html (April) [2] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625... (June) [3] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html (July) [4] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250731.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250731.... (August)
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
      Western democracies have fair and competitive elections in the same way they have fair and competitive markets for things like internet access or mobile phones. You are effectively only allowed to choose between a very carefully managed set of choice that are provided to you. This set of choices is often so dire and distant from people's actual desires that many just don't bother voting at all. George Carlin used the analogy of restaurant to modern democracy. You have the appearance of choice because you are handed a menu where you can choose liberal or conversative or green party, etc. But all of the actual policies and laws are drawn up by the same chefs in the back and you eat what you are served.
      - lokar 1y ago
        This is my point. You need to identify the source of the problem if you want to take action. Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        > Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful. Bureaucrats are the ones making the rules of the game we have to play. So why shouldn't we blame them?
        Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        Chain of events is the lobbyists write the policies that are handed to the politicians who vote them in, then to the bureaucrats to execute them. But the lobbyists work for the rich and the power. They are ultimately the chefs and ones who decide what the rules will be.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        You are correct. But I don't see how we can fix this. Revolutions or rioting, is not the right idea either. A successful and well functioning democracy requires constant monitoring, involvement and pressure from citizens to hold it accountable, otherwise it gets captured by monopolies and malicious actors with money, who will steer politics in their favor instead of the citizens' favor. The problem with that is that most citizens today are too burdened by the cost of living and sorting their own lives to have time and energy for political activism. The only ones who do are retired boomers and they only care that their pensions and house prices are going up.
    - rwmj 1y ago
      First past the post, so no, not really.
    - stuaxo 1y ago
      First past the post, and not proportionally representative - so could be improved a lot.
    - anikom15 1y ago
      The People’s Republic of China has elections, no?
  - Barrin92 1y ago
    there's a reason anecdotes aren't data. While people are more divided on the effectiveness, there's pretty overwhelming pubblic support for laws like the Online Safety Act. https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-britons-reacted-to-age-verification https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-brit... It's always slightly surprising to see Americans online react to this thinking there is some Illuminati conspiracy happening. Britain and Europe are not the US, we don't have much of an interest of having 4chan dictate public policy. It's also a good lesson in how effective platforms like Twitter can be in manipulating public perception, given that the same users now seem to be able to openly agitate over there.
    - dingnuts 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - quesera 1y ago
        Ignorant and dismissive, sure. But racist? What does that word mean, then?
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      > It's always slightly surprising to see Americans online react to this thinking there is some Illuminati conspiracy happening. Britain and Europe are not the US, we don't have much of an interest of having 4chan dictate public policy. Too late by about nine years at the very least.
  - jdietrich 1y ago
    Weirdly, the majority of the British public a) support age verification, b) aren't willing to use age verification themselves and c) don't think it'll actually work. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-age-checks-are-sceptical-effectiveness-and-unwilling-share-id https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-...
    - stuartjohnson12 1y ago
      The phrasing on these polls is really unhelpful because it doesn't include the actor. "To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography" is like asking me "To what extent do you support the detainment of people suspected of theft" and then concluding I support vigilante mobs dragging people out of their homes when I answer in the affirmative. The means IS the question - the sad meltdown we're all about to witness as the UK government realises their lack of jurisdiction is because the actor is wrong, not because the end is wrong. The phrasing should be "To what extent do you support or oppose the British government enforcing the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography" Forcing major device manufacturers to implement these content blocks to a certain level of rigour is the obvious, enforceable, effective, minimally invasive way to achieve this entirely reasonable goal. I can believe that pornography consumption by preteens is not a good thing and that this implementation is stupid at the same time.
    - burkaman 1y ago
      Reading the polling questions, it doesn't actually seem that contradictory. > To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography? Most people say support, presumably thinking "yeah those things seem bad and kids shouldn't be able to look at them". > How likely or unlikely would you be to submit any proof of age (e.g. a photo/ video, photographic ID, using banking information, digital ID wallets etc) in order to access... Messaging apps / Social media websites / Online discussion forums / User-generated encyclopedias / Dating apps / Pornography websites "Ok no I don't like this method, and obviously I'm not going to submit a photo of myself to look at porn." I don't think anybody hearing the first question was thinking "yes I support age verification even if it means blocking Wikipedia". > And how confident, if at all, are you that the Online Safety Act will prevent children and people under 18 from seeing illegal and harmful material online? Nothing contradictory about supporting a policy that you don't think will completely work, especially after realizing that you yourself would probably try to get around it. I think combining or switching the first two questions might produce very different results.
  - cbsmith 1y ago
    Behold, the power of the anecdote.
- linuxftw 1y ago
  > AIUI, the UK is a democracy The House of Lords disagrees and the Monarch disagree. Sometimes they cosplay as a democracy.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jon-wood 1y ago
    Neither the House of Lords or the Monarch can actually stop Parliament passing a law. They can in some cases slow them down, but if Parliament really wants a law passed it will happen.
    - apolitic 1y ago
      As shown by the proroguing of parliament by Boris Johnson on the September 9th, from September 10th to October 14th in 2019 (1), just a couple of months before the COVID19 pandemic landed and the first cases were being reported. This action to prorogue was however later deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court on the 24th September 2019 (2). See recent changes to senior members, and subsequent rulings on matters of state importance by the Supreme Court for a look at what happens when they try to correct parliamentary actions by the ruling party. They have been singing from the governmental hymn sheet ever since. Whither democracy? Whither justice? 1. https://labourheartlands.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-as-no-deal-brexit-imminent/ https://labourheartlands.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-a... 2. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme-court-on-the-prorogation-of-parliament/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme...
    - anikom15 1y ago
      Democracy cannot stop Parliament from passing a law either. UK is Parliament first, democracy second.
    - kps 1y ago
      The House of Lords is part of Parliament.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  > AIUI, the UK is a democracy and these policies are generally supported by the voters. When were UK citizens polled on these policies before politicians started enforcing them? And I think after Brexit, the UK government learned never to ask the opinions of their citizens again, because they will vote in direct opposition of the political status quo out of sheer spite of their politicians. There are huge flaws with our current democratic systems: like sure we can vote, but after the people we vote for get into power, we have no control over what they do until next election cycle. So you can be a democracy on paper while your government is doing things you don't approve of. Most people I talk to in the west, both here in Europe and in North America, don't seem to approve of what their government is doing on important topics, and at the same time they feel hopeless in being able to change that because either the issues are never on the table, or if they are, the politicians do a 180 once they get voted to power or forget about them because political promises are worthless and non-binding, meaning they lied themselves into power. So given these issues ask yourself, is that really a true democracy, or just an illusion of choice of direction while you're actually riding a trolly track?
  - hluska 1y ago
    That’s a form of political change - direct representation democracy and recall legislation are both possibilities. The solution is to make electoral change happen, not to complain that everything is hopeless on the internet.
    - adiabatichottub 1y ago
      But how can those changes be made if the representatives don't act to make them? It would take a pretty big act of solidarity amongst various constituencies to send the message that failure to act is not an option.
      - jlokier 1y ago
        Since we're talking about the UK, in 2010 negotations after a hung parliament produced an opportunity to move towards something a little more representative: The 2011 referendum on changing to AV voting from first-past-the-post. Unfortunately, voters rejected that change quite strongly, and that probably set the trend for a while against further steps to proportional or more direct democratic systems. AV is a type of transferable vote system, and a step closer to proportional representation. In AV you get two votes, so you can vote for your preferred candidate first (who may be niche but represents you better), and your tactical-vote candidate second (who doesn't represent you but are better than the even-worse candidate). As opposed to the current FPTP system, where you often have to tactical-vote for candidates who don't represent your interests much, and your actual preference is not recorded at all. Even though AV is far from ideal, if voters had said yes then I think just the symbolism of changing the system, would have resulted in a greater inclination to change the system again later. AV, STV and PR have been debated a number of times in the UK parliament in the last centery, so it does keep coming up, and will likely come up again, eventually.
- hkt 1y ago
  The UK hasn't elected a government on 50% or more of the vote since the 1950s: https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections-vote-share-by-party-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections... It is hard to call minority rule democratic, really. I've no issue with your point on the OSA and think it is widely supported, but let's be realistic, representation in the UK is virtual on matters like this: widely supported, but mostly by coincidence.
  - cbsmith 1y ago
    I think you're making the original poster's point for them. It's very clear a minority government is not the one forcing OSA on people. They don't even have the power. Arguably, minority rule is more democratic than majority rule, because minority rule isn't "the minority does whatever they want".
  - overfeed 1y ago
    2-party electoral systems (likely to bear >50% majority governments) are also not very democratic, in a way. There's no perfect system, but I prefer minority governments to a 2-party duopoly. YMMV.
    - grues-dinner 1y ago
      The UK has been effectively a two party system anyway within living memory (Labour and Tories). Only rarely (e.g. 2010) does the token third party, the Lib Dems) get to be in coalition, and I think no one else has won anything since 1910. In a monkey's paw moment for everyone who dislikes only having effectively two parties to choose from, this may soon be changing as Reform is poised to overtake the Tories.
      - hdgvhicv 1y ago
        Technically 2017-19 was a minority government where a party in Northern Ireland sold its votes for about £100k/mp/vote to prop up May.
      - overfeed 1y ago
- macinjosh 1y ago
  Democracy is a form of government, not an ideology. Just because +50% of an electorate thinks something is OK, doesn't make it so.
  - lokar 1y ago
    I agree. But it does matter if you want to do more then rant on the internet. If there is public support you need to educate people and change minds.
  - dpc050505 1y ago
    The form of government that applies democracy is rooted in the ideology that the majority knows best, which is the ideological version of democracy.
    - kibwen 1y ago
      > rooted in the ideology that the majority knows best Let's be careful here, the point in favor of democracy is not that the majority knows best, but rather if that people are to be subject to laws, then those same people should have an equal share in determining what those laws are. IOW, the point of democracy is to give the people what they deserve, and no more.
    - soraminazuki 1y ago
      When people talk about democracies, they almost always refer to liberal democracies. With liberal democracies, I believe it's more about self-determination or fair representation than who knows best. The point is to prevent tyranny, including majority tyranny. There can be no liberal democracy without the protection of human rights and the of law.
  - pegasus 1y ago
    Parent was correctly pointing out that responsibility for whatever troubles the UK might be actually encountering should be distributed as democratically as its form of government actually is.
  - kelseyfrog 1y ago
- mathiaspoint 1y ago
