Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 128 posts

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#21

Post by TrackerFF »

Same reason as always: Wealthy people want less taxes, more power, and will lobby for the parties that always promise less taxes: Those on the right.

The problem is that the conservative and traditional right aren't too popular, so they need to go for the far-right. Those parties are in full MAGA-mode, focusing on things like immigration. It is so, so much easier to sway public opinion by blowing up incidents involving immigrants, than to convince the public that they should accept reduction or degradation of services due to tax cuts.

Far-right politicians discovered some time ago that they can straight up lie through their teeth, and face zero consequences. And those lies will propagate through social media, and people will accept them as facts.

It seems like critical thinking among huge parts of the population is considerably down. I've heard seemingly smart people I know regurgitate lies they've picked up on social media, which they could have fact checked in 30 seconds.

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#22

Post by dingdingdang »

fzeroracer wrote: post #15
spwa4 wrote: post #8

The whole reason the British government pushed Brexit was so Britain could control its immigration. That's how Brexit was presented to the population, that's why people voted for it. Then the government got Brexit, and then Boris Johnson more than tripled immigration, chasing away EU immigration and getting all the immigrants from the (very coincidentally very low-wage Pakistan, I mean there aren't very many countrie…

>The whole reason the British government pushed Brexit was so Britain could control its immigration. That's how Brexit was presented to the population, that's why people voted for it. >Meanwhile the government did not fix the housing issue, the cost of living disaster in London, the unemployment problem, ... and so on. These two things might be connected. It's almost like Brexit caused a series of large social proble…

Brexit promised a solution just like loads of solutions had been promised within the EU framework prior to it - all these "solutions" were akin in that they were all promised (from left and right within the political establishment) and all not delivered. This is also why people seek to go outside the regular voting pattern with Reform, it's not cause they suddenly love something completely different but because the former voting pattern did not deliver improvements as expected.

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#23

Post by dijksterhuis »

spwa4 wrote: post #8

The whole reason the British government pushed Brexit was so Britain could control its immigration. That's how Brexit was presented to the population, that's why people voted for it. Then the government got Brexit, and then Boris Johnson more than tripled immigration, chasing away EU immigration and getting all the immigrants from the (very coincidentally very low-wage Pakistan, I mean there aren't very many countrie…

you are right, although i would point out that when you use the word “government” you’re mostly referring to a series of conservative party governments.

at the same time. two things can be true. everything you mentioned plays a large part in why we’re in a bit of a mess as a country.

this is being exacerbated by big tech firms, especially social media ones. the fact that a lie from some tech bro with a large soapbox can travel all the way around the world in less than a second makes it very hard to have a reasoned discussion or debate about the problem.

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#25

Post by clear-octopus »

4dregress wrote: post #6

Simple answer is power, look at how things have changed since Musk bought the largest communication platform on the planet. Look at who's backing him and what they want. The UK's stance goes right against the values and goals these billionaires want and that's basically to do whatever they want without recourse. What better way to sow diversion than to stoke civil unrest and cause change to the systems that stand in…

[dead]

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#26

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Jiro wrote: post #16
monooso wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether you're correct, that wasn't the subject of the article.

It's implied by the article that there wouldn't be much opposition to immigration without big tech. That isn't true if there is widespread opposition to immigration anyway and the government broke its promise about dealing with it.

The article specifically disclaims that. "To identify Musk as the cause of the riots is to airbrush the messy reality. Comforting, but ultimately deluding."

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#29

Post by 10xDev »

eyevz wrote: post #10

[flagged]

Immigration has dramatically gone down in the past few years.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo... (figure 2)

I think the real problem people are having is that a large amount of those immigrants are now no longer from the EU. But you have Brexit to blame for that.

Re: Big Tech is stoking unrest in the UK. Why?

#30

Post by rob_c »

TrackerFF wrote: post #21

Same reason as always: Wealthy people want less taxes, more power, and will lobby for the parties that always promise less taxes: Those on the right. The problem is that the conservative and traditional right aren't too popular, so they need to go for the far-right. Those parties are in full MAGA-mode, focusing on things like immigration. It is so, so much easier to sway public opinion by blowing up incidents involvi…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN