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

Staying ahead of censors in 2025

forum.torproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 349 posts

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#281

Post by DANmode »

observationist wrote: post #275
throwfaraway135 wrote: post #17

Considering the staggering number of arrest for online/offensive communications in England & Wales, we should add Britain to the list of Russia and Iran 2017: ~5,500 arrests 2019: ~7,734 arrests 2023: ~12,183 arrests

Imagine being at the legal mercy of terminally online reddit mods who can deploy police to arrest you, and the police strategy is to roll up on you between 1 and 5 AM at night, to catch you vulnerable and off-guard. If they don't like a comment you make, or if your face isn't sufficiently supportive in a picture taken of you, or if you downvote the wrong post, all someone has to do is claim they are offended, and you…

Why would they start fighting now?

This is the place where they force themselves into your home to check if you have a television, in some cases, right?

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#282

Post by DANmode »

immibis wrote: post #268
lenkite wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why has Europe gone nutso ? They were the ones who kept lecturing us (Global South) about "freedom of speech and media is critical to democracy", yadda-yadda at every global conference. Now many of their laws are even worse than much of the third world and people are getting arrested for saying banal stuff online. Why did this happen ? What changed ?

What were people arrested for saying?

This is a fun one, because Americans only read headlines,

and the UK people can’t write the comments.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#283

Post by DANmode »

jmnicolas wrote: post #171
commandersaki wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to how CIA has a technology fund that gave money to Signal; because they use it?

> because they use it? My hunch is because they have a backdoor in it.

They don’t need to pwn Signal,

they pwn the baseband of your phone.

Since…yknow, before 2013.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#284

Post by OtherShrezzing »

fn-mote wrote: post #184
OtherShrezzing wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2023: ~12,183 arrests These numbers are for _all_ arrests under the Malicious Communications Act in that year. So while that category includes arrests for tweets, it also includes all arrests for any offensive communications via an internet-enabled device. So it'd include arrests for domestic abuse where at least one component of the abuse was through WhatsApp. Similarly, it can include just about any arrest where t…

Sure, but it’s pretty hard to believe that the domestic violence arrests are increasing exponentially, isn’t it? ETA: > So it'd include arrests for domestic abuse where at least one component of the abuse was through WhatsApp. Are you absolutely sure of this? It sounded good on the first read, but I’m very skeptical now. It seems to me that the arrest is going to be for battery, even if the charges filed later includ…

In the uk, during interview, you can only be questioned for offences you’ve been arrested for. So it’s common to get over-arrested, and later charged with the serious crime rather than the minor ones.

The overwhelming majority of people arrested under the communications act aren’t charged under it. They’re either released, or charged under a more serious offence.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#285

Post by sjducb »

berkes wrote: post #142
nomilk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also surprised the post focusses on Rus/Iran when Australia, UK, and many more countries (Malaysia, Thailand) have/are introducing laws to prevent large swaths of free speech (banning mediums by age, banning conversation by topic, or by making speaking one's mind online too risky, as almost anything now can be interpreted as 'offensive' or 'hate speech').

> swaths of free speech Which is very cultural dependent as well. "Not being able to log in on TikTok if you are under 16" is not "preventing free speech". And "having no access to pornhub" is not preventing free speech either. Edit: TBC: this is not me defending these laws or rules. E.g. Freedom of speech in the US, is rather narrow. It merely states you may "speak, write, and print with freedom" but not that you ma…

On day one the UKs porn ban was used to censor political speech.

Discussion and images of the protests around migrant hotels were age restricted because they contained adult content (racist content, fighting and burning things).

This age restriction meant that only logged in, age verified, users could see the content. Loads of adults are not age verified.

This is censorship of the news and political speech.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#286

Post by onraglanroad »

sanskritical wrote: post #279
onraglanroad wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really happened: "The defendant and the victim in this matter had been friends but had a falling out which resulted in an incident on the October 27, 2024 whereby abusive and homophobic text messages were sent to the victim causing her alarm and distress."