  The people in charge are largely hated by the electorate. They won by default effectively due to a quirk of how UK elections work (which was less of a problem when the monarch/aristocracy was still involved to counter balance things like this, but now that that's gone the state is effectively out of control.) Unless by "democracy" you mean "sleepwalking administration everyone hates" the current UK government is unusually undemocratic.
  - 4ndrewl 1y ago
    Tell me about this "quirk" and winning by "default" (and how this never applied to other recent elections).
    - mathiaspoint 1y ago
      Less than 30% of the electorate voted labour. The problem is that the opposing party consistently ran as opposition but then executed on labour's policies instead so most people just didn't vote because they didn't see anyone running to vote for. The electorate legitimately did not want these people or their policies, they effectively weren't given a choice. To call that democracy delegtimizes democratic elections.
      - Symbiote 1y ago
        Everyone also had the choice to vote Green or Liberal Democrat. I believe both promise electoral reform.
        incone123 1y ago
        They can promise whatever they like knowing there's very little chance they will be put to the test. The last time the Lib Dems got a taste of power in 2010 it was by going into coalition with the Tories at the cost of dumping key election pledges. Next election they were dumped by the public and their leader Nick Clegg was hired by Meta - presumably for his connections as he has no particular talent to sell.
- scythe 1y ago
  The goal of the policy is supported by the voters. The polls used to measure this are shifty at best about the implementation details. Who doesn't want to prevent kids from looking at pornography? But plenty of things are popular if you ask people in a way that makes them ignore how it plays out in real life. Laws against tall buildings are a pretty good example. Land reform was extremely popular in many socialist countries until it actually happened. I'm sure you can think of other examples. In this case the ministers know what the problems are. The policy is not new or unique to the UK and it has been done better in Louisiana of all places: https://reason.com/2024/03/18/pornhub-pulls-out-of-seventh-state/ https://reason.com/2024/03/18/pornhub-pulls-out-of-seventh-s... > The difference is in the details of complying with Louisiana's law. Verifying visitor ages in Louisiana does not require porn sites to directly collect user IDs. Rather, the state's government helped develop a third-party service called LA Wallet, which stores digital driver's licenses and serves as an online age verification credential that affords some privacy.
  - andrepd 1y ago
    > Land reform was extremely popular in many socialist countries until it actually happened Actually, land reforms were spectacularly popular—and very successful—in many countries like Guatemala or Vietnam (coincidentally, two places that were invaded by the US in an attempt to revert those reforms, one successful and the other not).
    - scythe 1y ago
      That's not really the point. You can always think of another example. I was talking about the Online Safety Act.
- sunshine-o 1y ago
  I understand the people might wanna block porn on their kids mobile internet and home WiFi. So why don't they mandate their ISP to implement this as an optional feature ? Why do they instead try to boil the ocean by going after every website on the planet and outside of their jurisdiction?
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    Their isps already offer this, actually. You have to show id to them to get it turned pff.
    - hdgvhicv 1y ago
      I don’t have to show ID, but I do have to pay the bill, which means a direct debit, which means over 18. The correct solution (in addition to bill layer control and arguably compulsory support for an “over 18” tag in dns which would be easy enough to implement for the same sites that currently demand over 18s, would be to help parents utilise parental controls (having recently been through it with Minecraft and fortnight it was a nightmarish gordian knot. The hand wringing about how evil vpns are is the same. My son can’t install mullvad or whatever on his phone without my approval thanks to apple’s parental controls. I assume android has the same. The goal has never been to empower parents though
      - J_McQuade 1y ago
        I think the correct solution would be to make parents responsible for actually using those controls, as they always have been for controlling a child's access to such materials in other media. For example, if you have a stack of explicit DVDs and it becomes apparent that your child has access to them, then you will likely get a visit from social services and potentially suffer legal consequences up to and including removal of custody. I honestly have no idea why stuff on the internet is treated differently. Internet providers are already required to check that you are over 18 (much as the person selling you those DVDs is) - if you then share the content that this makes available with a child, then you should be held responsible in the same way. It was sufficient with print, VHS, Sky TV, etc. - why not the internet?
- jonplackett 1y ago
  Most people are either blissfully unaware or don’t understand the ramifications of a policy until it becomes law
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  > generally supported by the voters you could say the same about the US... that doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean people aren't violently voting against their own best interests.
  - o11c 1y ago
    It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests. First they came for 4chan and I said nothing, because good riddance! This is not a slippery slope; this is a spring trying to return to the center. The harder the resistance at the extremes, the more energetic the oscillation will be, so if we want to minimize that, work on undermining the intolerable extremes. The sheer anarchy of the libertarian mindset that much of this site supports is not a good thing.
    - m-s-y 1y ago
      >It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests. Absolutely, 100% incorrect. You obviously don't approve of 4chan's content or mission, but that's not the point. It benefits everyone when anyone takes a stand because their legal rights are under attack. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." >This is not a slippery slope Again, incorrect. Any type of punishment for 4chan due to their legal content is damn close to the definition of "slippery slope". You're familiar with the "anti-slippery slope" argument already ("First they came for 4chan and I said nothing, because good riddance!"), so you're obviously cogent enough to understand what you're saying. >The sheer anarchy of the libertarian mindset that much of this site supports is not a good thing. This is not for you to decide. Your mindset is why free speech laws must exist in the first place.
      - o11c 1y ago
        The whole point of this is that what counts as "legal" is permitted to change. In particular, "legal under some circumstances" is a thing.
    - ranger_danger 1y ago
- tmnvix 1y ago
