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Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

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Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#171

Post by nailer »

pjc50 wrote: post #169
nailer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't live in the UK, Corbyn (and Momentum, the hard left group which has recently taken over the Labour party in the UK) is well known to support various groups who commit political violence against non-military targets.

The same is true of the Conservative party of course, if we count e.g. support of the government of Bahrain: http://www.dpglaw.co.uk/torture-victim-seeks-review-uk-train...

Yep, not just Bahrain but the Saudis as well. I won't vote for the Conservatives for other reasons but UK governments both left and right have always sidled up to awful regimes in the name of diplomacy. We don't need to add extremist groups to the list.

How about we reject both the dictators and the terrorists?

http://www.libdems.org.uk/saudi_arabia

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/09/07/new-green-co-l...

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#172

Post by wfo »

nailer wrote: post #162
wfo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been a huge partially successful smear campaign against Corbyn, some written by reputable politicians, some like this so laughable and ridiculous that only the already convinced manage to read through the whole thing without rolling their eyes and closing it. It means people with power are afraid of him which is quite encouraging!

The article addresses the 'smear campaign' theories - that: - the Labour front bench - the Labour electorate - the Guardian, - Jewish groups - Caitlin Moran and anyone else opposed to this madness are all involved in some kind of organised conspiracy against Corbyn, quite well: > Labour’s communications team lies about “the IRA thing”, claiming that Corbyn’s glorification of butchery should be seen as “helping the pe…

Indeed the neoliberal consensus is that he and anyone who rejects it should not have any say in the government and extremist neoliberal ideology has taken over much of the elite power structures in the UK (as well as the US!)

If saying nice things about bad people were actually a problem, no politician in history in any western society would ever be allowed to rule. Pick any politician and you will find them endorsing, funding, supporting or any combination brutal dictators, apartheid regimes, terrorists like Al Qaeda (years ago), slave states, various factions fighting in Syria, Iraq (pre Iraq war), Qatar, Turkey, Dubai, Iran (pre islamic revolution or post), Israel, death squads in South America, Pinochet, on and on and on. To have any "serious" position in modern foreign policy is to support evil.

These "statements of support" are of course ridiculous 'gotcha' red herrings that actually mean nothing that neoliberal ideologues use to smear his personality and avoid talking about actual policy that could seriously effect the lives of ordinary UK citizens which they desperately do not want to improve, policy like for example the devastating and horrific one that is supposed to be the subject of this discussion thread.

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#173

Post by Silhouette »

kbart wrote: post #55
basisword wrote: post #36

As much as I expect nanny-state behaviour from the Tory's this has blown me away. I thought the author may be exaggerating so I went and actually read the manifesto. It's only about one page near the end but it reads like something you'd expect from a dictatorial regime. It seems like after cutting us off from Europe via Brexit the government now wants to cut us off from the rest of the world. I just hope internet co…

"I just hope internet companies stand up the UK and refuse to do business here." I wouldn't bet my money on it, since UK ISP companies were quite happy following government's agenda (see porn filter and Internet history collection).

They weren't happy about it. Behind the scenes, this stuff costs them a lot of money and potentially increases their legal exposure. It also makes them look bad to their customers, though that's not really a competitive disadvantage if everyone is compelled to be customer-hostile in the same ways. However, since they're UK businesses and they're not above UK law, what other viable option do they have?

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#174

Post by nailer »

wfo wrote: post #172
nailer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article addresses the 'smear campaign' theories - that: - the Labour front bench - the Labour electorate - the Guardian, - Jewish groups - Caitlin Moran and anyone else opposed to this madness are all involved in some kind of organised conspiracy against Corbyn, quite well: > Labour’s communications team lies about “the IRA thing”, claiming that Corbyn’s glorification of butchery should be seen as “helping the pe…

Indeed the neoliberal consensus is that he and anyone who rejects it should not have any say in the government and extremist neoliberal ideology has taken over much of the elite power structures in the UK (as well as the US!) If saying nice things about bad people were actually a problem, no politician in history in any western society would ever be allowed to rule. Pick any politician and you will find them endorsin…

> To have any "serious" position in modern foreign policy is to support evil.

Saying the trial of the Brighton bomber is a "show trial" and protesting it has very little to do with foreign policy. The IRA did not represent a foreign government and the five people killed were neither military nor government ministers.

Neither does mourning Fidel Castro, after he's dead.

Also:

- The mainstream left people you'll find not voting for Corbyn are normally referred to as 'classical liberal' - liberals have always been against people inflicting violence upon others. The people handing out copies of 'Socialist Worker' outside the tube, Corbyn and you are 'extreme left'.

- Acting as if supporting Momentum is the only way to challenge the conservatives on privacy is insincere.

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#175

Post by Silhouette »

chumali wrote: post #139
kbart wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I just hope internet companies stand up the UK and refuse to do business here." I wouldn't bet my money on it, since UK ISP companies were quite happy following government's agenda (see porn filter and Internet history collection).

There is currently no legal requirement for UK ISPs to enable content filtering however all the major ISPs have agreed to voluntarily implement this. Whilst in theory users have an option to 'opt out' in practice most users are unaware of this and the process varies considerably depending on ISP. As far as court ordered blocking, IIRC only the top 5 ISPs are currently required to implement this. Not sure what impact…

Whilst in theory users have an option to 'opt out' in practice most users are unaware of this and the process varies considerably depending on ISP.

Do you have any robust data you could share about that? I'd be interested to see it. The only reports I've seen were informal/anecdotal, but if anything they suggested the reverse usually happens, with not many customers opting into filter programmes and those who were signed up automatically generating a fair number of hostile calls to ISP customer support people about wanting to opt out (and quite a few of those in connection with sites being blocked inappropriately).

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#176

Post by Silhouette »

basisword wrote: post #36

As much as I expect nanny-state behaviour from the Tory's this has blown me away. I thought the author may be exaggerating so I went and actually read the manifesto. It's only about one page near the end but it reads like something you'd expect from a dictatorial regime. It seems like after cutting us off from Europe via Brexit the government now wants to cut us off from the rest of the world. I just hope internet co…

The problem is that what they've written looks very reasonable. After all, who could disagree with a statement such as the quote below?

"It is in no-one’s interest for the foundations of strong societies and stable democracies – the rule of law, privacy and security – to be undermined."

The Internet is a dangerous place at times. As anyone who needed the NHS a few days ago is all too aware, modern technologies can be vulnerable to very damaging attacks. There are whole new variations of criminal activity, from bullying and harassment to fraud and identity theft, that have been enabled by our modern, highly connected lives, and these often do have serious consequences for the victims. None of this is seriously in dispute, and no-one would seriously suggest that it wouldn't be better if these problems were effectively addressed.

The real problem is that I suspect Theresa May and her government have a very different idea about what things like "effectively addressed" mean compared to most of us here. The biggest single step to undermining privacy and security online in our country may well have been the Internet surveillance laws passed recently by the current government, laws which started out as a personal goal of May herself from her time as Home Secretary.

In their haste to ensure that laws and principles can be applied online as well as offline, it appears that the Conservative leadership has forgotten that offline we also have rules about following due process and principles about being innocent until proven guilty and legal requirements for reasonable grounds for suspicion before doing various things that interfere with a private citizen's life.

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#177

Post by k-mcgrady »

arethuza wrote: post #136
nul_byte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly hold off on Scotland until its known how things will work out. Scotland's budget deficit is now 10% of GDP which is larger than that of Greece. To be a member of the EU it requires a deficit of no more than 3% of GDP.

Worth noting though that the budget deficit of all countries varies a lot over time and that the budget deficit as % of GDP of Scotland now is actually less than that of the UK in 2009-2010 and I didn't hear much about the UK being evicted from the EU because of that.

2009-10 was still the middle of the worst global financial crisis in a century. The rules for being allowed to join the EU are strict - once you're in you don't have to keep following the entry requirements.

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#178

Post by sctb »

Pigo wrote: post #78

I must admit I thought it was going to be about SJW types wanting to free us from harmful independent thought. I was surprised, but then I don't have a lot of context for British political parties.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374887 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet

#179

Post by AlbertoGP »

7952 wrote: post #156
mattkevan wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, I don't disagree with those parents' concerns. There's a lot of horrible horrible crap on the Internet, stuff that I don't want my child anywhere near. And if I wasn't tech savvy, having the government do it would probably sound like a good idea However, enforcing a nation-state firewall which blocks stuff 'for our own good' – and records every aspect of our lives in the process – is not the right way t…

Seems to me that government tend to treat the web as a public space (like a city park). And naturally some things are not appropriate in that context. But many of us treat it as a private space akin to a bedroom, and expect similar levels of privacy. This difference in view is a source of the problems. Because it is really neither public or private but some indeterminate place in between. We need the difference to be…

I would propose for the government to put approved content under https://city-park.gov.uk so that concerned people can limit their browsing to that site.
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