The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.)
One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The more troubling thing about these laws is enforcement. The threat of fines only works against websites that map to a business entity. For anything else there will surely see a ramp up in the size of The Great British Firewall Ruleset, edited by the courts, and distributed to the Big N (5?) ISPs.
What will become of the smaller ISPs that refuse to block illegal sites?
This is just a cat a mouse game. VPN services will start to offer residential endpoints when enough websites start blocking them enough to damage the value proposition. There is no way on the current internet to verify an ip address means anything at all other than it's an ip address.
There is no way to offer “residential endpoints” at scale with sufficient bandwidth for anything other than simple browsing of text websites. As shown by the very effective Netflix strategy of blocking VPN addresses, it’s been very hard to slip through for a good four or five years now.
It is absolutely possible and multiple providers already do it, just search for “residential ip vpn”. The legit ones pay people $20 a month or so to plug a mysterious box into their network which the provider will route traffic through. The shadier ones will just route your traffic straight through a botnet.
As someone totally uninformed, are you saying that all those YouTube ads about e.g. Private Internet Access (et al), which specifically cite getting around geo restrictions in the ad copy, are BS?
Which sounds like a silly question ("of course the marketing is BS") but why even bother marketing if the core value proposition of your billed-monthly service doesn't work? Seems like a waste of money since you'll at most get people for one month when they cancel after realizing they can't watch Canadian Netflix from Florida, or whatever.
> As someone totally uninformed, are you saying that all those YouTube ads about e.g. Private Internet Access (et al), which specifically cite getting around geo restrictions in the ad copy, are BS?
Yep, they are all lying to you, but with a wiggle room for a workaround or to point the blame at Netflix. Once you get in, you'll notice that Netflix, Prime Video, Steam, some of YouTube, and pretty much any legitimate service with geo-fencing not working. You then email support complaining that this is not working for you. The answer varies depending on the company. For example:
- Private Internet Access will try to up sell you for your own static IP. That hopefully remains undiscovered by Netflix et al for a bit. (Obviously you're trading anonymity and privacy aspects of a VPN if it's a static ip attached to you, but I don't think people trying to stream Netflix from Italy or where ever care about that)
- Mullvad will tell you: yeah that doesn't work. We never advertised that. Don't renew next month.
- Proton will keep asking you to try endpoints manually (each country has hundreds of endpoints and their app picks a random one. Just keep trying different ones manually. They might give your account access to some "new endpoints" (if they have them) that are not blocked yet. Hopefully once the refund period has passed, they will tell you "sorry we're having trouble with Netflix currently. we're working on it"
Some of them will suggest using "another streaming service??" because "Netflix is having issues in [INSERT_COUNTRY]"
This hasn’t been my experience at all. I use one of the big VPN services advertised on YouTube sponsorships (but not one of the ones you named) and watch Netflix Canada through it all the time. I’ve also been able to use iPlayer.
considering PIA also still has their sponsors spill the usual "don't connect to a public wifi without a VPN! or else hackers can see everything!!" (SSL/TLS solved this problem a long time ago) yeah I would take anything they and many others claim in ads.
I can confirm that PIA does not reliably get around geo restrictions. There's only so many IPs in the pool, and the content providers will block them.
There are alternatives like Hola VPN, a "free" peer to peer VPN except non-paying users have traffic routed through them. But performance of peer to peer VPNs are not as good.
Apart from the first month don't forget those that subscribe and forget about it or subscribe for Netflix and use it for something else on top of those that cancel after the first period.
The 1 month period is also usually priced much higher anways. E.g. PIA is currently $11.95/m for 1 month, $39.96 for 1 year, and $79.17 for 3.25 years (instead of half a year @ monthly). With a curve that steep it's obvious they have severe retention issues at short intervals.
True! They only need to make a show of trying their best, in order to appease grumpy copyright holders. I don’t think I’d pay for Netflix anymore if I could only watch the pathetic US catalog, and there are surely many others like me. And Netflix knows that.