  I've posted this before, but it's relevant here: 'The UK’s Online Safety Act didn’t come from Parliament or the public' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ2AokZujC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ2AokZujC0 (watch from about 4:20)
  - klelatti 1y ago
    > 'The UK’s Online Safety Act didn’t come from Parliament or the public' It was debated at length in parliament and it was voted into legislation by parliament. It was developed by a Tory government and has been implemented by a Labour one. I don't like the OSA but the whole 'robber baron' organisation thing in that video is just .. well Andrew Carnegie died more than a hundred years ago. He funded a lot of charitable organisations including one that has funded work in this area.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  “Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos”
- anikom15 1y ago
  Both major parties in the UK supported this.
zahlman 1y ago
> The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island so now the bureaucrats play a fantasy game... It seems to me like said loss of control is largely the result of other actions by the same bureaucrats.
Ecstatify 1y ago
Reads like narration from Adam Curtis.
- stuaxo 1y ago
  "What happened next..."
mintplant 1y ago
> The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island What do you mean by this?
- decremental 1y ago
  [dead]
- monkey_monkey 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Could just as easily be referring to brexit.
- input_sh 1y ago
  Racism with extra steps.
realo 1y ago
So ... if the USA was ok with kid pornography then everyone else in the world would be forced to be ok with that too? Sorry but other countries are totally right to block whatever they deem to be USA shit.
- dismalpedigree 1y ago
  Yes. UK has every right to block whatever they want. US has no obligation to assist them in any way.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jonplackett 1y ago
This is part of a wider trend of trying to solve real world problems with the stroke of a pen. It’s not going well.
- scarmig 1y ago
  Banning 4chan is just part of the UK's efforts to prevent drought. Every jpg shared and string written helps drain the oceans: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-government-inexplicably-tells-citizens-to-delete-old-emails-and-pictures-to-save-water-during-national-drought-data-centres-require-vast-amounts-of-water-to-cool-their-systems https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-government-ine...
- behringer 1y ago
  4chan and websites like it have never been the problem.
  - immibis 1y ago
    4chan is a major part of the reason why the guy who's currently destroying the USA has the power to currently destroy the USA. That's not nothing. That's very far from nothing.
- _mlbt 1y ago
  Just give up a few more rights…for everyone’s safety. Think of the children!
  - transcriptase 1y ago
    “just one more law bro. i promise bro just one more law and we’ll be safe bro. it’s just a little more surveillance bro. please just one more. one more law and we’ll stop all the threats bro. bro c’mon just give me access to your data and we’ll protect you i promise bro. think of the children bro. bro bro please we just need one more law bro, one more camera, one more database, and then we’ll all be safe bro”
    - 1y ago
hungmung 1y ago
Same thing has been happening for a long time in America. Politicians are typically risk adverse and the real world has complicated problems so they make up a 'virtual' problem to 'fix', or to turn into a new political football. Politics has become its own end: politicians have job security, and nothing changes except for the worse because constituents keep falling for the same tired shit.
- ASalazarMX 1y ago
  This is demagogy 101: invent or exagerate a problem, and offer yourself as the only true solution. It's a recipe as old as bread, nothing particularly US centric.
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    It's peaking again in the USA though and it's immigrants. They have replaced the "Commie" (when it last peaked in the 50s) as an imagined threat that lies around every corner that seems to appeal to a certain large minority in the USA that needs something to blame for everything other than their own inaction and choice to not adapt.
- bko 1y ago
  I don't know if that's really it. In the US, sure, there was a direct line of communication between all the large social media companies and the federal government. It was used to censor what was deemed "conspiracy theories" around covid and election interference. That could be seen as protecting politicians. But in the UK, what I read about is cases where it offended someone, like the case of a an autistic teenage girl who was arrested after she made a comment to a police officer, reportedly saying the officer looked like her "lesbian nana." Obviously this doesn't threaten government control or politicians, so it doesn't exactly fit the same mold. https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-censorship https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-ce... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/15nddel/autistic_girl_arrested_for_saying_officer_looked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/15nddel/autisti...
- EasyMark 1y ago
cut3 1y ago
isnt this everyone in power?
bko 1y ago
I heard things about UK arresting people for social media posts but thought it was just a few cases cherry picked. But I recently looked up the scale of arrests and it's really insane. Police are arresting over 12,000 people each year for social media posts and other online communications deemed “grossly offensive,” “indecent,” “obscene,” or “menacing.” This averages to around 33 arrests per day. These arrests are primarily made under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988, laws which criminalize causing “annoyance,” “inconvenience,” or “anxiety” to others through digital messages. Utterly insane. https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-struggle-30-arrests-a-day-censorship/ https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...
- PieTime 1y ago
  Sadly this trend is echoed in the US as well since 2023 many have been arrested for their freedom of speech https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo
  - bko 1y ago
    I don't think that's the same thing: > The DHS statement says that Ms Kordia had overstayed her student visa, which had been terminated in 2022 "for lack of attendance". It did not say whether she had been attending Columbia or another institution. I think it's entirely different arresting people who overstay their visas or people on student visas that disrupt academic life. The UK regularly arrests citizens for offensive memes. There have even been cases where someone got a harsher sentence based on a tweet about sexual assault than the person who actually committed a sexual assault. You can feel any way you'd like about free speech in America, but let's not conflate the two as being equal.
    - verzali 1y ago
      I'm far more worried that America will stop me at the border and mistreat me for something I wrote online than I am about the UK. Heck, I'm more worried about visiting the US than China at the moment. The America effort to suppress free speech is very real.
cyanydeez 1y ago
America is like, 2 steps behind with an entire government following

