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Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but the war on anonymity was first (just) passed in the US at a state level as porn laws before it passed in the UK. Are we prete
by happymellon 2mo ago
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but the war on anonymity was first (just) passed in the US at a state level as porn laws before it passed in the UK.
Are we pretending that the porn id laws weren't a first attempt at getting forums like Reddit that might "accidentally" have naked pictures liable and therefore profile everyone?
Because this is leaning on blaming to UK for everything the US is doing to itself an awful lot.
- GoblinSlayer 2mo agoThis, it boomeranged.
- xienze 2mo ago> Because this is leaning on blaming to UK for everything the US is doing to itself an awful lot. Hasn't the UK had a culture of surveillance (the famous CCTV cameras) and arresting people over online wrongthink for quite some time though? Who inspired who?
- foldr 2mo agoNo, not really. This is a narrative that is pushed by certain segments of the American right (and some of their UK allies). It easily dominates online discussion in an environment where the majority of people posting have no direct experience of life in the UK. Actual life in the UK is very unlike what you would imagine on the basis of reading HN threads, or Elon Musk’s twitter feed. I suspect that most people with first hand knowledge have simply given up trying to contribute to HN threads about the UK. There is plenty of legitimate criticism to be made of the UK, but here (as you can see from the title) the discourse has degraded to such an extent that the mythically awful UK is held responsible even for bad laws passed by American legislature.
- flir 2mo agoNo disagreement here, but I suppose it's a useful rhetorical trick. Paint something you don't like as "foreign". I've certainly seen Brits use a comparison with the Great Firewall of China to argue against various state surveillance projects.
- phatfish 2mo agoYup, apparently people that live their lives in the UK are the indoctrinated ones. Not the majority of the HN crowd that consume whatever the algorithm feeds them and think they are enlightened.
- gunsle 2mo agoRight, so there isn’t currently hundreds of people in UK jails for simply saying “bad words” online? That must be algorithmic misinformation slop too huh?
- foldr 2mo agoWhere are you getting that figure from?
- watwut 2mo agoNo it did not. Online right wing is trying to push narrative that is all.
- Flere-Imsaho 2mo ago> No it did not. Online right wing is trying to push narrative that is all. It's sad that people don't see what's so obviously happening in the uk. Censorship is alive and well in the uk, and there are plans afoot to further the control of the online world.
- happymellon 2mo agoTry reading the whole thing again. We know there is censorship. We do not like the censorship. Americans fund the censorship. Americans pass laws for censorship. Americans fund censorship overseas. UK passes law for censorship. Americans - See it's the UK fault. That is the part we are discussing.
- phatfish 2mo agoThe online world is trash, democracy existed before the internet and it will exist after it becomes an AI slop playground. If you are worried age gates tracking you just speak to people in the real world?
- account42 2mo agoIs your privacy really worth giving up to "own the right"?
- roenxi 2mo agoThe UK's culture on this stuff has been relatively famous since Orwell coined the term thoughtcrime. The major advantage the US has over the UK historically has been the oceans, but an interesting secondary one is the US was built by people who seemed to have a healthy fear of the extended groupthink sessions that the UK tends to fall into. It's always been something of a problem given how insular their upper class is. The UK was an amazing leader on liberty in the days when absolute monarchies were the assumed default government, but their free speech standards are a long way from exemplary in modern times.
- happymellon 2mo agoThe US has a history of arrests over "wrong think" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-com... https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/new-hampshire-police-arrested-man-being-mean-them-internet https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/new-hampshire-police-a... https://www.fire.org/news/lawsuit-ex-cop-sues-after-spending-37-days-jail-sharing-meme-following-charlie-kirk-murder https://www.fire.org/news/lawsuit-ex-cop-sues-after-spending...
- inigyou 2mo agoThis. The UK "wrongthink arrests" were for stuff like calling for a building full of people to be burned down. While the US arrests you for criticising the police chief.
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoThe US rate people for quoting a murder victim and not having the right level of performative grief not seen since Eva Peron died.
- like_any_other 2mo agoThe UK arrests were also for stickers with: slogans such as “Reject white guilt”, “Nationalism is nurture”, “We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066” and “Diversity – designed to fail, built to replace” - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/16/uk-man-with-hitler-picture-used-sticker-campaign-to-stir-racial-hatred-court-told https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/16/uk-man-with-... "Stirring up racial hatred", even merely possessing material that could do so, is a crime in the UK: https://www.thelawpages.com/criminal-offence/Possessing-racially-inflammatory-material/-for-display/publication/distribution-with-intent/likely-to-stir-up-racial-hatred-496-9.law https://www.thelawpages.com/criminal-offence/Possessing-raci... Burning the Koran is also illegal: https://spectator.com/article/england-now-has-a-blasphemy-law/ https://spectator.com/article/england-now-has-a-blasphemy-la... Viewing "far-right propaganda" carries a 15 year jail sentence: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-viewers-of-online-terrorist-material-face-15-years-in-jail https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-v... True factual statements such as "young white girls are being raped by these grooming gangs" come with a nearly 1-year jail term: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce328p9330eo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce328p9330eo Note that most of the time, articles are happy to omit actual quotes, instead parroting the prosecution's description of the speech in question, using vague terms such as "racially aggravated comments" or "inciting racial hatred": https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rq8r4jdgno https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rq8r4jdgno https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68086012 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68086012 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68074858 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68074858
- littlecorner 2mo agoWhich states? How much? Were these anomalous events that were overturned, or more systematic? These are honest questions I'm having, not trying to argue any narrative
- happymellon 2mo agoI know it's against the HN rules to suggest that some read the fine article, however the answer to your questions and more are in the first paragraph, and in picture format too!
