8 ms·

Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

350 points by defrost 1mo ago

21asdffdsa12 1mo ago
Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.
- MrBuddyCasino 1mo ago
  Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
  - foldr 1mo ago
    Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
    - lores 1mo ago
      Democracy requires an informed electorate. Just having the right to vote isn't enough.
      - logicchains 1mo ago
        No it doesn't, democracy means rule by all the people not rule by some educated elite.
        spacedcowboy 1mo ago
        Two things: - Education is not "elite", it's open to all. - Informed is not "educated". Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
        lores 1mo ago
        "Educated" and "informed" aren't the same.
      - foldr 1mo ago
        It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it? In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
        pjmlp 1mo ago
        Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election. They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
        1718627440 1mo ago
        > They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship. Is there an example where "they" have not done that?
        pjmlp 1mo ago
        Plenty, ask AI friend about military coups.
        1718627440 1mo ago
        Aren't they still claiming, that they do it for and represent the people?
        pjmlp 1mo ago
        Maybe, however with elections they did in fact asked for it, which was the whole point.
      - 1718627440 1mo ago
        Yeah, but you can't legislate people to care.
    - inigyou 1mo ago
      It happened because it was voted for and the elite wanted it. Several counterfactuals are plausible: either the elite only allowed the vote because they knew how it would go, or they would've brexited even if remain won, or they don't care either way. What is not possible is that the elites wanted to remain but were forced to leave by the vote, because in that case they simply wouldn't have left.
      - foldr 1mo ago
        That can only be true for a definition of 'elite' that excludes the Eton and Oxford educated Prime Minister of the day and the majority of his government. So I mean, yeah, some people wanted Brexit. If those people had some sort of sinister behind-the-scenes power to bring it about, you have to wonder why Brexit only actually happened after the referendum vote and not in the decades prior, during which those very same people had been continually agitating for it. >the elite only allowed the vote because they knew how it would go Clearly not, in this case. Remain was forecasted to win, and David Cameron called the referendum because he felt confident that remain would win. >they would've brexited even if remain won This also is obviously not the case. David Cameron would have remained Prime Minister. He was always in favor of EU membership, remaining in the EU was part of the policy platform of his party, and he would have been under much less pressure from Brexiteers than he was before the referendum. >What is not possible is that the elites wanted to remain but were forced to leave by the vote This is in fact what happened. David Cameron resigned after losing the vote and was replaced by someone committed to implementing Brexit.
- jen20 1mo ago
  Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.
  - nannal 1mo ago
    Not sure that's an argument that shines good light on brexit voters.
    - spacedcowboy 1mo ago
      To be fair (a) I don't think he was trying to do that, and (b) I'm struggling to think of an argument that would shine good light on brexit voters ? Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
      - tialaramex 1mo ago
        To take my mother as an example she hadn't thought about it properly at all. She was surprised that her daughter (my sister) had voted Remain because apparently my mother who knows about the EU funding which enabled what my sister did, hadn't connected "EU funding" to the EU she was voting to Leave. "Oh" was basically all she had to say about that. In the broader scheme of things you could also see this in the response of Brexiteers who were stunned that, as non members they now weren't able to travel freely across borders. Voters aren't very bright because they're people, you've met people. I used to think that FPTP was a good idea because it's so simple that "The candidate who had more votes won" means the idiots won't be confused by the outcome. We saw that they're confused anyway, so, fine, since apparently simplicity wasn't achievable we should use a more complicated voting system with better outcomes.
        DangitBobby 1mo ago
        If voters can't understand ranked choice voting or similar, how could we possibly expect them to understand the impact of what they are voting on? It's a self-defeating argument.
- bsian 1mo ago
  Not only the Brits. Take a look at this, especially the charts, and compare it to what us Europeans are getting - that's democracy for you. https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-out-of-10-europeans-believe-their-country-takes-in-too-many-immigrants.html https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-ou...
- mattlondon 1mo ago
  The sad thing of course was that the people coming across on boats or clinging to the underside of lorries etc are not EU citizens arriving legally. Plus it's not like EU is the only source of migration (hellow commonwealth). I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc. We saw it with Trump's election, we saw it with Brexit. We'll probably see it with a reform majority in the UK parliament next election too. There are global trends that the PM of the UK cannot change, but we live in a world of instant gratification so if the current PM can't make things change literally overnight, people are angry and annoyed. Go read the comments section on any UK newspaper (left or right, tabloid or broadsheet) and the comments are really eye-opening (recommend doing this to at least get a flawed and partial cross section of what the vibe is). People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers. Might explain why we've had so many PMs these past few years.
  - gib444 1mo ago
    > I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc Hmm GDP was growing well, inflation was down, real household income was on the rise, annual wage growth was on the up, it was a long time since the great financial crash, unemployment was crashing in 2013/2014, and things comparatively were quite cheap. Though I can't recall the general sentiment at the time. Net migration did have an historic spike (part of a longer term rise) for a couple of years. Perhaps the Brexit campaigners capitalised solely on that? Crazy to imagine that economically things were doing great, by many metrics, but so many people got duped into thinking some foreigners were going to tank everything (Personally, it was a fantastic period. Wages were good, jobs were good, things were cheap. I know many people who bought their first house during that period)