lokar 1y ago

While I disapprove of what the gov is doing here, I think it’s incorrect and unhelpful to put all the blame on them. AIUI, the UK is a democracy and these policies are generally supported by the voters.

123pie123 1y ago
really? From my anecdotal evidence, is that it's fucking stupid and hated
- lokar 1y ago
  They have fair and competitive elections, no?
  - dijit 1y ago
    our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power. The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split. It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.
    - HPsquared 1y ago
      Popular politicians tend to do the most damage.
    - rhdunn 1y ago
      I'd say it is the other way around. -- Support for the Tories/Conservatives has collapsed to the point where they are 4th or even 5th place! Reform have benefitted most from this shift. [1]-[4] The left wing is seeing Labour voters shift to the Lib Dems, Greens, Jeremy Corbin's new party, and Reform. [1] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/services_lsdm.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/services_lsdm.html (April) [2] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625... (June) [3] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html (July) [4] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250731.html https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250731.... (August)
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
    Western democracies have fair and competitive elections in the same way they have fair and competitive markets for things like internet access or mobile phones. You are effectively only allowed to choose between a very carefully managed set of choice that are provided to you. This set of choices is often so dire and distant from people's actual desires that many just don't bother voting at all. George Carlin used the analogy of restaurant to modern democracy. You have the appearance of choice because you are handed a menu where you can choose liberal or conversative or green party, etc. But all of the actual policies and laws are drawn up by the same chefs in the back and you eat what you are served.
    - lokar 1y ago
      This is my point. You need to identify the source of the problem if you want to take action. Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        > Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful. Bureaucrats are the ones making the rules of the game we have to play. So why shouldn't we blame them?
        Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
        Chain of events is the lobbyists write the policies that are handed to the politicians who vote them in, then to the bureaucrats to execute them. But the lobbyists work for the rich and the power. They are ultimately the chefs and ones who decide what the rules will be.
        FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        You are correct. But I don't see how we can fix this. Revolutions or rioting, is not the right idea either. A successful and well functioning democracy requires constant monitoring, involvement and pressure from citizens to hold it accountable, otherwise it gets captured by monopolies and malicious actors with money, who will steer politics in their favor instead of the citizens' favor. The problem with that is that most citizens today are too burdened by the cost of living and sorting their own lives to have time and energy for political activism. The only ones who do are retired boomers and they only care that their pensions and house prices are going up.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    First past the post, so no, not really.
  - stuaxo 1y ago
    First past the post, and not proportionally representative - so could be improved a lot.
  - anikom15 1y ago
    The People’s Republic of China has elections, no?
- Barrin92 1y ago
  there's a reason anecdotes aren't data. While people are more divided on the effectiveness, there's pretty overwhelming pubblic support for laws like the Online Safety Act. https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-britons-reacted-to-age-verification https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-brit... It's always slightly surprising to see Americans online react to this thinking there is some Illuminati conspiracy happening. Britain and Europe are not the US, we don't have much of an interest of having 4chan dictate public policy. It's also a good lesson in how effective platforms like Twitter can be in manipulating public perception, given that the same users now seem to be able to openly agitate over there.
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - quesera 1y ago
      Ignorant and dismissive, sure. But racist? What does that word mean, then?
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    > It's always slightly surprising to see Americans online react to this thinking there is some Illuminati conspiracy happening. Britain and Europe are not the US, we don't have much of an interest of having 4chan dictate public policy. Too late by about nine years at the very least.
- jdietrich 1y ago
  Weirdly, the majority of the British public a) support age verification, b) aren't willing to use age verification themselves and c) don't think it'll actually work. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-age-checks-are-sceptical-effectiveness-and-unwilling-share-id https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-...
  - stuartjohnson12 1y ago
    The phrasing on these polls is really unhelpful because it doesn't include the actor. "To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography" is like asking me "To what extent do you support the detainment of people suspected of theft" and then concluding I support vigilante mobs dragging people out of their homes when I answer in the affirmative. The means IS the question - the sad meltdown we're all about to witness as the UK government realises their lack of jurisdiction is because the actor is wrong, not because the end is wrong. The phrasing should be "To what extent do you support or oppose the British government enforcing the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography" Forcing major device manufacturers to implement these content blocks to a certain level of rigour is the obvious, enforceable, effective, minimally invasive way to achieve this entirely reasonable goal. I can believe that pornography consumption by preteens is not a good thing and that this implementation is stupid at the same time.
  - burkaman 1y ago
    Reading the polling questions, it doesn't actually seem that contradictory. > To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography? Most people say support, presumably thinking "yeah those things seem bad and kids shouldn't be able to look at them". > How likely or unlikely would you be to submit any proof of age (e.g. a photo/ video, photographic ID, using banking information, digital ID wallets etc) in order to access... Messaging apps / Social media websites / Online discussion forums / User-generated encyclopedias / Dating apps / Pornography websites "Ok no I don't like this method, and obviously I'm not going to submit a photo of myself to look at porn." I don't think anybody hearing the first question was thinking "yes I support age verification even if it means blocking Wikipedia". > And how confident, if at all, are you that the Online Safety Act will prevent children and people under 18 from seeing illegal and harmful material online? Nothing contradictory about supporting a policy that you don't think will completely work, especially after realizing that you yourself would probably try to get around it. I think combining or switching the first two questions might produce very different results.
- cbsmith 1y ago
  Behold, the power of the anecdote.
linuxftw 1y ago
> AIUI, the UK is a democracy The House of Lords disagrees and the Monarch disagree. Sometimes they cosplay as a democracy.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jon-wood 1y ago
