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Is 4chan the perfect Pirate Bay poster child to justify wider UK site-blocking?
- pharos92 1y agoFrom my perspective, this is born out of NGO's and political elite. This is not an ask from or concern of the general population.
- afavour 1y ago> This is not an ask from or concern of the general population. It isn’t, but when asked in a “Do you support saving children?” way a lot of people do support it. You might say that’s idiotic, and you’re right, but any campaign to reverse this stuff has to reckon with it.
- userbinator 1y agoDitto for "do you want more secure software?" It turns out people don't realise that also means making software secured against their will.
- matheusmoreira 1y agoAnyone who asks that is arguing in bad faith and using children as political weapons to achieve their ends. It's gotten to the point I outright dismiss anything the politicians say the second I hear the words "children" and "terrorists".
- afavour 1y agoThis is what I mean when I say it has to be reckoned with. You can outright dismiss it yourself but it doesn’t make it go away when a sizeable number of voters do not dismiss it.
- laughing_man 1y agoEvery authoritarian regime relies on large numbers of useful idiots.
- mrbombastic 1y agoIs it just me or is this demonizing of NGOs a very recent phenomenon trickling into the dialogue? I find it quite alarming.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- esseph 1y agoIt is more a long the lines that large document leaks have allowed people to see how NGOs have become vehicles for State Intelligence and corporate/political power.
- mrbombastic 1y agoCan you point me to some leaks you are referring to? Honestly curious. I have no doubt that there are some bad actors in this space, but Non Governmental Organizations is such a wide category I find it strange that that acronym keeps popping up like some evil entity rather than calling out the individual orgs.
- tumetab1 1y agoFor those paying attention, NGOs supported by the EU are good example. Here's a news link https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/23/use-of-eu-funds-to-lobby-meps-was-inappropriate-commissioner-says https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/23/use-of-eu-fund... I don't have time/will to find more consolidating information but some EU-Elites regularly use NGOs to support their own policy goals, against member states governments and their populations. They always excuse themselves by saying they fund everyone... but one side of the issue usually gets more funds than the other. If I recall correctly in one "EU wants to monitor the internet" regulations, EU directly funded targeted AD campaigns to convinced some Member state populations to support it so the government would change its intended vote. They were caught and backed off. Then they funded some NGO to do it :D
- UberFly 1y ago"Non Government Organizations" that get (a lot of) public money and then get to use it in any clandestine way they feel like is worth demonizing.
- 0dayz 1y agoAnd not corporate despite the lobbying? Afaik not a single serious ngo support this.
- philipallstar 1y agoLobbying only does something if government is corrupt.
- cobbzilla 1y agoThis is either a tautology or meaningless, depending on semantics. Q: Are there today, or have there ever been in history, any non-corrupt governments (that by your implication are invulnerable to lobbying)? I’m pretty sure lobbying is a thing everywhere, regardless of corruption. People want the government to do stuff and will try to make it happen, from autocracies to direct democracies and everything in between.
- philipallstar 1y agoOf course. Writing to your representative is you wanting the government to do something. There's nothing wrong with that. It's only when government is corrupt that it's a problem.
- cobbzilla 1y agoSo you’re saying “lobbying can do something, even when the government is not corrupt”? If so, then yes, that’s the point I was making, which refutes the statement that lobbying only does something if the government is corrupt. If not, then I’m confused, please help me understand what I’m missing.
- takoid 1y agoIt depends what you consider a “serious NGO,” but the NSPCC, the Molly Rose Foundation, the Breck Foundation, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, and other NGOs actively campaigned for and supported it.
- phatfish 1y ago[flagged]
- einpoklum 1y ago1. "Parents of children", unfortunately, have little political clout (also when including their votes). 2. Children are not "fucked up" by seeing people having sex. I mean, ok, parents can be worried about them being "fucked up", but this is to a great extent the same engineering-of-consciousness that the TF article is discussing, and which the UK government wishes to affect.
- csmattryder 1y ago>And the parents that are worried about their children getting fucked up by hardcore porn and social media. Rarely brought up during the OSA debate, but I think we all know every UK ISP has "Safety Shield" on to block access to adult entertainment - by default. When purchasing the service you're asked if you want it disabled. If parents are disabling it, they can't be that worried.
