Live data from Hacker News

VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

ft.com

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#181
post #62

Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically…

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up

Skilled immigration or the Channel crossing?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#183

There are a lot of comments and thinking along the demo and gloom lines. On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something. And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult). With any luck parents might even be force…

Any suggestions?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#184
post #163

How should small social network sites, forums or any sites that post user-generatrd content etc who can't afford to do age verification respond to this law? Block all requests from UK IPs? We are building a niche social network and don't want to be in the cross-hairs. Is anyone in a similar position? How's your company dealing with this? Edit: apart from cost, storing user IDs etc goes against our goal of building a…

Focus on building and don't worry about being in regulatory crosshairs until you're actually in their crosshairs. The less you know about this stuff the better.

If you are building competing service and your competition has links to government, you will be one brown envelope away from being crushed.

These regulations are meant to serve big corporations and protect their monopoly.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#185
post #62

Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically…

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

"suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here."

Errr, what? A lot of people complain about the NHS, whilst conceding there are issues that are difficult to address eg staff, lack of investment etc.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#186
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left around the time of Brexit so I have no useful opinion on the recent financial/admin state of the UK, though it seems from afar that austerity has done the place no favours. But... - this kind of authoritarian nonsense is just what Home Secretaries do. David Blunkett brought in RIP (then, to his very slight credit, changed his mind). Jack 'boot' Straw was famous for his I-AM-THE-LAWing. I don't think the Tories…

- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly. This is exactly what I'm saying. The NHS are seen as perfect by some. All criticism is digs that are wrong. I'm pro-NHS. But this perspective…

> But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality

Very very very few people think the NHS is infallible. What are you even talking about? We all understand the NHS has many many problems, and those of us that have used the NHS understand this even more.

However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model.

Not sure what you're getting out of this weird strawman argument you're putting forward.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#187

Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.

UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.

[dead]

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#188
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up Skilled immigration or the Channel crossing?

[dead]

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#189

I genuinely think that some 20% of the population are incurable moral busybodies, and the main function of liberal democracy is to protect the rest of society from these people. In this case liberal democracy has failed to protect us from some truly terrible legislation. Its impact goes far beyond adult content, it's an open attack on freedom of expression in this country that will lead to the proliferation of scams…

Liberal democracy's actual function is to convert the will of the people into a functioning government. If it was actually true that 80% of the population opposed this law, MPs would be falling over themselves to run against it and it would be gone immediately after the next election cycle. I think it's a dumb law, but I also don't think the UK's democracy is that broken. It's pretty clear a majority of UK voters sup…

Why do you think it's clear a majority of UK voters support this?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#190

Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically…

It's about corporate control - the more regulations like this - the more entrenched the market becomes. Higher barrier to enter for smaller players plus government gets all the surveillance apparatus as a sweetener.

Basically Labour continues taking UK into corporate fascist utopia.

Post reply on HN