    - mattlondon 1mo ago
      While the economy may have been doing ok and all that, I think its still a lot to do with the feeling that everyone around you is doing _better_, and the increasingly prevalent need for instant-gratification. A lot of this probably comes down to cheap-credit. I am by rights in the top 1% of national income in my senior-ish BigCo job, yet I look around at the traffic lights and I am surrounded by Range Rovers, Teslas, Porches SUVs etc. I dont think I could afford one of those (I tend to buy 3 or 4 year old cars outright), yet the stats say I earn more than 99% of people ... either most days I am surrounded by the 0.1% club, or people are spending a lot of their income in PCP etc. Is it a matter of "keeping up with the jonses"? Are people thinking "Well these people around me are driving nice cars and I am not, so clearly I am getting dicked over here somehow and everyone else is earning boatloads and I am not." Replace nice cars with expensive holidays, house renovations, latest iphone, latest shoes/handbag or whatever. And all amplified and magnified by social media. Its all the same: conspicuous status baubles making people feel like they're on the loser end of the spectrum. See enough of that over and over (and you will if you use social media) and it'll shift your world views.
- dofm 1mo ago
  FWIW, Brexit was never, ever, ever about stopping migration. It was about right wing elites deciding which migrants they wanted, and at best about regaining control of that policy from the EU. It was sold in a racist and bigoted way. The reason we have less control over illegal migration is exactly Brexit, which, as people were warned at the time, torpedoed our actually cushioned position with respect to "first safe country" asylum rules, and meant we had no cross-border agreements with France. The "Brexit" that people thought they were getting was always in their own mind because it had no definition. It was an imaginary victory which only has downsides, just as was pointed out.
  - kingleopold 1mo ago
    no it was %90 about that finance and regulation thing for sharing banking and finance data to EU and related, I even fully forgot what was it. It was well hidden and among years it got lost but this was mainn reason. They will not tell you this unless you really deeply read it and see it.
Retr0id 1mo ago
Oops, looks like they'll need to roll out more "think of the children"-shaped propaganda first. Or maybe a terrorism scare?
- stcg 1mo ago
  Or make a different poll :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
  - SanjayMehta 1mo ago
    I knew it would be YM or YPM, both documentaries in the form of comedic fiction.
DrMandalay 1mo ago
GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.
- p-e-w 1mo ago
  That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?
  - t1E9mE7JTRjf 1mo ago
    those agencies aren't the ones lobbying. take a look at the 'ngos' lobbying for chat control.
  - mrkeen 1mo ago
    https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/how_gchq_tracks.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/how_gchq_trac...
    - p-e-w 1mo ago
      Yes, an article explaining online tracking proves the claim that “privacy doesn’t exist”. I guess it is true for certain people who no longer distinguish between their life and browsing the web…
HPsquared 1mo ago
Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).
- xienze 1mo ago
  > nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise I think you're right, you see this sometimes where the powers that be are extremely over-confident in themselves and think "sure, let's put this thing up for referendum and show those stupid right-wingers how unpopular they really are." Which works until it doesn't. A US example was Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) in 2008. I have zero doubt the thinking was "sure, let's put it up for a vote and show those morons how behind the times they really are." When it passed, in _California_ no less, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and accusations of all sorts of treachery. Anything but doing a little self-reflection and considering that maybe it wasn't as popular an idea as they thought. Didn't matter in the end, courts said "yeah well too bad, you can't ban it anyway, sorry" (kind of funny those legal arguments never came up BEFORE it could even be put up for a vote, again showing the level of confidence on display). What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
  - optimalsolver 1mo ago
    >What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way All that happened was that Britain exchanged limited Eastern Euro immigration for unlimited non-EU immigration. https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029 https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029
  - Nursie 1mo ago
    > What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway"). There was an attempt. A campaigner managed to get the courts to issue a verdict that the referendum was not binding, and Parliament must then have a vote on whether or not to implement the result. Remain voters rejoiced and lauded her as a hero. Brexit voters demonised her as an enemy of democracy. Parliament then duly voted to implement the result. (Edit - looking back this may have been counterproductive. The argument that the referendum was not legally binding could have continued for some time, maybe even long enough to try to change something. But forcing a parliamentary vote to affirm the result put all that to bed)
cynicalsecurity 1mo ago
Unless Brits are ready to rise up and topple their government, this poll means nothing.
- defrost 1mo ago
  They can rise up on occasion; The Guardian news outlet frequently linked here on HN was founded following the Peterloo Massacre (1812). That sacrifice didn't see fruit for two decades until the Reform Act 1832 opened the franchise to allow more the right to vote. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832
janpeuker 1mo ago
A long time ago I walked into a public library to get a library card, already my ID in hand. Staff looked at me aghast "why would we need an ID for a card, that'd be ridiculous!". I feel Brits take privacy quite seriously.
- 7bit 1mo ago
  And yet, they voted for the governments that killed privacy and established surveillance in public, because they love privacy so much.
  - IndySun 1mo ago
    TBF, people tend to vote for other things - but yes, get 'that' bundled in the small print 'for free'.
  - mrkeen 1mo ago
    Per another comment here: "Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes." The trick is to have a two party system and agree on all the important points. There aren't any major parties willing to reduce espionage or ease up on Gaza. If elections are coming up, they stick to gender theory, school sports or Lake Ontario. "Vote blue no matter what" doesn't give you privacy, nor does abstaining or voting red.
    - eks391 1mo ago