- djrj477dhsnv 1y ago> children getting fucked up by hardcore porn What evidence do you have that this is a reasonable concern? I've seen plenty of hard-core porn since the age of 10 and turned out just fine. I don't know anyone in my generation that has said otherwise.
- antonymoose 1y agoI know plenty of lifelong smokers who lack cancer, so it’s fine then? In any case, if we’re to share anecdotes, I don’t have a single man I know that has said “wow, pornography has enriched my childhood / adult life.” I know plenty that have had trouble in their relationships, however.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dgs_sgd 1y agoDemocracy seems increasingly defined by the citizens opposing some measure, and the politicians going ahead with it anyway.
- account42 1y agoWorse, Governments seem to have gotten the idea that it's their place to tell the population what to do and want when it should be the other way around.
- arduanika 1y agoWell-paced article. The exposition sounds bleak, but then Betteridge's law creeps up slowly over the middle of the article, and the piece crescendos toward a final showdown.
- smolder 1y ago[flagged]
- digianarchist 1y agoThere are a lot of extra steps the UK government can take beyond the fines: > In the most extreme cases, with the agreement of the courts, Ofcom will be able to require payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, preventing it from generating money or being accessed from the UK. They’ve done this before (various piracy websites are blocked by ISPs). The criminal liability of senior managers could cause travel headaches too.
- miohtama 1y agoYes, and it's not just the UK https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2kz9kn93o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2kz9kn93o
- digianarchist 1y agoTrue. Proposal not law mind. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1748/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/174...
- RenThraysk 1y agoOFCOM is powerless. ISP blocks are worthless. This is going to fizzle out, like the Australian eSafety team trying to remove content off X globally. Or get Apple to poke holes in it's crypto. Just not going to happen.
- cedws 1y agoUnfortunately the government is winning, Apple’s ADP encryption is no longer available in the UK. The Online Safety Act was finally forced through after over 10 years. They’ll eventually get what they want in any case the same way a chisel can eventually dig through a mountain.
- RenThraysk 1y agoThere is no winning. It's an infinite game of whackamole.
- svgmaker 1y agoi think so.
- dmitrygr 1y agoI look forward to the current us admin forcing the uk to very publicly walk this back. Their motivation will have nothing to do with defending free speech, but an enemy of my enemy IS my friend.
- croes 1y agoBut the predator of your predator isn’t your protector, just a bigger predator. The current US administration isn’t pro free speech, they just use other tools to prevent it. UK uses laws, US uses money respectively the lack of money for you if your speech doesn’t suit them. US free speech has a price tag.
- _carbyau_ 1y ago> But the predator of your predator isn’t your protector, just a bigger predator. That line sounds like the start of a counter to "Won't somebody think of the children."
- lupusreal 1y ago[flagged]
- bediger4000 1y agoHard disagree. Trump can apparently be bribed. This could be solved by a discrete transfer of cryptocurrency to a specific Maltese or Transnistrian wallet.
- pinoy420 1y agoMy local MP won’t do anything and basically dismissed me as a pedo/terrorist for even considering talking against the OSA. What can be done if those who represent you, don’t?
- mystraline 1y agoVouched. However you really need to name your MP. These political public figures need named and shamed for using binary fallacious logic like that. And barring listening to constituents, get rid of them.
- basisword 1y agoThey represent their constituents - you are one of those. If the majority of their constituents support the legislation they're doing their job. Could you post their full response to you? Pretty shocking if they accused you of being a terrorist pedophile and worth making people aware of which MP this was!
- gddgb 1y ago[dead]
- logicchains 1y agoIf you're an engineer, contribute to technologies that take power away from those who lord over you. Which in this case would be distributed, censorship-resistant communication technologies. There's a lot of work to be done, not only in hard engineering, but also in things like UI and marketing, as widespread adoption is the best way to maximise the chance of success. For all its flaws, cryptocurrency (in particular anonymous ones like Monero) is a demonstration that this is possible: no government desires for its citizens to have a means to transact large sums anonymously online, yet Monero still exists. And as governments impose more restrictions on the internet, there'll be more and more demand for means to bypass those restrictions.