I have a residential fibre connection that’s 3Gbps symmetrical, unmetered. If there was something in it for me (and I was legally shielded) I would consider renting some of that out. And there’s definitely other people out there who would change that “consider” to “definitely.” It’s possible to even get a residential 8Gbps symmetrical connection here for not a ton of money; that can support a lot of video traffic.
Literally - in most of the world terms of service have no legal effect and violating them is not a crime - they are merely a declaration that the service provider feels bad if you do certain things, and if they feel bad they might decide to terminate your account.
Most of them prohibit running servers at home and using p2p apps. Has anyone here ever gotten their connection shut off for either of these?
This cat and mouse game applies to OP's first category of sites that want to comply for fear of the British government, but not the second category of sites that actively don't want to comply. Let's refer to the second category as deliberately non-compliant.
The UK instructs ISPs to block access to deliberately non-compliant sites, however users want to make connections to the sites and those sites want to receive connections to those users. VPNs will be effective in allowing access to non-compliant sites as long as ISPs can't identify the VPN traffic.
Of course, the British ISPs can initiate the tactics used by China to identify and block illegal traffic. However there are limits to this. Unlike Chinese users, British internet users regularly make connections to international servers so various bridging techniques are possible. Like VPNs, proxies or even Remote Desktop.
> One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents.
Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of them using VPNs. But if there are no practical way to do this, I think the UK will have diplomatic issues enforcing anything to non UK companies breaking that laws - as they would need, eg. Germany, to help them enforcing the law on certain providers.
However, if I was running a foreign site not subject to UK law or other privacy law, with UK visitors, and I was a ruthless businessperson, I'd definitely implement this verification thing in order to collect and store a photo of every visitor.
If you wanted to do this for some reason you'd just do it across the board and say it was for age verification. The reason nobody does it is because people are (rightfully) not okay with this nonsense.
Nobody has ever objected to blocking access to those sites. Most people think the justice system in any developed country is much too lax on people that operate those sites and create its content.
This is a red herring for authoritarian tyrants in the UK to get more control over their population, which is all they're ever looking for.
We don't have national photo ID, but you do need it in order to vote, rent, buy a house, or have a bank account; several of those processes include mandatory immigration status checks too.
Yes... and for clarity, perhaps I should have instead said for the implementation of this law to actually make any moral sense, which is like saying for this chocolate tea pot to be functional on a daily basis, one would have to provision a way of shutting down sites which refuse to participate in the age-verification laws of the UK.
Porn sites don't have any interest in keeping this law either. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks you should have to upload your government ID to a website to browse content, no matter what that content is.
That's what OP said. Netflix and its customers have opposing interests. The customers want to use VPNs, whereas Netflix doesn't want to allow VPNs. The customers don't care about following anti-piracy laws, whereas Netflix wants to enforce them.
The situation is the opposite for age verification laws. In this case, both porn sites and their customers have aligned interests. Both sides want to allow VPNs. Both sides want to abolish age verification laws, and if that is not possible, to circumvent them.
I don't know. A lot of countries in the Middle East block all sorts of stuff and yet VPN usage is ubiquitous, but the governments appear to turn a blind eye. Like "we've done our bit and made the law." So it remains to be seen how far they'll go with this.
A lot of countries in the Middle East throw gay people off the roofs of buildings as punishment, let's assume for the sake of argument that anything we do that moves us closer to the Middle East is the wrong thing to do.
I don't know that "a lot" of countries in the Middle East are regularly throwing gay people off buildings, but I agree with your second point that we shouldn't look at their censorship as an example of something great to follow.
I would add that from my experience with the Gulf, at least, the ME has created one of the gayest places on Earth. The separation between genders has led to a disproportionate number of women and men semi-openly sleeping with their own gender in a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" way.