      > The trick is to have a two party system and agree on all the important points. This is the exact characteristic about US politics that Americans wish were removed so their government was better for them. It favors a two party system, so no one is actually represented and have to choose between two parties they likely only agree with on few points, unless they are subscribed to that party's propogandic kool-aid.
      - DarkUranium 1mo ago
        The UK has the same system with the same problems. It always converges to a two-party system eventually, the US just speedran the process.
Caius-Cosades 1mo ago
[dead]
shalom1112 1mo ago
[dead]
jbrooks84 1mo ago
Get over yourselves, nothing is private anymore
- dimitrios1 1mo ago
  How nice it is to live in complete comfort with no worries whatsoever of your own government coming after you. For many that lived during the times of the Stazi in East Germany, or late Soviet days, or currently in China and North Korea however... Ask one of those people who survived those regimes and ask if they should "just get over yourself" -- it shouldn't be too hard to find one.
- DarmokTanagra 1mo ago
  skill issue
hackersnooze1 1mo ago
I am not convinced they do, they keep voting to give away their privacy every year.
- badgersnake 1mo ago
  They just don’t read past the headline and the headline usually involves paedophiles.
  - madaxe_again 1mo ago
    I mean, at what point do we say that wilfully refusing to absorb relevant information and then knowingly and willingly making a decision based on that lack of information is, indeed, their will?
    - MYEUHD 1mo ago
      This is called rational irrationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_irrationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_irrationality
      - 1718627440 1mo ago
        That wikipedia article reads weird. It sounds like a formalized collection of obvious facts.
    - basilgohar 1mo ago
      I think this ignores the fact that there are very converted efforts to use well-researched methods to manipulate and mislead people at the ballotbox in favor of the vested interests. The same interests also conspire to keep people preoccupied with basic needs and distractions that leave them with little time to properly research issues.
      - lazide 1mo ago
        At the end of the day, does it actually matter? Assuming ‘it’s not their fault’ also removes consequences and/or accountability, which also encourages the behavior.
softwaredoug 1mo ago
In the US we have tech companies complying with sketchy DHS subpoenas that don’t require warrants. We have DoJ targeting political enemies. We have FISA mass surveillance. It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere. Or to assume that only the “right people” will be the ones able to break encryption.
- smilespray 1mo ago
  People with the "wrong" political opinion have been surveilled for decades. It just took more work.
  - graemep 1mo ago
    Which is protective in itself. Expensive surveillance will have to be more limited. Maybe of leaders of organisations rather than every supporter.
- trollbridge 1mo ago
  In the US we also have tech companies going out of their way to make their devices have strong encryption and be unbreakable.
  - lazide 1mo ago
    Sometimes, with likely exceptions.
  - softwaredoug 1mo ago
    Yes hashtag “Not all tech companies”
  - lioeters 1mo ago
    And the marketing to make people believe it!
  - derwiki 1mo ago
    Maybe I’m naive: I can believe the e2e encryption happens, but it takes a lot of faith to believe there’s no front-end telemetry that would render that ineffective.
diego_moita 1mo ago
In theory yes, in practice no. In theory everybody supports healthy eating, in practice most people are overweight or obese. In theory everybody thinks exercising, energy conservation, caring for the environment is good, in practice almost no one does it. In theory everybody thinks studying and reading good books is a good thing, in practice most people just want to switch off their brains in front of the television or social media. Most people lie mostly to themselves. Politicians and marketers know this, that's why they only tell people the lies they want to hear.
svobodamartin 1mo ago
Only Brits? Privacy shouldnt be privilege or for tech-savvy only. Freedom of speech cant be regulated without being lost.
- jdiff 1mo ago
  Obviously no, not only Brits, but the Brits are the ones under discussion because they're the ones being actively threatened with ChatControl laws. Speech is regulated widely in many ways. There is no country with absolute freedom of speech.
hn_submit 1mo ago
And water is wet. Of course Brits are going to answer that they'd rather not have the government read their private correspondence. But at the same time there has been very little protest over draconian legislation in the UK like the Online Safety Act and RIPA Part 3 that cover just these aspects.
- dofm 1mo ago
  The Online Safety Act has broad support from the people of the UK from the left and right combined. Nobody is stopping anyone protesting against it, but it is not imposed by some imaginary uniparty fascist regime, it is something people want.
  - hn_submit 1mo ago
    Most Brits have no idea what's in the Online Safety Act since it expressly mandates the neutering of end-to-end encryption in messaging apps. And protesting is very difficult when everyone doing so is branded a child molester. Britain isn't a true democracy. Neither is Australia. They're Orwellian societies where the populace has been trained to believe that "the government knows best."
    - dofm 1mo ago
      I don't believe the Online Safety Act does require that. RIPA did. But again, most Brits are using WhatsApp anyway; end-to-end security is wholly meaningless in that context. I don't really recognise this "branded a child molester" accusation either, TBH. That seems fantastical but I suspect you are not British. There are plenty of people on the right (e.g. in Reform) making reasonable points about the burden of requiring adults to identify themselves to access legal material and people are not branding them child molesters (not least because that sort of screeching typically comes from the right). The simple reality is that in the UK the majority don't think it's that troublesome, in general, that adults should have to prove they are adults to access adult material (or use a VPN, which the government is actually not acting to ban or add new regulations to). We already have default adult content blocks on mobile data, for example (and the adult content block, once disabled, can therefore be used as a way to identify adulthoot). I tend to find that foreign observers, especially American foreign observers, always tend to conjure up really abstract arguments about inalienable fundamental rights, reduce everything to freedom of speech, whatever. Life is messier and more complex and despite our more nuanced, complex set of laws, they are more moderate than various laws from US states, and it is not the UK that is the first to run headlong into fascism: that is happening in the USA, which voted for it. British law is untidy. Life is untidy. We aren't fucking idiots or ill-informed children. We just draw the lines differently.