- mulmen 1y agoBy all means work on better privacy technology but censorship isn't a technology problem. It is a human problem. We cannot work around ignorance forever. We have to engage the system to affect real change.
- hungmung 1y agoMore made up problems for a fundamentally inept government to solve because fixing real problems like a broken healthcare system is hard and not a guaranteed political win. Thanks Starmer, you're a worthless turd and no different than your predecessor.
- basisword 1y agoThe Online Safety Act was passed when the Tories were still in government. Rolling that back essentially makes you a prime minister that believes children should have unfettered access to porn, self-harm material, gore, and that the outspoken parents of kids who've killed themselves after accessing this material shouldn't be listened to. At least, that's how the media (on all sides) would spin it. Not really a fight worth picking.
- YurgenJurgensen 1y agoThat’s populist talk, and if the PM wants to play populism, he’s not doing a very good job of it.
- basisword 1y agoThe problem the majority of people have with this law is "I can't easily access my free porn anymore". The counter-argument is "child kills self"[1] because shitty tech companies can't control their thirst for money. Like I said, I don't agree with the legislation but it's not an easy argument to make. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62998484 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62998484
- cm2187 1y agoIn a world where you can cast your vote anonymously in the voting booth, it’s a dangerous game to piss off a large number of voters, even if they can’t admit publicly why. They will be reminded every day of that idiotic policy. Like cookie consent banners.
- jimbob45 1y agoFor someone who has never been there, sure. It’s hardly the worst *chan though and I’d argue KiwiFarms is less redeemable.
- esseph 1y agoThe only real difference is the size of the audience between them. It hasn't changed since its earliest days. Many of the users go between them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Apreche 1y agoIf they do it, I never want to hear any criticism of the great firewall of China from them ever again.
- basilgohar 1y agoNo one likes hearing hypocrisy from politicians, but it's one of their most dominant traits. That is, if you ascribe normal ethics and morals to them. But politicians' are a different breed, and the sooner we understand that, the better. They will say, and do, whatever they perceive as being the most politically expedient thing to do. The ones that took moral stances in the actual best interest of the populace usually suffered politically for that. The ones that side with power tend to keep their power. This is the folly of political systems in general short of tyrannies, dictatorships, and kingdoms. And now we are seeing how democracies can be stretched into the same quality of life as so-called "lesser" systems but people don't like hearing that argument because the alternative is made out to be so scary. It's not so much that democracy is the problem, but that it's too easy to sway people when it's so easy for money and power to be leveraged to manufacture consent. So now it's the people electing their own tyrants who will enrich and entrench themselves and being grateful for the privilege to be used for that purpose. steps down off of soap box and stops yelling at clouds
- hinkley 1y ago> No one likes hearing hypocrisy from politicians You’re clearly not paying attention to American politics.
- HeWhoLurksLate 1y agoLet me correct that for you: No one likes hearing hypocrisy from the other side's politicians
- afavour 1y agoI’m quite sure they don’t see it as hypocrisy. China censors the internet because they want to control everything about their citizens lives. But us? Oh, we’re censoring the internet to protect the children.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoRelated: 4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44982681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44982681
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- everdrive 1y agoThe free internet might be gone in the next decade. Probably time to buy a few hard drives and do some archiving. I don't just mean piracy. Articles, blogs, anything you find precious.
- Fizzadar 1y agoBought some drives recently having come to the same conclusion. Future of the internet looks bleak.
- themafia 1y agoIt's a good time to get an RSS reader and build some direct connections to your sources. They're coming for the "aggregators" next.
- 1oooqooq 1y agorss is dead. and aggregating won't be your main issue anyway.
- themafia 1y agoRSS is alive and well. I use it daily with dozens of sites and authors. It's incredibly useful, widely used, and well supported. Finding content is the issue. Unless I go directly to each site every day and scan for new articles I'm likely to miss them. If not for aggregators and RSS how else would this be accomplished?