- littlecorner 2mo agoAh. I can't currently view the article, and assumed you were making an offhand reference. My apologies; I'll have to save it to view later
- littlecorner 2mo agoReading the article, I must clarify my question. You said that there was state level movements prior to the UK. Did you mean that prior to 2023 or 2017 there were US state level efforts? Where was that happening? Sorry for not being clear
- happymellon 2mo agoI said they passed (just) before. Example, Texas: HB 1181, effective 2023-9-1 United Kingdom: Online Safety Act 2023, effective 2023-10-26 I'm not saying this is all the US' fault (blame lies with big tech who need excuses to mine minors data), but the title blames the UK exporting id verification to the US when the US is very capable of doing it to itself.
- littlecorner 2mo agoThanks! There's definitely enough blame to share around
- mrtesthah 2mo ago
- mancerayder 2mo agoThere are people in the replies below going back and forth about whether the US or the UK started the surveillance state first. I think as undemocratic as the US can behave in practice, it's hard not to argue that the UK won the CCTV surveillance race. London is heavily surveilled. And it doesn't help that someone just posted this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49255496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49255496
- andrepd 2mo agoHard not to argue in what metric? The US has Flock cameras spreading like the plague, if we're going purely based on vibes. And the Snowden disclosures about how they spy on their own citizens on a massive scale is over a decade old at this point. Plus, a city covered in CCTV could theoretically be freer than one with much less coverage, if those cameras are recording to encrypted storage and accessible only with a judicial warrant, and the others are a lawless free for all with private and public operators hoovering up all the data.
- happymellon 2mo agoYou missed out that 40% of US household have a video doorbell, 50% of which are Ring. I find that all the metrics about CCTV very misleading, and the whole thing seems to be to distract that the article is blaming the UK for actions of the US and US based companies.
- pydry 2mo agoIt's not really worth arguing over who is worse at violating privacy. Crucially theyre both awful, both getting worse and both treating Russia and China as an aspirational model.
- ericmay 2mo agoThis doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. First, maybe we can just eventually require Flock cameras to also record only to encrypted storage accessible by a judicial warrant. Presumably you are perfectly OK with that? Second, privacy advocates have much to say about being surveilled at all, regardless of whether the data is encrypted or not. They’re opposed to recording at all, not recording and then the judge gets to randomly decide when to release recordings. Finally, the UK is part of Five Eyes.
- cs02rm0 2mo agoI think it's appeared everywhere all at once. It's not the UK alone, or the US.
- happymellon 2mo agoI was referencing the title of the article.
- noir_lord 2mo agoNot to mention the UN convention on cybercrime which is a ridiculous one since it makes co-operation necessary if the penalty in the home country is 4 or more years - there are quite a few countries where speaking out against the leader, been gay or been trans will get you that (or much much worse). Canada opposed it originally and then quietly signed it most recently, the UK didn't start this stuff though we are up to our tea drinking little necks in it as usual.
- TZubiri 2mo agoPointing out a law you don't like in another country as justification to ignore local laws, or to critique internation relations policy, is a terrible argument. Some country has laws that some other country dislikes, therefore they should be able to ignore them? I think comes down to what influence you think you have. I'm a backend developer and sys admin, when it comes to international law, I think of it in relation to hosting content in other countries or serving users in other countries. Judging the quality of laws on another country is beyond my scope, if it conflicts with my ethical constitution, I just don't provide service to that country, I don't provide service in an anonymous manner that makes it possible for users of that country to evade local law because I find the law may contain bad parts. What I'm not sure is whether you think of your influence on the subject as a sysadmin that actually wants to provide such services, or whether you think of it as some individual posturing, like a random citizen voicing their opinion on Israel v Palestina knowing full well you have no influence.
- TremendousJudge 2mo ago>Some country has laws that some other country dislikes, therefore they should be able to ignore them? Yeah, I think that's pretty much the definition of the right of asylum.
- TZubiri 2mo agoNot sure if asylum is relevant here. Crucially, asylum is granted when the person is already on the jurisdiction of the country that grants asylum. Granting asylum to someone on another jurisdiction and extraditing them is already problematic. Granting asylum remotely while they stay in that jurisdiction is unheard of. And a system admin or service provider like us mortals, don't have the authority to grant asylum. Like we would say in Argentina, you are peeing outside the bowl.
- red-iron-pine 2mo agothe UK has been doing this for years, but the recent round of "ID EVERYONE" is because facebook doesn't want to deal with liability for banned underage folks, and because Palantir wants to snoop on everyone's traffic in an attempt to mind control the masses.
- happymellon 2mo agoNot sure what that has to do with an article trying to blame the UK for actions of the US. You need to blame the actions of shitty politicians on themselves.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]