semiquaver 1mo ago
If this is true and it doesn’t lead to legal changes eventually, then in what sense is Britain a democracy?
- arjie 1mo ago
  In the sense that direction and magnitude are two things of separate importance to most, and any system must account for both. An opinion you express only when asked is far less important than an opinion you express unasked. It’s the latter that dominates interpersonal coordination.
mhh__ 1mo ago
I don't think they do. The revealed preference is online safety this online safety that - although in fairness some of this is out of a desire to avoid deeper issues.
IndySun 1mo ago
To all of us, British or otherwise, who're posting our rabbit-holing Democracy and Brexit comments, a moment of cutting light relief. Enjoy some "Yes, Prime Minister". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks&ra=m
hnub7akvk6 1mo ago
Not what I expected but I'm here for it
- maxehmookau 1mo ago
  Genuinely curious, why? This doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
freakynit 1mo ago
All surveillance should start with ministers first. Their private lives streamed 24/7 over internet for the public to watch. Of course, this is only for national security since humans are corruptible, and these people have vastly most control over a nation's resources, thus, 24/7 monitoring of their private lives, by the public, is super important... for national security ... or else how we can be sure they have not been compromised by a foreign power.. or are not being blackmailed to act against the nation? All for national security... nothing else.
- inigyou 1mo ago
  If Flock is legal in the USA, then it's also legal for a private individual to make their own Flock network.
  - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
    When police do it they get to call it “investigation” but when I do it all of a sudden it’s “stalking”
  - anonymousiam 1mo ago
    In the US, it's "legal" for "law enforcement" to use Stingray equipment, which transmits on licensed cellular spectrum and interferes with customers who use the spectrum, sometimes even preventing calls for emergency services. This should be a plain and simple violation of FCC regulations, but who's going to enforce that law against law enforcement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_law_enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_...
  - m463 1mo ago
    Why not a roving dashcam-based flock copycat? (I thought I heard fedex vehicles actually do this)
- sakisv 1mo ago
  While this may be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment, I've started to think that this is exactly how it should be: People that are elected by the public and hold the power to define every aspect of our lives, should be held to the absolute highest level of scrutiny possible. Every aspect and every single moment of their lives should be transparent and recorded while they hold office, no exceptions whatsoever. I will concede that having it broadcasted may be a tad hard to do, but there should be a record of what happened during their time - in fact there should be a way to answer the question "what was minister X doing at 2026-08-29 20:13:14 UTC?" And for the argument that says "oh then nobody would want to do it", I think that's in favour of this approach. Look around at what we're dealing with, and which people want to win elections and the fervour with which they go about it. We should be trying to make this kind of "job" as unappealing as possible. It should be a chore, not something to go after.
nickslaughter02 1mo ago
A few people mention EU. Let me remind you: > European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy, Framing Mass Surveillance as “Lawful Access” https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-backdoor-law-enforcement https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-b...
- inigyou 1mo ago
  How much of this has been approved by the parliament?
- fsflover 1mo ago
  (2025)
hno8a34nwn 1mo ago
Adding this to my reading list
mdp2021 1mo ago
Inconsistent with the implicit acceptance of age verification laws (forbidding YouTube to minors, may Diderot and D'Alembert and all the democratizers of knowledge raise from their graves and sneer and taunt). Or was there a large turomoil against keir starmer that did not properly reach the news?
- inigyou 1mo ago
  Why do you think that a website asking how old you are and politicians reading your private messages are the same thing?
  - mdp2021 1mo ago
    How do you prove your age without either sharing your identity (or using twisted ways entailing other possibly unacceptable compromises like the eu is trying to do). Remember that the australian side (which moved first) framed it as "no underage access to encyclopedias, no underage access to search engines": age verification, i.e. identity verification or other "nonsense" to access encyclopedias and search engines. In the USA, some voices would include LLMs. Remember that in the uk Wikipedia had to win against the state to get exception under the mandate from keir starmer - it "exceptionally won", and after having lost at a first stage. The privacy of online browsing and the privacy of messaging are equally critical, yes. (Edit: if you wish to really rank them, then a guy looking behind your shoulders when you are reading a book is more dystopian and farcical than a guy looking behind your shoulders when you are writing a letter - yes.)
    - inigyou 1mo ago
      You don't prove it. Under California AB1043 (often called the "age verification law" by propagandists) it's illegal for a social media website to demand you to prove your age.
      - mdp2021 1mo ago
        > Under California AB1043 We are talking about "Brits" here. But you seem to be stating that California has tackled the issue and deliberated that - do I understand correctly? - somebody installs an OS on a machine and sets manually, without verification, a date of birth for the user (setting that will be shared with relevant servers). Are you sure that that would be the way Britain is going to implement it? Why have not britons raised to get that crucial detail very, very clear? We understood that past limitations involved people using webcams in the uk to access forbidden sites. And the eu? That Californian decision does not seem to have conditioned the eu much: the eu idea is that you should have an "official OS" with the technical capabilities required by the open source age-verifying "app" to get access. (And I would insist: forbidding access to the video museum to those in the formative age is one of the most blatant events in history. That happened in britain, it just happened. To call the world reaction disproportionately absent is an understatement.)
zombot 1mo ago
Why don't Brits then vote for a government that is less obsessed with total surveillance? As far as I can tell, Britain is one of the most surveillance-crazy regions on earth.