  Neither the House of Lords or the Monarch can actually stop Parliament passing a law. They can in some cases slow them down, but if Parliament really wants a law passed it will happen.
  - apolitic 1y ago
    As shown by the proroguing of parliament by Boris Johnson on the September 9th, from September 10th to October 14th in 2019 (1), just a couple of months before the COVID19 pandemic landed and the first cases were being reported. This action to prorogue was however later deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court on the 24th September 2019 (2). See recent changes to senior members, and subsequent rulings on matters of state importance by the Supreme Court for a look at what happens when they try to correct parliamentary actions by the ruling party. They have been singing from the governmental hymn sheet ever since. Whither democracy? Whither justice? 1. https://labourheartlands.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-as-no-deal-brexit-imminent/ https://labourheartlands.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-a... 2. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme-court-on-the-prorogation-of-parliament/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme...
  - anikom15 1y ago
    Democracy cannot stop Parliament from passing a law either. UK is Parliament first, democracy second.
  - kps 1y ago
    The House of Lords is part of Parliament.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
> AIUI, the UK is a democracy and these policies are generally supported by the voters. When were UK citizens polled on these policies before politicians started enforcing them? And I think after Brexit, the UK government learned never to ask the opinions of their citizens again, because they will vote in direct opposition of the political status quo out of sheer spite of their politicians. There are huge flaws with our current democratic systems: like sure we can vote, but after the people we vote for get into power, we have no control over what they do until next election cycle. So you can be a democracy on paper while your government is doing things you don't approve of. Most people I talk to in the west, both here in Europe and in North America, don't seem to approve of what their government is doing on important topics, and at the same time they feel hopeless in being able to change that because either the issues are never on the table, or if they are, the politicians do a 180 once they get voted to power or forget about them because political promises are worthless and non-binding, meaning they lied themselves into power. So given these issues ask yourself, is that really a true democracy, or just an illusion of choice of direction while you're actually riding a trolly track?
- hluska 1y ago
  That’s a form of political change - direct representation democracy and recall legislation are both possibilities. The solution is to make electoral change happen, not to complain that everything is hopeless on the internet.
  - adiabatichottub 1y ago
    But how can those changes be made if the representatives don't act to make them? It would take a pretty big act of solidarity amongst various constituencies to send the message that failure to act is not an option.
    - jlokier 1y ago
      Since we're talking about the UK, in 2010 negotations after a hung parliament produced an opportunity to move towards something a little more representative: The 2011 referendum on changing to AV voting from first-past-the-post. Unfortunately, voters rejected that change quite strongly, and that probably set the trend for a while against further steps to proportional or more direct democratic systems. AV is a type of transferable vote system, and a step closer to proportional representation. In AV you get two votes, so you can vote for your preferred candidate first (who may be niche but represents you better), and your tactical-vote candidate second (who doesn't represent you but are better than the even-worse candidate). As opposed to the current FPTP system, where you often have to tactical-vote for candidates who don't represent your interests much, and your actual preference is not recorded at all. Even though AV is far from ideal, if voters had said yes then I think just the symbolism of changing the system, would have resulted in a greater inclination to change the system again later. AV, STV and PR have been debated a number of times in the UK parliament in the last centery, so it does keep coming up, and will likely come up again, eventually.
hkt 1y ago
The UK hasn't elected a government on 50% or more of the vote since the 1950s: https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections-vote-share-by-party-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/717004/general-elections... It is hard to call minority rule democratic, really. I've no issue with your point on the OSA and think it is widely supported, but let's be realistic, representation in the UK is virtual on matters like this: widely supported, but mostly by coincidence.
- cbsmith 1y ago
  I think you're making the original poster's point for them. It's very clear a minority government is not the one forcing OSA on people. They don't even have the power. Arguably, minority rule is more democratic than majority rule, because minority rule isn't "the minority does whatever they want".
- overfeed 1y ago
  2-party electoral systems (likely to bear >50% majority governments) are also not very democratic, in a way. There's no perfect system, but I prefer minority governments to a 2-party duopoly. YMMV.
  - grues-dinner 1y ago
    The UK has been effectively a two party system anyway within living memory (Labour and Tories). Only rarely (e.g. 2010) does the token third party, the Lib Dems) get to be in coalition, and I think no one else has won anything since 1910. In a monkey's paw moment for everyone who dislikes only having effectively two parties to choose from, this may soon be changing as Reform is poised to overtake the Tories.
    - hdgvhicv 1y ago
      Technically 2017-19 was a minority government where a party in Northern Ireland sold its votes for about £100k/mp/vote to prop up May.
    - overfeed 1y ago
macinjosh 1y ago
Democracy is a form of government, not an ideology. Just because +50% of an electorate thinks something is OK, doesn't make it so.
- lokar 1y ago
  I agree. But it does matter if you want to do more then rant on the internet. If there is public support you need to educate people and change minds.
- dpc050505 1y ago
  The form of government that applies democracy is rooted in the ideology that the majority knows best, which is the ideological version of democracy.
  - kibwen 1y ago
    > rooted in the ideology that the majority knows best Let's be careful here, the point in favor of democracy is not that the majority knows best, but rather if that people are to be subject to laws, then those same people should have an equal share in determining what those laws are. IOW, the point of democracy is to give the people what they deserve, and no more.
  - soraminazuki 1y ago
    When people talk about democracies, they almost always refer to liberal democracies. With liberal democracies, I believe it's more about self-determination or fair representation than who knows best. The point is to prevent tyranny, including majority tyranny. There can be no liberal democracy without the protection of human rights and the of law.
- pegasus 1y ago
  Parent was correctly pointing out that responsibility for whatever troubles the UK might be actually encountering should be distributed as democratically as its form of government actually is.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago
mathiaspoint 1y ago