- dbg31415 1y ago> RSS is alive and well That's a stretch. https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss/ https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=rss https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r...
- anthk 1y ago
- Yeul 1y ago4chan doesn't do anything illegal unless you think that being mean should be banned.
- afavour 1y agoWell that depends on what laws are passed, doesn’t it? 4Chan is now in violation of a new UK law.
- pojzon 1y ago[flagged]
- afavour 1y agoSo we’re just throwing bugbears against a wall at this point I guess?
- aydyn 1y ago4chan is not in the UK and ofcom has no jurisdiction. This would be like Singapore trying to prosecute you for smoking marijuana in your own home in the U.S.
- jaimex2 1y agoYeah and I can guarantee you're in violation of laws somewhere too. It's just as irrelevant.
- afavour 1y ago…did you read the article?
- immibis 1y agoBeing mean, for varying degrees of "mean", is actually illegal in most countries that aren't the USA and surely 4chan passes the threshold in at least some of them.
- nly 1y agoGiven that web traffic to certain adult websites has dropped 90% from the UK, in waiting to hear news of the lawsuit.
- thebruce87m 1y agoWhat is the resultant increase in traffic from other countries I wonder? VPN endpoint traffic has to pop up somewhere.
- AlienRobot 1y agoThe most insane thing about this headline is that implies parents are giving their children devices with unfiltered access to the Internet and then the government needs to play wack-a-mole with every single website they come across to prevent children from accessing it.
- 1oooqooq 1y agowho wouldn't want the gov banning workers organizing collective action online? can you think of the damage to children if they mistake it for a Minecraft server? do you want to be responsible for that?
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoParents are absolutely giving children devices with unfiltered internet access. I think people here need to step out of their ivory tower. I would say most people don't even know to think about the things people here think about. "Unknowns unknowns", if you will. We all agree here that this is a bad idea. What percentage of the worlds population do you think reads Hacker News?
- AlienRobot 1y agoIf you're going to say that, I think most people wouldn't even access websites to begin with. They spend most of their time on Youtube, Instagram, and TikTok. I know people who don't know how to use Google because they only use a smartphone to browse scroll Instagram and Facebook. They're never going to access a website.
- esseph 1y agoLarge companies have dozens or hundreds (even thousands) of their own internal websites, plus tons of SaaS for HR, tax, benefits, etc. People use "websites" all the fucking time.
- _Algernon_ 1y agoRegulate the parents then. You don't strip search every customer in your store because one person shoplifted.
- NegativeK 1y agoI'm largely in line with where a lot of the comments under these political posts are coming from, but there's no discussion in them. It's rhetoric, outrage, and oversimplifying things. The comments on HN are worth reading precisely because of the discussions, so I'm not sure what the point of political posts are if that fails.
- aydyn 1y agoIn general I agree, but I think this is one of those cases where theres no oversimplifying, it really is just what you see on its face. A UK bureaucracy is threatening fundamental and constitutional rights of an American. Its so outrageous, I really dont think there's any nuanced discussion to be had.
- crtasm 1y agohttps://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 529,454 signatures and counting
- abullinan 1y agoAh yes, online petitions: doing absolutely nothing for 30 years.
- crinkly 1y agoOnline petitions give voice to people who can felt heard but ignored.
- crtasm 1y agoI suggest reading how this official government website works.
- rglynn 1y agoThese UK government petitions require a response after 10k signatures and are considered for a debate in parliament after 100k. While you are still right in the sense that the government often tries to slip out of that, it's worth noting for context for non-UK people. https://petition.parliament.uk/ https://petition.parliament.uk/
- mr_toad 1y agoThe new ban is easily bypassed even without a VPN. The government is trying to block cracks in a dam with their fingers. Assuming they even care about results rather than performative posturing.
- s3p 1y ago>a stand-off has been engineered between UK censorship measures nobody asked for, and the constitutional rights of all Americans. This is probably my favorite line in the entire piece. Some heads up in the UK Bureaucracy created this regulation out of the desire to protect children, and now they are being pitted against the constitutional rights of United States citizens. Truly incredible work from the UK government. I imagine the United States will not be happy..