350 points by defrost 1mo ago

Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.

MrBuddyCasino 1mo ago
Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
- foldr 1mo ago
  Britain leaving the EU purely because a majority voted for it in a popular vote is a pretty bad example to use in support of the claim that democracy isn't real. It's probably this sort of vague cynicism about democracy that led Cameron to call the referendum in the first place, only to discover that people can actually vote however they like!
  - lores 1mo ago
    Democracy requires an informed electorate. Just having the right to vote isn't enough.
    - logicchains 1mo ago
      No it doesn't, democracy means rule by all the people not rule by some educated elite.
      - spacedcowboy 1mo ago
        Two things: - Education is not "elite", it's open to all. - Informed is not "educated". Forcing political speech to be truthful (or at least have a reasonable expectation of being truthful) with serious consequences (jail time) for knowingly lying would go a long way to counter the misinformation that caused Brexit.
      - lores 1mo ago
        "Educated" and "informed" aren't the same.
    - foldr 1mo ago
      It works better with an informed electorate. However, one of the reasons that voters don't bother informing themselves is the campaign of cynicism aimed at convincing them that all political parties are the same, that their vote doesn't matter, etc. etc. One might just as well say that an informed population requires democracy: why bother keeping track of national policy if you have no control over it? In the days after the Brexit vote, it turned out that a significant minority of 'leave' voters had been convinced that their vote would be an ineffectual protest with no actual influence on Britain's membership of the EU. Lazy and cynical anti-democratic rhetoric just feeds into that cycle of ignorance and stupidity.
      - pjmlp 1mo ago
        Which is how autocracy governments get hold of countries without military action, it only needs enough patience and uninformed electorate to win the election. They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship.
        1718627440 1mo ago
        > They can even argue it was the will of the people to get a dictorship. Is there an example where "they" have not done that?
        pjmlp 1mo ago
        Plenty, ask AI friend about military coups.
        1718627440 1mo ago
        Aren't they still claiming, that they do it for and represent the people?
        pjmlp 1mo ago
        Maybe, however with elections they did in fact asked for it, which was the whole point.
    - 1718627440 1mo ago
      Yeah, but you can't legislate people to care.
  - inigyou 1mo ago
    It happened because it was voted for and the elite wanted it. Several counterfactuals are plausible: either the elite only allowed the vote because they knew how it would go, or they would've brexited even if remain won, or they don't care either way. What is not possible is that the elites wanted to remain but were forced to leave by the vote, because in that case they simply wouldn't have left.
    - foldr 1mo ago
      That can only be true for a definition of 'elite' that excludes the Eton and Oxford educated Prime Minister of the day and the majority of his government. So I mean, yeah, some people wanted Brexit. If those people had some sort of sinister behind-the-scenes power to bring it about, you have to wonder why Brexit only actually happened after the referendum vote and not in the decades prior, during which those very same people had been continually agitating for it. >the elite only allowed the vote because they knew how it would go Clearly not, in this case. Remain was forecasted to win, and David Cameron called the referendum because he felt confident that remain would win. >they would've brexited even if remain won This also is obviously not the case. David Cameron would have remained Prime Minister. He was always in favor of EU membership, remaining in the EU was part of the policy platform of his party, and he would have been under much less pressure from Brexiteers than he was before the referendum. >What is not possible is that the elites wanted to remain but were forced to leave by the vote This is in fact what happened. David Cameron resigned after losing the vote and was replaced by someone committed to implementing Brexit.
jen20 1mo ago
Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.
- nannal 1mo ago
  Not sure that's an argument that shines good light on brexit voters.
  - spacedcowboy 1mo ago
    To be fair (a) I don't think he was trying to do that, and (b) I'm struggling to think of an argument that would shine good light on brexit voters ? Perhaps that they're wonderfully trusting people who believe whatever politicians that Gary down the pub thinks are the best ?
    - tialaramex 1mo ago
      To take my mother as an example she hadn't thought about it properly at all. She was surprised that her daughter (my sister) had voted Remain because apparently my mother who knows about the EU funding which enabled what my sister did, hadn't connected "EU funding" to the EU she was voting to Leave. "Oh" was basically all she had to say about that. In the broader scheme of things you could also see this in the response of Brexiteers who were stunned that, as non members they now weren't able to travel freely across borders. Voters aren't very bright because they're people, you've met people. I used to think that FPTP was a good idea because it's so simple that "The candidate who had more votes won" means the idiots won't be confused by the outcome. We saw that they're confused anyway, so, fine, since apparently simplicity wasn't achievable we should use a more complicated voting system with better outcomes.
      - DangitBobby 1mo ago
        If voters can't understand ranked choice voting or similar, how could we possibly expect them to understand the impact of what they are voting on? It's a self-defeating argument.
bsian 1mo ago
Not only the Brits. Take a look at this, especially the charts, and compare it to what us Europeans are getting - that's democracy for you. https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-out-of-10-europeans-believe-their-country-takes-in-too-many-immigrants.html https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-ou...
mattlondon 1mo ago
The sad thing of course was that the people coming across on boats or clinging to the underside of lorries etc are not EU citizens arriving legally. Plus it's not like EU is the only source of migration (hellow commonwealth). I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc. We saw it with Trump's election, we saw it with Brexit. We'll probably see it with a reform majority in the UK parliament next election too. There are global trends that the PM of the UK cannot change, but we live in a world of instant gratification so if the current PM can't make things change literally overnight, people are angry and annoyed. Go read the comments section on any UK newspaper (left or right, tabloid or broadsheet) and the comments are really eye-opening (recommend doing this to at least get a flawed and partial cross section of what the vibe is). People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers. Might explain why we've had so many PMs these past few years.
- gib444 1mo ago
  > I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc Hmm GDP was growing well, inflation was down, real household income was on the rise, annual wage growth was on the up, it was a long time since the great financial crash, unemployment was crashing in 2013/2014, and things comparatively were quite cheap. Though I can't recall the general sentiment at the time. Net migration did have an historic spike (part of a longer term rise) for a couple of years. Perhaps the Brexit campaigners capitalised solely on that? Crazy to imagine that economically things were doing great, by many metrics, but so many people got duped into thinking some foreigners were going to tank everything (Personally, it was a fantastic period. Wages were good, jobs were good, things were cheap. I know many people who bought their first house during that period)
  - mattlondon 1mo ago
    While the economy may have been doing ok and all that, I think its still a lot to do with the feeling that everyone around you is doing _better_, and the increasingly prevalent need for instant-gratification. A lot of this probably comes down to cheap-credit. I am by rights in the top 1% of national income in my senior-ish BigCo job, yet I look around at the traffic lights and I am surrounded by Range Rovers, Teslas, Porches SUVs etc. I dont think I could afford one of those (I tend to buy 3 or 4 year old cars outright), yet the stats say I earn more than 99% of people ... either most days I am surrounded by the 0.1% club, or people are spending a lot of their income in PCP etc. Is it a matter of "keeping up with the jonses"? Are people thinking "Well these people around me are driving nice cars and I am not, so clearly I am getting dicked over here somehow and everyone else is earning boatloads and I am not." Replace nice cars with expensive holidays, house renovations, latest iphone, latest shoes/handbag or whatever. And all amplified and magnified by social media. Its all the same: conspicuous status baubles making people feel like they're on the loser end of the spectrum. See enough of that over and over (and you will if you use social media) and it'll shift your world views.
dofm 1mo ago
FWIW, Brexit was never, ever, ever about stopping migration. It was about right wing elites deciding which migrants they wanted, and at best about regaining control of that policy from the EU. It was sold in a racist and bigoted way. The reason we have less control over illegal migration is exactly Brexit, which, as people were warned at the time, torpedoed our actually cushioned position with respect to "first safe country" asylum rules, and meant we had no cross-border agreements with France. The "Brexit" that people thought they were getting was always in their own mind because it had no definition. It was an imaginary victory which only has downsides, just as was pointed out.
- kingleopold 1mo ago
  no it was %90 about that finance and regulation thing for sharing banking and finance data to EU and related, I even fully forgot what was it. It was well hidden and among years it got lost but this was mainn reason. They will not tell you this unless you really deeply read it and see it.