Yes, the prosecutor defined the "victim" in this case as the third party receiving the text messages. They were so harmed by hearing someone who beat the defendant until she had a brain injury called a slur that the only remedy was bust into her house with a swat team to put her in a jail cell, instead of having the "victim" block and cut ties with the sender.

So you knew the details and chose to misrepresent the situation.

We don't have SWAT teams in the UK. She'd have been sent a letter telling her to appear in court on a certain date.

If you feel the need to lie continually, you shouldn't really consider yourself a Christian.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#287

Post by naasking »

seattle_spring wrote: post #237
naasking wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which made it an offence to stir up or incite racial hatred. If you point out that one racial demographic is responsible for more crimes than another, would that run afoul of the statute? If not, what if you additionally point out that the reason these crimes were committed is likely because that behaviour is normalized in their culture? This seems like it would definitely run afoul of the statute, and if this logi…

It's pretty apparent that the arrests are happening to people who explicitly call for violence, eg the woman who called for burning down all hotels housing immigrants. Musk, Rogan, etc are patient zero of the ones amplifying the false idea that you can get in legal trouble "for posting an opinion."

> It's pretty apparent that the arrests are happening to people who explicitly call for violence

Unless the statute specifically makes that distinction, then that's not very compelling. There are already laws against inciting violence. Hate speech laws are specifically understood to be about outlawing speech that contain or incite "hate", whose definition is typically broad.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#288

Post by sanskritical »

onraglanroad wrote: post #286
sanskritical wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the prosecutor defined the "victim" in this case as the third party receiving the text messages. They were so harmed by hearing someone who beat the defendant until she had a brain injury called a slur that the only remedy was bust into her house with a swat team to put her in a jail cell, instead of having the "victim" block and cut ties with the sender.

So you knew the details and chose to misrepresent the situation. We don't have SWAT teams in the UK. She'd have been sent a letter telling her to appear in court on a certain date. If you feel the need to lie continually, you shouldn't really consider yourself a Christian.

I didn't misrepresent the situation it all. It is exactly as I described.

11 armed people is a functional equivalent of a SWAT team. My statement was hyperbolic. If you serve someone a court summons for a bullshit charge it is a threat of violence against their person. And the charge was bullshit. And the threat of violence was followed up with force.

I'm not lying. I'm also not Christian at all! Never claimed to be.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#289

Post by pclmulqdq »

ben_w wrote: post #274
pclmulqdq wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So per your source, he did cancel local elections at a time where it is politically favorable for him to do so?

No. 1. "Postponed" is not "cancelled" 2. "Postponed" is entirely normal within British politics. For most of my life, even the timing of general elections were at the whim of the government. 3. Given how Starmer polls, the delay is almost certainly going to make things un -favourable for him. Also unfavourable for Labour, unless they kick him out first. Not that it would matter much if your conspiracy theory held wat…

"My conspiracy theory" is a set of facts that you and the source you cited (whose so-called "fact check" was mostly attempting to put into context) find really inconvenient. Fact 1: Starmer and his party are polling badly. Fact 2: Starmer and his party delayed several local elections, many of which were in constituencies where they currently hold power and won't afterward. This is not a good set of facts, regardless of how little those elections matter.

Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025

#290

Post by daveguy »

sanskritical wrote: post #280
daveguy wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No bigotry at all. It has nothing to do with his ethnicity. Just that the guy and his followers are notably biased, and they are open about it. Sorry you misunderstood as bigotry my pointing out the clear bias of the owners and your incorrect attribution of ownership. Look at the content section of your original link about IBT. The rag is clearly not run on sound journalistic practices.

Okay, so it is about him being Christian and not Asian.

Nope. It's about him being vocally biased and claiming his purpose in media is specific to an agenda. That agenda is specifically not journalism. So yeah... Really doesn't have anything to do with the motives you are falsely attributing to me. Might want to read your own sources before you start flinging accusations.

You can try to twist my words however you want, but it seems your usual targets are much more easily manipulated. Sorry buddy.

Post reply on HN