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UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

alecmuffett.com

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Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#421

Post by pydry »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #285
pydry wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yeah, that’s dumb. Curious what they were charged with, e.g. if they were told to disperse and didn’t, and if the charges will stick. As dumb as it may be, you should be free-in a democracy, with limited exceptions—to verbalize support for a foreign or even domestic terrorist organization as long as you aren’t materially aiding it. Is “supporting” defined in the UK Terrorist Act?

Spray painting a panzer tank in 1939 with "free the jews" would have been a pretty much identical form of "terrorism".

Nobody killed, no real damage done.

Obviously the Nazis back then would agree with modern far right that defacing weapons used to commit genocide fits the definition of terrorism and that voicing support for such a crime demands prison time.

And, modern liberals have always had an easier relationship with the far right than they have had with free speech.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#422

Post by [deleted] »

ipaddr wrote: post #310
fao_ wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first example was "man arrested for wearing the exact same outfit as a man who intentionally blew himself up, killing 22 people". It's not "he was wearing the same chequered shirt!" either. As a UK citizen... I don't see how that fits under "free speech", lol Even with "freedom of speech", you do not have "freedom from fascism" built into that, case in point, Wikipedia has multiple pages documenting both the curr…

Freedom to choose clothing wouldn't fall under any version of freedom of speech? I would would work with your fellow citizens to change that.

[deleted]

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#425

Post by kubb »

Amezarak wrote: post #223
tormeh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not protect free speech the way the US does. You're free to voice any opinion, but the exact wordings in which you are allowed to do it are restricted. You are allowed to say "I hate Merz" but not "Merz is a piece of garbage". I'm not saying this is good, but it's not recent and it does not prevent free communication of ideas.

As we have seen, it is very easy to declare certain beliefs beyond contestation and any disagreement with them as insulting/inciting hate/etc. That's why freedom of speech must entail the freedom to say things people find offensive, or there's no free communication of ideas at all. The state and ruling elites will determine that there is a set of proscribed ideas and a set of approved ideas and yours fall into the wr…

“Country X should change it’s laws because Y” is a belief you can have even if Y is not shared by enough people in Germany to make that change.

Claiming that Germany recently introduced a law prohibiting criticism of politicians is an admission of belief in something demonstrably incompatible with reality.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#426

Post by u_sama »

EmptyCoffeeCup wrote: post #411
u_sama wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The house of lords is a stamping system at this point, and maybe a stopgap to authoritarianism. All power resides in the House of Commons which is elected The true issue lies in the fact that the Westminster style of government is de facto an elective tyranny, with no real checks and balances other than the misused ECHR

If this were true, the papers wouldn't have run an article yesterday bitching about the lords sending back the workers rights bill again. The commons may _eventually_ overrule them, but it takes time and costs political capital. The majority of our population want more law, more rules, more restrictions : they don't see the value or enjoyment in doing something, so they don't think anyone should be able to do it. Ask…

I actually dont think your comment invalidates mine. The house of lords cannot really do anything than be a pain in the ass by sending the bill 3 times. The commons will eventually outrule them if they have sufficient political capital.

My comment on elective tyranny comes from the fact that if a trifecta of: leader/party mps/house of lords are aligned there is little to stop them.

This done I think all of the debates around authoritarianism and censorship put too much blame on the government which seems to represent the views of the majority of people rather well. I think it also comes from the fact that the median age is older and older people are more conservative in their choices and thus more willing to put limitations on everything (and also the fucking boomers vote as a 25% bloc which imposes their choices on the remaining poplation i.e the infamous triple lock of retirements)

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#427

Post by nine_k »

subscribed wrote: post #370
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're prosecuting people for holding up signs Source?

They also hold people arrested for opposing genocide on remand without trial for months already. For holding rhe sign. The famously authoritarian police threatening arrest for an attempt to hold an EMPTY placard. Or arresting for a shirt with "Plasticine Action". Or locking in a prison for several years for zoom call in which they planned nonviolent protest (blocking the motorway). We could do it for months.

Arresting a person for holding a blank placard would indeed be Russia-level oppression. The person in question was not arrested, but threatened to be arrested if he wrote a particular phrase on it [1]. Not great at all, but still no cigar.

A man wearing the "Plasticine Action" T-shirt was indeed arrested [2]. That was extra absurd because the protest was against AI-generated animation, not about a political cause.

All in all, quite bad :(

[1]: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-arrest-blank-paper...

[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action...

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#428

Post by maest »

stephen_g wrote: post #415
maest wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand it incorrectly

“ In July 2013, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) agreed to voluntarily offer “default-on” adult content internet filters on all new and existing home network customers” [1] OK, so the entire industry does opt everyone in to content filtering by default, just every single provider, without exception, does it “voluntarily”. 1. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07...

Yes, that is the correct statement.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#429

Post by [deleted] »

azalemeth wrote: post #54

It's also worth stating that the worst part of that proposed amendment [1] isn't even necessarily the VPN ban, it's the next clause, on page 20: "The “CSAM requirement” is that any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software which is highly effective at preventing the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM using that device."…

[deleted]

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#430

Post by niggertopia »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #158
oncallthrow wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, which grass roots group exactly campaigned for this? Which party’s manifesto was it on?

"Never let a good crisis go to waste." The "think of the children!" argument has long been used by people in government to give themselves more power. In this case there's been a global effort to shut down unapproved speech. The government gains the power to censor and arrest for "bad speech" but it also gets to decide how the labels for the same are applied. There have been panel discussions and speeches on this at…

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