Retr0id 1mo ago

Oops, looks like they'll need to roll out more "think of the children"-shaped propaganda first. Or maybe a terrorism scare?

stcg 1mo ago
Or make a different poll :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
- SanjayMehta 1mo ago
  I knew it would be YM or YPM, both documentaries in the form of comedic fiction.

DrMandalay 1mo ago

GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.

p-e-w 1mo ago
That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?
- t1E9mE7JTRjf 1mo ago
  those agencies aren't the ones lobbying. take a look at the 'ngos' lobbying for chat control.
- mrkeen 1mo ago
  https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/how_gchq_tracks.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/how_gchq_trac...
  - p-e-w 1mo ago
    Yes, an article explaining online tracking proves the claim that “privacy doesn’t exist”. I guess it is true for certain people who no longer distinguish between their life and browsing the web…

HPsquared 1mo ago

Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).

xienze 1mo ago
> nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise I think you're right, you see this sometimes where the powers that be are extremely over-confident in themselves and think "sure, let's put this thing up for referendum and show those stupid right-wingers how unpopular they really are." Which works until it doesn't. A US example was Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) in 2008. I have zero doubt the thinking was "sure, let's put it up for a vote and show those morons how behind the times they really are." When it passed, in _California_ no less, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and accusations of all sorts of treachery. Anything but doing a little self-reflection and considering that maybe it wasn't as popular an idea as they thought. Didn't matter in the end, courts said "yeah well too bad, you can't ban it anyway, sorry" (kind of funny those legal arguments never came up BEFORE it could even be put up for a vote, again showing the level of confidence on display). What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway").
- optimalsolver 1mo ago
  >What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way All that happened was that Britain exchanged limited Eastern Euro immigration for unlimited non-EU immigration. https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029 https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/2060561179408548029
- Nursie 1mo ago
  > What's shocking of course is that the Brexit vote didn't end up the same way ("ok the vote passed but it can't be done anyway"). There was an attempt. A campaigner managed to get the courts to issue a verdict that the referendum was not binding, and Parliament must then have a vote on whether or not to implement the result. Remain voters rejoiced and lauded her as a hero. Brexit voters demonised her as an enemy of democracy. Parliament then duly voted to implement the result. (Edit - looking back this may have been counterproductive. The argument that the referendum was not legally binding could have continued for some time, maybe even long enough to try to change something. But forcing a parliamentary vote to affirm the result put all that to bed)

cynicalsecurity 1mo ago

Unless Brits are ready to rise up and topple their government, this poll means nothing.

defrost 1mo ago
They can rise up on occasion; The Guardian news outlet frequently linked here on HN was founded following the Peterloo Massacre (1812). That sacrifice didn't see fruit for two decades until the Reform Act 1832 opened the franchise to allow more the right to vote. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832

janpeuker 1mo ago

A long time ago I walked into a public library to get a library card, already my ID in hand. Staff looked at me aghast "why would we need an ID for a card, that'd be ridiculous!". I feel Brits take privacy quite seriously.

7bit 1mo ago
And yet, they voted for the governments that killed privacy and established surveillance in public, because they love privacy so much.
- IndySun 1mo ago
  TBF, people tend to vote for other things - but yes, get 'that' bundled in the small print 'for free'.
- mrkeen 1mo ago
  Per another comment here: "Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes." The trick is to have a two party system and agree on all the important points. There aren't any major parties willing to reduce espionage or ease up on Gaza. If elections are coming up, they stick to gender theory, school sports or Lake Ontario. "Vote blue no matter what" doesn't give you privacy, nor does abstaining or voting red.
  - eks391 1mo ago
    > The trick is to have a two party system and agree on all the important points. This is the exact characteristic about US politics that Americans wish were removed so their government was better for them. It favors a two party system, so no one is actually represented and have to choose between two parties they likely only agree with on few points, unless they are subscribed to that party's propogandic kool-aid.
    - DarkUranium 1mo ago
      The UK has the same system with the same problems. It always converges to a two-party system eventually, the US just speedran the process.

Caius-Cosades 1mo ago

[dead]

shalom1112 1mo ago

[dead]

jbrooks84 1mo ago

Get over yourselves, nothing is private anymore

dimitrios1 1mo ago
How nice it is to live in complete comfort with no worries whatsoever of your own government coming after you. For many that lived during the times of the Stazi in East Germany, or late Soviet days, or currently in China and North Korea however... Ask one of those people who survived those regimes and ask if they should "just get over yourself" -- it shouldn't be too hard to find one.
DarmokTanagra 1mo ago
skill issue

hackersnooze1 1mo ago

I am not convinced they do, they keep voting to give away their privacy every year.

badgersnake 1mo ago
They just don’t read past the headline and the headline usually involves paedophiles.
- madaxe_again 1mo ago
  I mean, at what point do we say that wilfully refusing to absorb relevant information and then knowingly and willingly making a decision based on that lack of information is, indeed, their will?
  - MYEUHD 1mo ago
    This is called rational irrationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_irrationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_irrationality
    - 1718627440 1mo ago
      That wikipedia article reads weird. It sounds like a formalized collection of obvious facts.
  - basilgohar 1mo ago
    I think this ignores the fact that there are very converted efforts to use well-researched methods to manipulate and mislead people at the ballotbox in favor of the vested interests. The same interests also conspire to keep people preoccupied with basic needs and distractions that leave them with little time to properly research issues.
    - lazide 1mo ago
      At the end of the day, does it actually matter? Assuming ‘it’s not their fault’ also removes consequences and/or accountability, which also encourages the behavior.

softwaredoug 1mo ago

In the US we have tech companies complying with sketchy DHS subpoenas that don’t require warrants. We have DoJ targeting political enemies. We have FISA mass surveillance. It’s naive to think politically motivated surveillance can’t happen in the UK and elsewhere. Or to assume that only the “right people” will be the ones able to break encryption.

smilespray 1mo ago
People with the "wrong" political opinion have been surveilled for decades. It just took more work.
- graemep 1mo ago
  Which is protective in itself. Expensive surveillance will have to be more limited. Maybe of leaders of organisations rather than every supporter.
trollbridge 1mo ago
In the US we also have tech companies going out of their way to make their devices have strong encryption and be unbreakable.
- lazide 1mo ago
  Sometimes, with likely exceptions.
- softwaredoug 1mo ago
  Yes hashtag “Not all tech companies”
- lioeters 1mo ago
  And the marketing to make people believe it!
- derwiki 1mo ago
  Maybe I’m naive: I can believe the e2e encryption happens, but it takes a lot of faith to believe there’s no front-end telemetry that would render that ineffective.

diego_moita 1mo ago

In theory yes, in practice no. In theory everybody supports healthy eating, in practice most people are overweight or obese. In theory everybody thinks exercising, energy conservation, caring for the environment is good, in practice almost no one does it. In theory everybody thinks studying and reading good books is a good thing, in practice most people just want to switch off their brains in front of the television or social media. Most people lie mostly to themselves. Politicians and marketers know this, that's why they only tell people the lies they want to hear.

svobodamartin 1mo ago

Only Brits? Privacy shouldnt be privilege or for tech-savvy only. Freedom of speech cant be regulated without being lost.

jdiff 1mo ago
Obviously no, not only Brits, but the Brits are the ones under discussion because they're the ones being actively threatened with ChatControl laws. Speech is regulated widely in many ways. There is no country with absolute freedom of speech.

hn_submit 1mo ago

And water is wet. Of course Brits are going to answer that they'd rather not have the government read their private correspondence. But at the same time there has been very little protest over draconian legislation in the UK like the Online Safety Act and RIPA Part 3 that cover just these aspects.

dofm 1mo ago
The Online Safety Act has broad support from the people of the UK from the left and right combined. Nobody is stopping anyone protesting against it, but it is not imposed by some imaginary uniparty fascist regime, it is something people want.
- hn_submit 1mo ago
  Most Brits have no idea what's in the Online Safety Act since it expressly mandates the neutering of end-to-end encryption in messaging apps. And protesting is very difficult when everyone doing so is branded a child molester. Britain isn't a true democracy. Neither is Australia. They're Orwellian societies where the populace has been trained to believe that "the government knows best."
  - dofm 1mo ago
    I don't believe the Online Safety Act does require that. RIPA did. But again, most Brits are using WhatsApp anyway; end-to-end security is wholly meaningless in that context. I don't really recognise this "branded a child molester" accusation either, TBH. That seems fantastical but I suspect you are not British. There are plenty of people on the right (e.g. in Reform) making reasonable points about the burden of requiring adults to identify themselves to access legal material and people are not branding them child molesters (not least because that sort of screeching typically comes from the right). The simple reality is that in the UK the majority don't think it's that troublesome, in general, that adults should have to prove they are adults to access adult material (or use a VPN, which the government is actually not acting to ban or add new regulations to). We already have default adult content blocks on mobile data, for example (and the adult content block, once disabled, can therefore be used as a way to identify adulthoot). I tend to find that foreign observers, especially American foreign observers, always tend to conjure up really abstract arguments about inalienable fundamental rights, reduce everything to freedom of speech, whatever. Life is messier and more complex and despite our more nuanced, complex set of laws, they are more moderate than various laws from US states, and it is not the UK that is the first to run headlong into fascism: that is happening in the USA, which voted for it. British law is untidy. Life is untidy. We aren't fucking idiots or ill-informed children. We just draw the lines differently.

semiquaver 1mo ago

If this is true and it doesn’t lead to legal changes eventually, then in what sense is Britain a democracy?

arjie 1mo ago
In the sense that direction and magnitude are two things of separate importance to most, and any system must account for both. An opinion you express only when asked is far less important than an opinion you express unasked. It’s the latter that dominates interpersonal coordination.

mhh__ 1mo ago

I don't think they do. The revealed preference is online safety this online safety that - although in fairness some of this is out of a desire to avoid deeper issues.

