6 ms·
It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.
by codedokode 11mo ago
It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.
- bamboozled 11mo agoIt's not funny, it fucking sucks.
- gessha 11mo ago“If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry” https://youtu.be/i6fGOXWO0w4 https://youtu.be/i6fGOXWO0w4
- pjc50 11mo agoThis sort of thing turns up very regularly in US politics, from the Comstock Laws to the Communications Decency Act. The late 90s even had a requirement to use easily breakable encryption (48-bit RSA) which big tech companies generally obeyed. And a worse proposal (the "clipper chip") which was never deployed. Authoritarianism is not limited by your birthplace, it can turn up anywhere. And when it does people are often really enthusiastic about it.
- dreamcompiler 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
- cartoonworld 11mo agoVery related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
- pissmeself 11mo ago[dead]
- tim333 11mo agoThe Great Firewall dates from 2003 and we still don't have a Great British Firewall so the lag seems longer.
- Dave9k 11mo agoUK ISPs block around 1500+ domains through High Court orders and police make 12k+ arrests a year for online speech. You don’t need a formal firewall when the effect is the same in practice.
- rjh29 11mo agoI would like a citation for 12k arrests a year as that seems insane to me.
- rgblambda 11mo agohttps://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... The findings in the Times article were subsequently debated in the House of Lords. The figures weren't disputed: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-offences-and-concerns-over-free-speech/?__cf_chl_f_tk=_9mRef7_bQ3SyzJBAAgzdenWKM6AUf1faEjEAEAwFAs-1763207286-1.0.1.1-buPsYla4NqOkr2gkIuu7CGfWw65TimW0wqQgBOWTHZU https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...
- exasperaited 11mo agoI don't really get why this is surprising or actually particularly worrying. 30 arrests a day for something in a population of seventy million people, a large proportion of whom are online in some way, is not that much. And it's not 30 arrests per day for saying things the government don't like or that are politically incorrect, is it? It's mostly for things that rise to the level of threats or harassment or cause alarm. On the one hand it's a new conduit for threatening conduct, and on the other hand, it's probably replacing some. I'd note something that comes up when this number is mentioned often enlightens the context: that people often use this figure to say "that's more than in Iran or Russia", as if the number itself is actually meaningful. Nobody's going to arrest you in Russia for abusing transgender people; nobody's going to arrest you in Iran for encouraging the punishment of promiscuity or gay people. In either case they might turn a blind eye if you threaten the lives of those people. But the things they would arrest you for — criticising the government or the war — you know not to even say out loud when not among friends. Because the punishment is not the mild inconvenience you would get in the UK. There are bigger problems in the UK with misunderstanding policing of speech in the real, physical world: the Palestine Action stuff is being much more obviously mishandled. I think it's much more important to focus on getting the government to handle that more logically and sanely.
- wseqyrku 11mo agoCould be more serious than that, maybe it's not a lag. Maybe they are becoming.