The people in charge are largely hated by the electorate. They won by default effectively due to a quirk of how UK elections work (which was less of a problem when the monarch/aristocracy was still involved to counter balance things like this, but now that that's gone the state is effectively out of control.) Unless by "democracy" you mean "sleepwalking administration everyone hates" the current UK government is unusually undemocratic.
- 4ndrewl 1y ago
  Tell me about this "quirk" and winning by "default" (and how this never applied to other recent elections).
  - mathiaspoint 1y ago
    Less than 30% of the electorate voted labour. The problem is that the opposing party consistently ran as opposition but then executed on labour's policies instead so most people just didn't vote because they didn't see anyone running to vote for. The electorate legitimately did not want these people or their policies, they effectively weren't given a choice. To call that democracy delegtimizes democratic elections.
    - Symbiote 1y ago
      Everyone also had the choice to vote Green or Liberal Democrat. I believe both promise electoral reform.
      - incone123 1y ago
        They can promise whatever they like knowing there's very little chance they will be put to the test. The last time the Lib Dems got a taste of power in 2010 it was by going into coalition with the Tories at the cost of dumping key election pledges. Next election they were dumped by the public and their leader Nick Clegg was hired by Meta - presumably for his connections as he has no particular talent to sell.
scythe 1y ago
The goal of the policy is supported by the voters. The polls used to measure this are shifty at best about the implementation details. Who doesn't want to prevent kids from looking at pornography? But plenty of things are popular if you ask people in a way that makes them ignore how it plays out in real life. Laws against tall buildings are a pretty good example. Land reform was extremely popular in many socialist countries until it actually happened. I'm sure you can think of other examples. In this case the ministers know what the problems are. The policy is not new or unique to the UK and it has been done better in Louisiana of all places: https://reason.com/2024/03/18/pornhub-pulls-out-of-seventh-state/ https://reason.com/2024/03/18/pornhub-pulls-out-of-seventh-s... > The difference is in the details of complying with Louisiana's law. Verifying visitor ages in Louisiana does not require porn sites to directly collect user IDs. Rather, the state's government helped develop a third-party service called LA Wallet, which stores digital driver's licenses and serves as an online age verification credential that affords some privacy.
- andrepd 1y ago
  > Land reform was extremely popular in many socialist countries until it actually happened Actually, land reforms were spectacularly popular—and very successful—in many countries like Guatemala or Vietnam (coincidentally, two places that were invaded by the US in an attempt to revert those reforms, one successful and the other not).
  - scythe 1y ago
    That's not really the point. You can always think of another example. I was talking about the Online Safety Act.
sunshine-o 1y ago
I understand the people might wanna block porn on their kids mobile internet and home WiFi. So why don't they mandate their ISP to implement this as an optional feature ? Why do they instead try to boil the ocean by going after every website on the planet and outside of their jurisdiction?
- nemomarx 1y ago
  Their isps already offer this, actually. You have to show id to them to get it turned pff.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    I don’t have to show ID, but I do have to pay the bill, which means a direct debit, which means over 18. The correct solution (in addition to bill layer control and arguably compulsory support for an “over 18” tag in dns which would be easy enough to implement for the same sites that currently demand over 18s, would be to help parents utilise parental controls (having recently been through it with Minecraft and fortnight it was a nightmarish gordian knot. The hand wringing about how evil vpns are is the same. My son can’t install mullvad or whatever on his phone without my approval thanks to apple’s parental controls. I assume android has the same. The goal has never been to empower parents though
    - J_McQuade 1y ago
      I think the correct solution would be to make parents responsible for actually using those controls, as they always have been for controlling a child's access to such materials in other media. For example, if you have a stack of explicit DVDs and it becomes apparent that your child has access to them, then you will likely get a visit from social services and potentially suffer legal consequences up to and including removal of custody. I honestly have no idea why stuff on the internet is treated differently. Internet providers are already required to check that you are over 18 (much as the person selling you those DVDs is) - if you then share the content that this makes available with a child, then you should be held responsible in the same way. It was sufficient with print, VHS, Sky TV, etc. - why not the internet?
jonplackett 1y ago
Most people are either blissfully unaware or don’t understand the ramifications of a policy until it becomes law
ranger_danger 1y ago
> generally supported by the voters you could say the same about the US... that doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean people aren't violently voting against their own best interests.
- o11c 1y ago
  It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests. First they came for 4chan and I said nothing, because good riddance! This is not a slippery slope; this is a spring trying to return to the center. The harder the resistance at the extremes, the more energetic the oscillation will be, so if we want to minimize that, work on undermining the intolerable extremes. The sheer anarchy of the libertarian mindset that much of this site supports is not a good thing.
  - m-s-y 1y ago
    >It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests. Absolutely, 100% incorrect. You obviously don't approve of 4chan's content or mission, but that's not the point. It benefits everyone when anyone takes a stand because their legal rights are under attack. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." >This is not a slippery slope Again, incorrect. Any type of punishment for 4chan due to their legal content is damn close to the definition of "slippery slope". You're familiar with the "anti-slippery slope" argument already ("First they came for 4chan and I said nothing, because good riddance!"), so you're obviously cogent enough to understand what you're saying. >The sheer anarchy of the libertarian mindset that much of this site supports is not a good thing. This is not for you to decide. Your mindset is why free speech laws must exist in the first place.
    - o11c 1y ago
      The whole point of this is that what counts as "legal" is permitted to change. In particular, "legal under some circumstances" is a thing.
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
tmnvix 1y ago
I've posted this before, but it's relevant here: 'The UK’s Online Safety Act didn’t come from Parliament or the public' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ2AokZujC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ2AokZujC0 (watch from about 4:20)
- klelatti 1y ago
  > 'The UK’s Online Safety Act didn’t come from Parliament or the public' It was debated at length in parliament and it was voted into legislation by parliament. It was developed by a Tory government and has been implemented by a Labour one. I don't like the OSA but the whole 'robber baron' organisation thing in that video is just .. well Andrew Carnegie died more than a hundred years ago. He funded a lot of charitable organisations including one that has funded work in this area.
kevinventullo 1y ago
“Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos”
anikom15 1y ago
Both major parties in the UK supported this.