IndySun 1mo ago

To all of us, British or otherwise, who're posting our rabbit-holing Democracy and Brexit comments, a moment of cutting light relief. Enjoy some "Yes, Prime Minister". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks&ra=m

hnub7akvk6 1mo ago

Not what I expected but I'm here for it

maxehmookau 1mo ago
Genuinely curious, why? This doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

freakynit 1mo ago

All surveillance should start with ministers first. Their private lives streamed 24/7 over internet for the public to watch. Of course, this is only for national security since humans are corruptible, and these people have vastly most control over a nation's resources, thus, 24/7 monitoring of their private lives, by the public, is super important... for national security ... or else how we can be sure they have not been compromised by a foreign power.. or are not being blackmailed to act against the nation? All for national security... nothing else.

inigyou 1mo ago
If Flock is legal in the USA, then it's also legal for a private individual to make their own Flock network.
- jazzyjackson 1mo ago
  When police do it they get to call it “investigation” but when I do it all of a sudden it’s “stalking”
- anonymousiam 1mo ago
  In the US, it's "legal" for "law enforcement" to use Stingray equipment, which transmits on licensed cellular spectrum and interferes with customers who use the spectrum, sometimes even preventing calls for emergency services. This should be a plain and simple violation of FCC regulations, but who's going to enforce that law against law enforcement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_law_enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_use_in_United_States_...
- m463 1mo ago
  Why not a roving dashcam-based flock copycat? (I thought I heard fedex vehicles actually do this)
sakisv 1mo ago
While this may be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment, I've started to think that this is exactly how it should be: People that are elected by the public and hold the power to define every aspect of our lives, should be held to the absolute highest level of scrutiny possible. Every aspect and every single moment of their lives should be transparent and recorded while they hold office, no exceptions whatsoever. I will concede that having it broadcasted may be a tad hard to do, but there should be a record of what happened during their time - in fact there should be a way to answer the question "what was minister X doing at 2026-08-29 20:13:14 UTC?" And for the argument that says "oh then nobody would want to do it", I think that's in favour of this approach. Look around at what we're dealing with, and which people want to win elections and the fervour with which they go about it. We should be trying to make this kind of "job" as unappealing as possible. It should be a chore, not something to go after.

nickslaughter02 1mo ago

A few people mention EU. Let me remind you: > European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy, Framing Mass Surveillance as “Lawful Access” https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-backdoor-law-enforcement https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-b...

inigyou 1mo ago
How much of this has been approved by the parliament?
fsflover 1mo ago
(2025)

hno8a34nwn 1mo ago

Adding this to my reading list

mdp2021 1mo ago

Inconsistent with the implicit acceptance of age verification laws (forbidding YouTube to minors, may Diderot and D'Alembert and all the democratizers of knowledge raise from their graves and sneer and taunt). Or was there a large turomoil against keir starmer that did not properly reach the news?

inigyou 1mo ago
Why do you think that a website asking how old you are and politicians reading your private messages are the same thing?
- mdp2021 1mo ago
  How do you prove your age without either sharing your identity (or using twisted ways entailing other possibly unacceptable compromises like the eu is trying to do). Remember that the australian side (which moved first) framed it as "no underage access to encyclopedias, no underage access to search engines": age verification, i.e. identity verification or other "nonsense" to access encyclopedias and search engines. In the USA, some voices would include LLMs. Remember that in the uk Wikipedia had to win against the state to get exception under the mandate from keir starmer - it "exceptionally won", and after having lost at a first stage. The privacy of online browsing and the privacy of messaging are equally critical, yes. (Edit: if you wish to really rank them, then a guy looking behind your shoulders when you are reading a book is more dystopian and farcical than a guy looking behind your shoulders when you are writing a letter - yes.)
  - inigyou 1mo ago
    You don't prove it. Under California AB1043 (often called the "age verification law" by propagandists) it's illegal for a social media website to demand you to prove your age.
    - mdp2021 1mo ago
      > Under California AB1043 We are talking about "Brits" here. But you seem to be stating that California has tackled the issue and deliberated that - do I understand correctly? - somebody installs an OS on a machine and sets manually, without verification, a date of birth for the user (setting that will be shared with relevant servers). Are you sure that that would be the way Britain is going to implement it? Why have not britons raised to get that crucial detail very, very clear? We understood that past limitations involved people using webcams in the uk to access forbidden sites. And the eu? That Californian decision does not seem to have conditioned the eu much: the eu idea is that you should have an "official OS" with the technical capabilities required by the open source age-verifying "app" to get access. (And I would insist: forbidding access to the video museum to those in the formative age is one of the most blatant events in history. That happened in britain, it just happened. To call the world reaction disproportionately absent is an understatement.)

zombot 1mo ago

Why don't Brits then vote for a government that is less obsessed with total surveillance? As far as I can tell, Britain is one of the most surveillance-crazy regions on earth.