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jhallenworld 1y ago>Some heads up in the UK Bureaucracy created this regulation out of the desire to protect children More likely: Ofcom is seeing traditional media dying, so the bureaucrats needed to come up with something to remain relevant and employed. Ofcom is supposed to be funded by fees charged to the companies that it regulates. There are no hints of social media having to pay them yet, but in the future? Think of all the work that OSA is creating: age verification companies, regulation compliance consultants, certifications, etc. Once private companies in the US figure out how much profit they can make off this, they surely will follow..
- EarlKing 1y agoAlready underway in several states. Bills in Texas and Utah have already been approved, with several other states entertaining such proposals, although none have moved out of committee as yet. It's all so tiresome. If this were really about protecting the children they could've solved the matter with the equivalent of a mandate on device manufacturers and website operators to respect a DO-NOT-SERVICE-I-AM-A-CHILD (or whatever) header in HTTP. Hell, if it were really about protecting children, parents would get access to dumbed down versions of the kind of tools corporate IT has for managing business phones ... so they can lock them down, limit how they're used, right down to what apps can be installed.... but that would deprive advertisers of a golden ticket for knowing what views are legit, put parents back in control, and actually work... so can't have that. :D
- sh-run 1y agoSure, 4chan is a cesspool, but what if I start a replacement? How does the UK block it? Do we end up with an allowlist only internet?
- echelon 1y agoThat's the thing, one day you won't be able to. You'll only be able to connect to domains that have been bought with a state-issued ID and digitally signed. If you run afoul of the rules, you'll be taken down, fined, or worse. The means to publish and consume will be taken from us. "Trusted" computing. "You wouldn't download a car." "Think of the children". "Free speech allows hate." Within a generation of complete and total control of communications, we will be slaves. Powerless, impotent, unable to organize, disposable fodder. 1984 is coming.
- starwatch 1y agoI've recently had a glimpse of that - buying my first .no domain required me to be registered on the Norwegian population register, and full digital verification. There was even a phone call with the registrar! Some of the other rules are bonkers too [1]: - Each private individual may at any time subscribe to up to 5 domain names directly under .no - Each organisation may at any time subscribe to up to 100 domain names directly under .no [1]: https://www.norid.no/en/om-domenenavn/regelverk-for-no/ https://www.norid.no/en/om-domenenavn/regelverk-for-no/
- mortarion 1y agoThere's a reason we in Sweden has a nickname for Norway; "the last soviet state"
- GuB-42 1y agoIs it wrong for Norway to protect its domain? They don't want the ".no" domain to be the target of "domain hacks" from people who have nothing to do with Norway. So if you want a ".no" domain, prove that you are Norwegian, the limits are to prevent the kind of abuse we see in most other TLDs (domain squatting, etc...). All that seem reasonable to me. Some countries put less restrictions on their own TLDs, especially tiny countries with interesting TLDs which they see as a revenue source, that's fine too, but to each his own. If you don't like it, use any of the generic TLDs. AFAIK, Norway doesn't put any restriction on them.
- edg5000 1y agoEven worse than blocking certain sites, would be if they burden everybody in a mountain of paperwork, making a lot of internet endaveours no longer feasible. I'm not sure how they do it in China, I know there is an internet registration number, not sure if they have paperwork, e.g. to demonstrate that your site is compliant. Let's hope they come to their senses!
- smolder 1y agoI'm all about liberal freedom, but blocking 4chan would actually help society given how abused it is by counter-intelligence. There is bullshit spewed there constantly and no one should be subject to that trash in a functioning society.
- shortrounddev2 1y agoI think the world needs a 2007 /b/ right now
- klipklop 1y agoThe game Alpha Centauri had the most hard hitting quote that I think applies now. "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny...Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. Commissioner Pravin Lal, 'U.N. Declaration of Rights' "
- phatfish 1y ago[flagged]
- inemesitaffia 1y agoTheir parent can apply blocks on their devices is what I'd tell you. Because these are ultimately excuses for spying on adults
- _Algernon_ 1y agoThis argument is basically the same as saying that stores should be allowed to sell alcohol to kids because it's the parents' responsibility to guard the store so their kids don't buy it. Kids do not only have access to their own devices (for one, these days schools provide them with devices that parents have little say over often with only trivial filtering). And that is assuming the best case scenario where parents have the technical know-how to put in place non-trivial limits. Most don't.
