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The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

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641–650 of 794 posts

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#641

Here's my idea how "safe mode" might be implemented without selfie, passport and without every app or website owner having to spend money on compliance. The mobile and desktop OS should have a checkbox "child mode" in the onboarding stage. Switching device to "child mode" allows only installing white-listed apps from the government list and opening white-listed websites from the government list. Parents may edit the…

So your idea is that the government determines the list of sites children get to use?

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#642

UK person here, and someone who has been lobbied and lobbied the government on tech regulations. firstly the amount of money that the "UK lobby" are pushing is a drop of sand in the ocean.[1] secondly, and most importantly, the USA has no (federally robust) legal protection for citizens to guard against data collection and aggregation. So whist this is being presented as a war on anonymity lead by the dirty British,…

> the USA has no (federally robust) legal protection for citizens to guard against data collection and aggregation.

In the US, laws and court rulings have held that the person/company that aggregates the data owns the data. In the past it was based on phonebook authoring, but has since become "whoever owns the computer owns whatever data is in that computer".

The EU has the opposite - you own the data about yourself. We need to move to that standard.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#643

I'm always surprised how defensive people get in here about privacy when so many corporations have vastly more information about you than the government does.

The government has a monopoly on violence and companies do not.

Not yet. Hopefully never, but I expect it to change before I die of old age.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't actually care about children being protected. If they did, who in their right mind would trust the government to pull it off? It's like people who send their kids to public school thinking they're really going to be safe and educated. They're either rolling their dice with the best option they have, knowing there's a significant likelihood of failure, or checking a box. "My kid's in school, I did what I ne…

> It's like people who send their kids to public school thinking they're really going to be safe and educated I really feel like I missed the /s or something. Or possibly the poster went to a much worse public school than I did? (USA public = government funded.) Reducing a challenge like education to a sound bite to win an argument on HN lowers the level of dialog. Also, where I live the majority of people trust the…

As of 2025, the majority of American adults are dissatisfied with the public education system [0].

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a history of arrests over "wrong think" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-com... https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/new-hampshire-police-a... https://www.fire.org/news/lawsuit-ex-cop-sues-after-spending...

This. The UK "wrongthink arrests" were for stuff like calling for a building full of people to be burned down. While the US arrests you for criticising the police chief.

What do you get out of your lies?

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes as much sense as Bill and William, or Bob and Robert.

Bill/Will and Bob/Rob are a lot more connected than "Buffy" and anything.

The only thing Buffy is connected to is slaying vampires.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#647
post #505
post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because this is leaning on blaming to UK for everything the US is doing to itself an awful lot. Hasn't the UK had a culture of surveillance (the famous CCTV cameras) and arresting people over online wrongthink for quite some time though? Who inspired who?

No it did not. Online right wing is trying to push narrative that is all.

Plenty of evidence in this thread, but we can't make you followers of the regime understand it since your entire worldview's foundation is built on this denial of facts.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a garbage UI and it looks like it was designed using "dark patterns" to ensure that nobody uses it. Look how many clicks (18 clicks, I counted) one needs to do in the correct sequence without a single mistake, and how many distracting and misleading options are there. It is a sabotage, it is a rebellion. Technically, yes, Apple can claim that they have "safe mode", but in practice it is unusable. Apple clearl…

I use Apple's parental controls daily and it is complete garbage. Unfortunately it's also the best (less bad?) of everything I tried. My kids' devices consistent get confused about how long the device/specific apps has been used, and changing things is a lot of work, and at the same time not granular enough. > Apple clearly doesn't want parents to enable restrictions Hard not to come to the same conclusion.

I have used both Google's FamilyLink and later iPhone's ScreenTime parental controls. Google's implementation of parental controls is way superior to Apple's. FamilyLink tracks multiple devices, has easy settings for daily screen time limits, has school time downtime schedules, and has per-app time limits that cannot be bypassed, unlike Apple's implementation which can be bypassed with the tap of a button.

I really like Google's FamilyLink, unfortunately my child's friend group all have iPhones and rely on FaceTime for social interaction, which made my child demand an iPhone as the primary phone.

EDIT: It looks like I just haven't correctly configured Apple's ScreenTime to remove the bypasses [0]. Yay for unhelpful default settings.

[0]: https://www.airdroid.com/ios-parental/how-kids-bypass-iphone...

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling we had a similar experience growing up. I generally agree, but also, we got QAnon/Alex Jones and such which have quite directly screwed up my country. So I don’t know, my opinion is often contradictory and fluid. I don’t know where I stand anymore. I believe in an “open internet,” but also, there’s people like Andrew Tate who have ruined the minds of people I care about. We can debate if these system…

> We need basic screening and filtering. Based on whose values and criteria? Yours? Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

I didn’t say I had a solution or that it was well thought out. I’ve been very open that my opinion is not super consistent/is even contradictory. I don’t know the answer. But what we are doing isn’t working. I’m very conflicted on this subject, I’m just sharing my feelings and trying to spur dialogue, not plant a flag and die on the hill of “lock it down.”

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling we had a similar experience growing up. I generally agree, but also, we got QAnon/Alex Jones and such which have quite directly screwed up my country. So I don’t know, my opinion is often contradictory and fluid. I don’t know where I stand anymore. I believe in an “open internet,” but also, there’s people like Andrew Tate who have ruined the minds of people I care about. We can debate if these system…

> " ...not everyone should be allowed to upload to YouTube if it’s public facing... " You still fantasize about building mechanisms for restricting information as if the very people you oppose won't use it on you when they get into power; no, as if the very people you oppose aren't _currently_ ascendant or even in office and would delightedly use it against you right this moment. Madness. When you build a high tech m…

> You still fantasize about building mechanisms for restricting information as if the very people you oppose won't use it on you when they get into power

That is a wild misinterpretation of what I said and in no way reflects my opinion.

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