381–390 of 1001 posts
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…
Regulating porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol has nothing to do with authoritarianism or a lack of freedom. It's about protecting people, just like we already do with seatbelts, speed limits, and food safety. Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find…
The state doesn’t regulate these things to protect people, it does so to manage risk to itself. Porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are tolerated so long as they are contained, taxable, and politically useful.
Regulating porn is this system likely trying to move the needle on declining birth rates. You can look to a host of pro-natalist efforts in China as the likely inspiration.
And without a doubt, overreach by governments will continue.
Since it's about VPNs - what are good VPNs for someone looking for safety/privacy but not anonymity or even IP hiding? Not even for streaming. But for general "safety while on the Internet" when the devices (Mac, iPhone) are mostly on public or not-so-secure WiFi (at the residence or on the go). Plan is to keep it always ON or almost always ON. Not necessarily for the UK. (Other than Mullvad)
This sounds more like a task for NextDNS than a VPN, tbh. Or are you worried about no TLS?
But a VPN would have been more appropriate for this task and if ever I needed to use a different IP from a different country (that would be rare and mostly to access websites for a short period) I could just do it easily.
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…
You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that.
Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere.
Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up Skilled immigration or the Channel crossing?
I don't think anyone objects to what the UK had 20 years ago - genuinely skilled immigration (in American terms, closer to O-1 than H1B). Unfortunately due to the Boris Wave, we got mass, unskilled legal migration. The channel crossings are a rounding error compared to that (but should be stopped as well).
20 years ago it was mostly Poles whose only quality was that they were willing to work for less than native UK citizens in jobs that said UK citizens supposedly did not want to do (which is doublespeak for businesses not wanting to pay a decent wage). This kind of immigration was one of the reasons Brexit happened.
Since it's about VPNs - what are good VPNs for someone looking for safety/privacy but not anonymity or even IP hiding? Not even for streaming. But for general "safety while on the Internet" when the devices (Mac, iPhone) are mostly on public or not-so-secure WiFi (at the residence or on the go). Plan is to keep it always ON or almost always ON. Not necessarily for the UK. (Other than Mullvad)
if you're on apple... iCloud Private Relay. though you may need to be more clear on the safety / privacy benefits you expect to gain
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't about illegal sites? I don't think many people object to blacklisting known sources of child pornography etc. The fact is you now have to verify your identity (name and photo id) in the UK to access an adult subreddit.
You need to be able to shut down websites and apps which do not implement age verification.
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.
Incredible that you’ve managed to bring this conversation to immigration. In fact, it sounds like you’re saying the root cause of this crappy policy is somehow immigrants. Far fetched and not cool.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regulating porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol has nothing to do with authoritarianism or a lack of freedom. It's about protecting people, just like we already do with seatbelts, speed limits, and food safety. Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find…
“It’s for your own good” is always a laughable argument. The state doesn’t regulate these things to protect people, it does so to manage risk to itself. Porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are tolerated so long as they are contained, taxable, and politically useful. Regulating porn is this system likely trying to move the needle on declining birth rates. You can look to a host of pro-natalist efforts in Chi…