- shit_game 1y agoPeople under age can obtain fake IDs, all over the world. This is illegal, but it still happens. At some point, it is ultimatey a parents responsibility to prevent their children from doing so by acting as a parent to their child and preventing them from engaging in destructive behavior. This is established law, even, in many countries, where a parent can be held accountable for the criminal actions of their children for failing to prevent it. And frankly, I don't give enough of a shit about other peoples' kids to believe that internet usage should require identification like is being pushed by major governments. I want good things for these kids, I want them to grow up in a good society and a good world, and I dont want harm to come to them. But I recognize that a "good society" and a "good world" and one that minimizes harm to people is one where information is available without restrictions and without censorship and without the risk of a government that might decide it wants to commit genocide against you in the not-so-distant future using your search history to persecute you. Pardon my riffing off Flowbots' Handlebars there, but this really is the world that people live in today; powerful world-stage governments want to restrict information about topics they do not like, and are persecuting people who posess this information; the next steps are very, very well documented. Creating the monster we are watching grow is not worth anything anyone could ever promise you.
- tiku 1y agoPied piper internet 2.0 time! Why can't we use/build a faster variant of TOR, for every day use?
- yapyap 1y agowow this Peter Kyle guy is a disgusting populist
- torginus 1y agoI genuinely do not understand where how the idea of building a total surveillance police state, where all speech is monitored, can even as much as seriously be considered by an allegedly pro-democracy, pro-human rights government, much less make it into law. Also: Step 1: Build mass surveillance to prevent the 'bad guys' from coming into political power (its ok, we're the good guys). Step 2: Your political opponents capitalize on your genuinely horrific overreach, and legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public as fighting against tyranny (unfortunately for you they do have a point). They promise to dismantle the system if coming to power. Step 3: They get elected. Step 4: They don't dismantle the system, now the people you planned to use the system against are using it against you. Sounds brilliant, lets do this.
- specproc 1y agoThe West aren't good guys and have never been the good guys. We talked a good talk about democracy when we had communism to compare it to, but without that to contrast with, we look increasingly like the managed democracies you see out East.
- bayindirh 1y agoFrom what I witnessed over years is, European countries loved to point fingers to other countries to educate them about how their democracies shall look like. Now they are doing the very same things they pointed fingers about and, now there's no structured information flow to hide this. As I sometimes tend to say: "God has an interesting sense of humor".
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- simmerup 1y agoSo naive. Talking points from the mouthpieces of the CCP and Russia who would love us to believe we’re all the same
- 1y ago
- einpoklum 1y agoNo, there is no "poster child" to justify wider site-blocking, nor even narrower site blocking. It is illegitimate governments to manipulate Internet nodes so as to filter what passes through them. If they have a problem with some website, let them take it up with the publisher/creator. If the UK government is worried about children exposed to harmful content, well, let us first remember that they are assisting and supporting the massacre of children in Gaza, and the starvation of hundreds of thousands of them. And when that stops - I suppose they're welcome to suggest content filtering software to parents.
- kuil 1y agoLittle bit unrelated, but "Just verify your age (impossible without verifying your identity)" is false. It is possible to verify the age without verifying identity. It can be done using Zero Knowledge Proof.
- gverrilla 1y ago[flagged]
- a5c11 1y agoMore like "building up siege mentality".
- diordiderot 1y ago> has weaponized free-speech What does this mean
- Barrin92 1y agoIt's pretty straight forward, using its dominance when it comes to internet platforms to try to impose American speech standards and values on foreign countries, the vice president has been quite explicit about that when he interfered in political discourse in several European countries. Any country that has its wits together would do well to establish sovereignty over its communications infrastructure. It's quite telling that the only country that has been able to stand up to American bullying is China because they were smart enough to not outsource control over their information space to the US.