zahlman 1y ago

> The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island so now the bureaucrats play a fantasy game... It seems to me like said loss of control is largely the result of other actions by the same bureaucrats.

Ecstatify 1y ago

Reads like narration from Adam Curtis.

stuaxo 1y ago
"What happened next..."

mintplant 1y ago

> The UK government has lost control of what happen in the physical world on their own island What do you mean by this?

decremental 1y ago
[dead]
monkey_monkey 1y ago
[flagged]
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Could just as easily be referring to brexit.
input_sh 1y ago
Racism with extra steps.

realo 1y ago

So ... if the USA was ok with kid pornography then everyone else in the world would be forced to be ok with that too? Sorry but other countries are totally right to block whatever they deem to be USA shit.

dismalpedigree 1y ago
Yes. UK has every right to block whatever they want. US has no obligation to assist them in any way.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

jonplackett 1y ago

This is part of a wider trend of trying to solve real world problems with the stroke of a pen. It’s not going well.

scarmig 1y ago
Banning 4chan is just part of the UK's efforts to prevent drought. Every jpg shared and string written helps drain the oceans: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-government-inexplicably-tells-citizens-to-delete-old-emails-and-pictures-to-save-water-during-national-drought-data-centres-require-vast-amounts-of-water-to-cool-their-systems https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-government-ine...
behringer 1y ago
4chan and websites like it have never been the problem.
- immibis 1y ago
  4chan is a major part of the reason why the guy who's currently destroying the USA has the power to currently destroy the USA. That's not nothing. That's very far from nothing.
_mlbt 1y ago
Just give up a few more rights…for everyone’s safety. Think of the children!
- transcriptase 1y ago
  “just one more law bro. i promise bro just one more law and we’ll be safe bro. it’s just a little more surveillance bro. please just one more. one more law and we’ll stop all the threats bro. bro c’mon just give me access to your data and we’ll protect you i promise bro. think of the children bro. bro bro please we just need one more law bro, one more camera, one more database, and then we’ll all be safe bro”
  - 1y ago

hungmung 1y ago

Same thing has been happening for a long time in America. Politicians are typically risk adverse and the real world has complicated problems so they make up a 'virtual' problem to 'fix', or to turn into a new political football. Politics has become its own end: politicians have job security, and nothing changes except for the worse because constituents keep falling for the same tired shit.

ASalazarMX 1y ago
This is demagogy 101: invent or exagerate a problem, and offer yourself as the only true solution. It's a recipe as old as bread, nothing particularly US centric.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  It's peaking again in the USA though and it's immigrants. They have replaced the "Commie" (when it last peaked in the 50s) as an imagined threat that lies around every corner that seems to appeal to a certain large minority in the USA that needs something to blame for everything other than their own inaction and choice to not adapt.
bko 1y ago
I don't know if that's really it. In the US, sure, there was a direct line of communication between all the large social media companies and the federal government. It was used to censor what was deemed "conspiracy theories" around covid and election interference. That could be seen as protecting politicians. But in the UK, what I read about is cases where it offended someone, like the case of a an autistic teenage girl who was arrested after she made a comment to a police officer, reportedly saying the officer looked like her "lesbian nana." Obviously this doesn't threaten government control or politicians, so it doesn't exactly fit the same mold. https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-censorship https://mleverything.substack.com/p/what-would-government-ce... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/15nddel/autistic_girl_arrested_for_saying_officer_looked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/15nddel/autisti...
EasyMark 1y ago

cut3 1y ago

isnt this everyone in power?

bko 1y ago

I heard things about UK arresting people for social media posts but thought it was just a few cases cherry picked. But I recently looked up the scale of arrests and it's really insane. Police are arresting over 12,000 people each year for social media posts and other online communications deemed “grossly offensive,” “indecent,” “obscene,” or “menacing.” This averages to around 33 arrests per day. These arrests are primarily made under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988, laws which criminalize causing “annoyance,” “inconvenience,” or “anxiety” to others through digital messages. Utterly insane. https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-struggle-30-arrests-a-day-censorship/ https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...

PieTime 1y ago
Sadly this trend is echoed in the US as well since 2023 many have been arrested for their freedom of speech https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo
- bko 1y ago
  I don't think that's the same thing: > The DHS statement says that Ms Kordia had overstayed her student visa, which had been terminated in 2022 "for lack of attendance". It did not say whether she had been attending Columbia or another institution. I think it's entirely different arresting people who overstay their visas or people on student visas that disrupt academic life. The UK regularly arrests citizens for offensive memes. There have even been cases where someone got a harsher sentence based on a tweet about sexual assault than the person who actually committed a sexual assault. You can feel any way you'd like about free speech in America, but let's not conflate the two as being equal.
  - verzali 1y ago
    I'm far more worried that America will stop me at the border and mistreat me for something I wrote online than I am about the UK. Heck, I'm more worried about visiting the US than China at the moment. The America effort to suppress free speech is very real.

cyanydeez 1y ago

America is like, 2 steps behind with an entire government following