The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

> Arresting people for holding up a blank sign is very different and much worse.

On the contrary, it’s no different whatsoever from corralling away protest until it’s out of sight in an approved zone, and arresting anyone who expresses dissent in sight.

It’s exactly the same use of police in concealment of dissent by the state.

> Do you agree it was a problem

Of course, it’s fucking awful. It’s your contention that “nothing like this ever happened in the US” that I took issue with - it does and it’s entirely routine.

This is my very point - the UK is used as some sort of out-there example of Orwellian repression, but the US, often painted in contrast as some sort of bastion, albeit a troubled one, is usually doing exactly the same damn thing.

It’s in this thread. We have your assertions above, and below we have someone decrying how unimaginable it would have been for a government to attempt to wholesale spy on people’s communications two decades ago, seemingly completely unaware of the activities of the NSA in AT&T and other companies’ data infrastructure in the US, revealed in 2006.

It’s a weird mix of jingoism and ignorance.

True, now that you mention it I’ve seen the same sort of thing from people who are definitely not bots. Although, you can’t discount the possibility that they do some government or law enforcement work as a consultant. The full throated defense of police state tactics is unreal. (For what it’s worth, there are plenty of Americans who show up in Palantir/Flock threads doing the same thing, and I have the same suspicions there.)

> client-journalism it engages in with regard to the Conservative party.

BBC Caught Altering Budget Article to Be More Favourable to Labour - https://order-order.com/2024/11/01/bbc-caught-altering-budge...

When Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP that, among other things, attacked Musk for talking about Pakistani rape gangs, was arrested for pedophilia [1], this is the article they published - no photo, no name, no party affiliation, and no followup article - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg45y4r0yngo

BBC omits identity of Nigerian murderer from article about how he killed his wife [2,3], making it entirely about "gendered violence" instead. Readers can't make the incorrect inference if you simply withhold information from them.

BBC omits all criticism of Starmer from their reporting on his meeting with Trump [4].

The famous Trump capitol speech splicing: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/03/bbc-report-revea...

When Farage's private bank account was closed due to his politics, the BBC first simply took the bank's word that this was entirely due to financial considerations. When Farage obtained internal documents of that bank, explicitly saying he met financial criteria for an account, but it was closed despite this due to his politics, the BBC issued a correction article trying to imply his politics were merely "also" considered [5].

BBC uses all-white stock photos to warn about obnoxiously loud phone use on trains [6].

But makes sure to use a racially-diverse cast for the 1066 Battle of Hastings [7].

This is not the only such instance, nor a coincidence, by their own admission: Moffat even talks about the idea he mentions above — the excuse of “historical accuracy” that some people often give to justify an all-white cast — “[W]e’ve kind of got to tell a lie: we’ll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn’t have been, and we won’t dwell on that. We’ll say, ‘To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we’ll summon it forth.’” [8,9]

"Piers Wenger said failing to update the classics with diverse characters would be a dereliction of duty" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/bbc-drama-boss-d...

They cropped a photo to remove a weapon from a protester: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/bbc-cropping-out-weapon-black-...

They instruct white parents to teach their children about white privilege, and to examine their biases if their toddler has only white friends: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/articles/zrgcf82

They had and defended a no-whites-allowed internship (despite BAME-workers already being slightly over-represented at the BBC [10]): https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/19/bbc-criticised-for-banning-wh...

They censor their own shows to be more racially sensitive on re-broadcast - without mentioning it until pressed: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/the-bbc-quietly-censo...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Caplin

[2] https://www.surinenglish.com/malaga/benalmadena-torremolinos...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyw7g4zxwzo

[4] https://x.com/chrismid/status/1950163250852540547 (contains links to full Trump-Starmer meeting and the BBC articles, on the off chance you don't trust a random tweet)

[5] "On 4 July, the BBC reported Mr Farage no longer met the financial requirements for Coutts, citing a source familiar with the matter. The former UKIP leader later obtained a Coutts report which indicated his political views were also considered." - https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66288464

[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce83p1ej8j7o

[7] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/07/racially-diverse...

[8] https://www.themarysue.com/steven-moffat-on-doctor-who-diver...

[9] https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-on-diversity-in-doctor-...

[10] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-white-pe...

> On the contrary, it’s no different whatsoever from corralling away protest until it’s out of sight in an approved zone, and arresting anyone who expresses dissent in sight.

You are not being genuine here IMO, and this seems to be a case of the very tribalism I spoke of. The two are not remotely the same. One is restricting a protest to a zone. The other is punishing people for what they are saying, even when what they are saying is a blank piece of cardboard.

> It’s your contention that “nothing like this ever happened in the US” that I took issue with - it does and it’s entirely routine.

> ...

> the US, often painted in contrast as some sort of bastion, albeit a troubled one, is usually doing exactly the same damn thing.

Can you cite an example of people in the US being arrested for holding up a blank piece of cardboard?

> It’s a weird mix of jingoism and ignorance.

This only describes your behavior.

I've no idea what Dr. Who, murder-reporting, period dramas or stock photography choices have to do with the Labour party, but I'll pretend you're arguing in good faith and address what I believe to be the point in your copypasta.

The most empirical and robust study regarding bias was performed by Cardiff University in 2013. Its major finding regarded the dominance of Conservative party political sources in BBC coverage; in coverage of immigration, the EU and religion, they accounted for 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in 2012.

The data also showed that the Conservative Party received significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In 2012, Conservative leader and then Prime Minister David Cameron outnumbered Labour leader Ed Miliband in appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15), and governing Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15).

In reporting of the EU the dominance was even more pronounced with party political sources accounting for 65% of source appearances in 2007 and 79.2% in 2012.

In strand two (reporting of all topics) Conservative politicians were featured more than 50% more often than Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the BBC News at Six

This is evident right up to the 2019 election - BBC Question Time editing out audience laughter at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's fumbling responses, and soft-shoeing his ascendancy by excusing him from the tender mercies of Andrew Neil - unlike his opposition.

https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-...