- fluoridation 1y ago...What? So given the option between the government having more or less control over what you can say, you'd prefer more?
- Barrin92 1y agoYes. We're not living in the world of some naive 90s internet libertarianism. If a country wants to maintain its sovereignty people need to collectively control their own infrastructure and have a state capable of doing so, unless you want to end up as a colony of US companies and the state department.
- 1y ago
- timsh 1y agoThis whole online safety act thing gives me goosebumps. I had lived most of my live in Russia until migrating in 2022 and I’m pretty familiar with what it means when the gov starts messing with digital censorship. If you’re not aware, it’s getting systematically harder and harder to browse the free web in Russia despite 50%+ of population using “some” VPN app. And I’m not even talking extremist / anti-russian resources that the government turned against originally, but most of the independent websites that use CloudFlare free tier, for example. Because cloudflare enables proxying and a couple other IP-masquerading techniques by default, to effectively block a single website you have to block the entire cloudflare IP range and DNS - which is >20% of the web. As for the VPNs, most of the common protocols and frameworks (eg OpenVPN) are already banned + detected via DPI, and people have to get into more and more sophisticated setups like VLESS+Reality (= most of the non-technical people can’t set it up by themselves or even buy a subscription to such thing). “Simple” shadowsocks, originally popularized in China to fight the great firewall are already almost rendered completely useless. And it will get worse. The gov service which is responsible for blocking has a very high budget + some pretty neat tech to help them cut off more and more ways to bypass the censorship. This is the future of any state that gets into this game. The future where you might have to become very proficient in networking and use some “shady” stuff like Tor to just read a blog post about Linux. It doesn’t matter what it starts with - fighting anti-gov propaganda or, for god’s sake, porn (the least harmful thing for the kids in this horrible ai-post-capitalism world that we live in) — once the regulators get the feeling of power over the free web, every lobbyist, organization and party will come for a part of the web that you personally might enjoy, or even earn living from.
- metalman 1y agoI have met plenty of millenial's, veterans of the worst of deviant art and 4chan, and the kids are allright.Perhaps a bit extra adult and focused, but that's a good thing right! They have no fucks to give, and rightly expect the worst from there overlords, but make light of it in an obnoctios abrasive kind of way, while standing and fighting the most egregious excesses and violence brought from our governments, who want pasty soft and confused masses of worky workers to exploit, rather than alert, 18 year old vetrans who have seen, heard, and fought depravity on the internet and beyond. So now, bieng too late, the gubberment, is trying to use strong arm and smeer tactictics to controll everything, when they dont grasp the basic realitys that everything on a computer is a file, and all processors have an input/output interface and some kind of widly availible comunications protocol, oh and hundreds of millions of significantly intelligent and pissed of people who are not buying it. key word in the title is "justify", but these are purely self justifications from a dangerous and out of touch group who have taken all of the strings of power and wealth into there clutchy overfull desperate grasp. The truely sureal part of banning file sharing is that the powers that be would rather have people rip thier media, than end up talking with each other and sharring there own.
- Jean-Papoulos 1y agoThe whole western world is looking at this to know if their own populations will passively accept this particular brand of tyranny. If the UK citizenry doesn't vote it out in the next round of elections, this is coming for all of us.
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoEven if the uk.gov changes, the next .gov won't change a damn thing.
- ionwake 1y agoWarning> Incoming rant..... The bizarre thing about the UK, ( and possibly other 1st world countries ), is the seemingly unaware populace -that many institutions are nepotistic and gated. This may just be a universal thing, but it took me most of my adult life to slowly come to terms with the fact, the local council ( people in charge of a borough), of a small nice (going downhill over 30 years) suburb here in london, don't allow, and have never allowed as far as I can tell, the ascension to power of any outsider from the council. I could hardly believe it when I found out, I had just assumed all political / council positions were a slow process of democratic voting. But no, you can't just canvas for the role of councillor. It differs from village to village. So , 1- this is the case, 2- I was unaware most of my life ( people dont know. discuss it ) 3- the only "old timer" business man in the area, whose been there and worked 50 years has himself said "are corrupt" - clearly atleast a dim view. Now I understand this is heresay, but perhaps it honestly just take 40 years or so for endemic corruption to even "come out" and by then its just the old "who know", who soon enough pass away, their children perhaps believing it too, leaving for other areas of the globe for opportunity. One can slowly understand why the fabric of a SEEMINGLY unfair, un-meritocratic, rule bending, society that limits vertical movement slowly ebbs apart. EDIT > The reason I said rule bending is simply, one of the most successful people I know just lied about their academic achievements, no one seemingly bothered to check, and they took the position of someone who was honest. This must be somehow related.
