111–120 of 160 posts
This kind of thing was always my biggest worry going into Brexit. The country has to reimplement a ton of regulation and you know the government and its various hangers on won’t be able to resist “tweaking” every law and regulation to better favour them. Workers rights, human rights… it’s all up for negotiation now. By people who aren’t listening to you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit of special interests. The reality is that the EU legislation was toxic and loopholed at the behest of the UK and its special interests. The UK was not a moderating influence, but the UK was the one calling for no encryption and spying of the population. If given a chance to improve or remove legislatio…
Well said. As a UK national, I have to prefer being beaten with relish by genuine sadists (the UK government), rather than by sadists who pretend to have some heart left over.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU isn't really protecting the privacy of its citizens with the GDPR as much as people think for at least two reasons. First there is the practical implementation. As we've seen the current stand-off between US government security laws and EU government privacy laws is still being decided in favour of transferring personal data for processing in the US. That might even be the preferable way to break the deadlock…
> cutting off all US-based services when the EU has no native competitors would be enormous I think you have it wrong way round - EU business was late, and 5he market was sevured by US corps. I dont think EU will ban US business, but if they did, that would create opportunity for homegrown co petition to emerge. By now, cloud services are not rocket science.
That's one theory. The problem is the several years of lag time between the opportunity being created and anyone actually exploiting it at scale. In the meantime countless SMEs that depend on modern online services for their day to day operations would probably have failed.
By now, cloud services are not rocket science.
And yet the US keeps producing them at a far higher rate than we do over here. Much of that has been due to the VCs almost casually giving away millions in funding in the hope of backing the next unicorn among all the failures, which is an investment culture you don't see so much in Europe. But there are also reasons investors tend to favour some countries over others and the regulatory environment is usually second on that list (after taxes/subsidies) if it's not first.
And in their regulatory environments the EU and US are almost polar opposites. The US is very lightly regulated (apart from the problems of regulatory capture, where the US seems to do much worse when it does happen) but that means tech firms engage in practices we might not like. The EU is very heavily regulated but that means added overheads even for well-behaved businesses that can eventually add up to being less competitive in a global market. Maybe there is a sweet spot in between but certainly neither the US nor the EU have found it yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the regulation is a joke anyway, so why pretend? same with gdpr and the so called online privacy. it’s all smoke and mirrors with an added serving of mixed anti-americanism and european protectionism. they should remove everything from the books until these things have heft. and if they can’t come up with something serious, why legislate in the first place? just for populism’s sake? (eg UK’s online safety bill)
What you call a joke does work albeit slowly. Most of pages have a 'reject all' button now. It didn't get there in the first iteration, but the effect is nice now. As a bonus, you quickly see who works in bad faith, by how it's implemented.
Cookies are the least offensive tracking technology. They're visible to users and the interactions with them can be seen. The EU should have mandated that all tracking has to be implemented as a cookie so that users could see it and block it themselves. Instead they added a lot of cruft and legal risk to every website and it doesn't make anyone "safer".
> you quickly see who works in bad faith
No, and that's the ultimate fail. You click the button and feel safe but you can't see the server-side logs so it's entirely a false sense of security.
If you want to stop tracking, make the law about tracking not about the current methods.
For the elites who backed it - as opposed to the people who voted for it - Brexit was always a project about Americanising the UK. They're the same people forcing mayors on us, the same ones who wanted chlorinated chicken, the same ones who think american style private health insurance is a good way to run a healthcare system, and all the rest. So I'm not surprised that they think invasive surveillance capitalism is…
I’m a Hongkonger. The only thing I know about UK before moving to there is the Queen, and Manchester United. I’m curious of what British politics like in general. Like, I’m absolutely against invasive surveillance, but I associate it more with communist China and its authoritarian bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius
We also routinely convicted people on flimsy charges, this being the most notorious case:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six
A notoriously brutal policing operation split along ethnic lines:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ulster_Constabulary
Infiltration of various groups by police with the sole purpose of surveilling and disrupting their activities:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/15/undercover-p...
Mass surveillance by GCHQ as documented by Snowden:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
Rendition without trial (aka kidnapping) and torture:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/22/uk-support-cia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
London is the most surveiled city outside China:
https://www.verdict.co.uk/most-surveilled-city/
And last but not least, the Metropolitan Police is full of creeps, rapists and murderers:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58747614
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/met-police-p...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/22/fourth-offic...
...
OK, one more, I give you.. indefinite prison sentences:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/28/call-to-rese...
Edit: The pattern I'd identify throughout 200 years of our history is that we regularly "clamp down" on groups that are no threat (eg, Catholics, Irish people, and today Muslims) and radicals of any kind who wanted stuff like the vote, or socialised healthcare, or a decent environment. The pattern may well span longer, but I can definitely pick it up during that time.
I don't think it is even a matter of national character, either: it is a function of how our politics works. We have two viable parties of government, and they don't contest certain things, including authoritarian policymaking.
For the elites who backed it - as opposed to the people who voted for it - Brexit was always a project about Americanising the UK. They're the same people forcing mayors on us, the same ones who wanted chlorinated chicken, the same ones who think american style private health insurance is a good way to run a healthcare system, and all the rest. So I'm not surprised that they think invasive surveillance capitalism is…
I’m a Hongkonger. The only thing I know about UK before moving to there is the Queen, and Manchester United. I’m curious of what British politics like in general. Like, I’m absolutely against invasive surveillance, but I associate it more with communist China and its authoritarian bullshit.
The newspapers are suggesting the new migrant stats to be published soon by Home Office for past 12 months will show extremely high numbers from both Hong Kong and Ukraine. To be honest I'm surprised people from Hong Kong didn't pick Australia instead of UK given it's better weather and bigger homes/roads compared to cramped England.
This kind of thing was always my biggest worry going into Brexit. The country has to reimplement a ton of regulation and you know the government and its various hangers on won’t be able to resist “tweaking” every law and regulation to better favour them. Workers rights, human rights… it’s all up for negotiation now. By people who aren’t listening to you.
Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit of special interests. Maybe with the right people in power that could still be achieved, but seems unlikely.
Personally, I would take a guaranteed "90% right" system (aka the EU) over a random number generator (aka Brexit)...
This kind of thing was always my biggest worry going into Brexit. The country has to reimplement a ton of regulation and you know the government and its various hangers on won’t be able to resist “tweaking” every law and regulation to better favour them. Workers rights, human rights… it’s all up for negotiation now. By people who aren’t listening to you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit of special interests. Maybe with the right people in power that could still be achieved, but seems unlikely.
> Could have been a great opportunity to try to actually improve things rather than adding loopholes for the benefit of special interests. But the kind of people who want the policy that Brexit is - i.e. xenophobic nationalists - are not the kind of people you'd want to take such an opportunity. Membership of the EU was a great opportunity. Brexit is an opportunity for fascists.
I'd be curious to hear how exiting the European Union relates to the doctrines of Benito Mussolini.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well said. As a UK national, I have to prefer being beaten with relish by genuine sadists (the UK government), rather than by sadists who pretend to have some heart left over.
Mission accomplished! Good luck with, well, everything & looking forward to seeing you in back in the Union within 2 generations! Without the prior exemptions & special treatment, naturally.