- moomin 1y agoUnexpected application of Betteridge’s law.
- webdoodle 1y agoNo. There is no poster child that justifies this dystopian slave state.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoThere needs to be a place for 4chan, but mainly so those users spend less time on normal sites. If I recall, one of the admins was outed as a government agent after many years... lol Site-blocking won't work, and NERF'ing the world under the guise of protecting kids is a poorly obfuscated despotic strategy. Bouncy castle politics only undermine institutional credibility. =3
- numpy-thagoras 1y agoThis is the first time in a long time on Hacker News that I've not seen universal disapproval to this measure. People are actually arguing for it, even as a devil's advocate? What the UK has been doing is wrong, it is disenfranchising and disempowering people. The UK is not a democratic or even liberty-focused state anymore. It's always been ruled by a crowd of people who went to privately-funded schools that cost a fortune. Half the government's politicians and staffers can trace their relations back to the same historical personage. They aren't afraid for their kids with these laws. They're afraid that this ossified, stunted system of power that's been built over 800 years will break, and they will be out of a job with pitchfork-wielding crowds chasing them out of London.
- throwayay5837 1y agoI feel a similar sense of confusion at the overall reaction from HN. Ten years ago there would have been unanimous disapproval. Has the userbase changed so much? If this is hackernews, what about the general population of developers?
- VonGuard 1y agoHacker News users now profit from extensive invasion of privacy, from Facebook to LinkedIn, to every ad network, VPN, ISP, etc... They all trade in our private info daily. 20 years ago, the battle cry was around privacy and government monitoring of all traffic and how bad that was. Now people climb over one another to give away their data for free in exchange for mind-altering social media platforms and AI driven nonsense. I am convinced Libertarians do not exist. The current state of the US should drive them to utter insanity, and yet, they tend to be mostly silent on all of these corporate over reach issues. People who say they are Libertarian just don't want to pay parking tickets. If the real techno Libertarians existed, they'd be burning our current Valley to the ground. Anyone who cared about the 2nd amendment should be losing their minds over military deployments on US soil. Constitution huggers should be screaming bloody murder, daily. Instead, those types are super happy with their new dictator. Funny how all the performative anger goes away when it's their side that is performing the authoritarian actions. The NRA seems to LOVE this willing take over of the well armed militias by the federal government... But I digress. Instead, the reigning philosophy here is now greed. Privacy, sovereignty, ownership, open source, all those things are forgotten in the backseat of the crypto and VC cash car. It surprises me how little the newer generations care about ethics, morality, principles. Call them whatever you want, but it really feels like everyone screams about how righteous they are, how wrong everyone else is, and then they take the cash and stand up for nothing when the chips are down. Remember when the big thing we were worried about was the NSA recording our phone calls? Now large corporations harvest our call info, chat texts, social media posts, and even the raw microphone input on our phones to strip every last piece of information about us and mine it for data to influence our lives, purchases, and even out thoughts. And what did we do in the last election? We put in the party that will remove even more roadblocks from this type of thing, and has deregulated crypto. Victory! How did we get here? Where are the Cypherpunks? Where are the high ideals we used to have? All burned alive at the altar of money.
- floppiplopp 1y agoIt's not just the UK, but the whole of Europe. With the rise of literal neo-nazi parties like reform uk, the german afd, the french front national, and whatnot out there, widespread surveillance legislation will be turned against freedom and democratic opposition by the emerging far right extremists when given power. A tech-fueled fascist surveillance state, who thinks that's a good idea?