It feels like the "punish them for being gay" is used, like the poster below you mentions, as a way to turn the screws on you when they need something to use against you for another reason.
That is what the UK has been doing and is doing, along with most if not all Governments. One just has to take a look at UK's 2003 Communication Act. It can be selectively enforced against you if they do not like you.
>For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.)
If the vpn endpoint is in Rome or New York City, how will the UK government force that non-British vpn service and that non-British porn site to verify the age of anyone using it?
It's easy enough to get a list of IP addresses from those vpn services and just block them if you're Netflix, but to force compliance on anyone traversing the tunnel is another thing entirely. The UK government would have an easier time banning vpns outright.
These can be wildly effective at such matters. I'm sure most countries can come to some understanding with the UK on the matter; be that foreign aid, trade concessions, assistance with their own law enforcement, or perhaps acknowledgement/support on the international stage.
IP addresses are routed in aggregate groups using BGP. The groups are called Autonomous Systems and are handed out to ISPs. Your home ISP has a bunch. The ISP that hosts your virtual server has some too. You can see the one you’re connecting from right now with tools like https://bgp.tools and https://bgp.he.net.
The number of these systems scales in a reasonably tractable way — on the order of the number of ISPs and physical Internet infrastructure around which traffic needs to be routed.
As well as making aggregate routing possible you can use the ISP’s registration details see what location (or legal jurisdiction) a whole chunk of address space has. Hopping around IP addresses will give you unique ones every five minutes but they’ll all still be inside 2001:123::/32 from AS1234 aka Apathetic Onion’s Finest Habidashery and Internet Connections LLC, Delaware, USA.
> but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP
It's up to service provider to implement such involved checks. Not sure about e.g. Netflix allocating resources to implementing this, clearly resulting in customer loss.
I expect service providers to cut corners to both comply with local laws and not frighten customers away.
https://dn42.network/ - don't actually use dn42 since many participants won't be fans of your high-traffic idea, but make a new network with a similar design. (You may get some of the same people to participate in both networks)
I don't think the incentive structure is there for porn sites to start blocking VPNs the way Netflix does. And legislation requiring them to would be pretty toothless since the only mechanism they rely on to enforce the rules is making local ISPs block the offending sites.
I've found Tor is mostly useful for reading, not participating. Exit nodes get blocked from registering on most sites. One workaround is to register at a café or library then use the account over Tor, but sometimes even if you're being civil (see my comment history for a a pretty good picture of the style of discussions I have anonymously) sometimes you'll wake up to find the account nuked.
Tor exit nodes are the _first_ thing they ban! If your origin is not from within one of the top residential ISPs then you can expect to be selected for enhanced screening.
I think you may have misunderstood what "socialists" means (or accidentally written it instead of a different word which wouldn't be so out of place in that sentence?).
1. Conservatives and Labour have an equally disastrous role in the current mess and have mostly overplayed their differences.
2. Particularly in the UK, the law is one thing. The application another. In practice, Keir Starmer, just yesterday, was claiming that there was no censorship in the UK, they were "just safeguarding children from suicide" (by censoring videos of protesters outside the Britannia hotel in Canary Wharf :o) )
It definitely seems like she’s conflating two issues: access to pornography and child grooming. I don’t see why she thinks regulating VPNs would reduce the latter.
Everyone always does this. Then they conflate mention of LGBT topics with porn so they can equate it with "grooming". Not helped by the UK's anti-trans panic of the last few years (self-ID was such a mainstream idea that it was in the 2018 Tory manifesto)
It does not. As I have said before, pedophilia is rampant on Roblox and Discord. Go monitor those platforms, and hold these platforms responsible, not VPNs. Regulating VPNs will not reduce child grooming, and I am sure they are not stupid enough to actually think it does.
Or, to put it another way, in order to protect the most children, focus your efforts on where the most children actually are, not where you're afraid they might end up.
Immaterial how independent they are because it's completely impossible to get honest opinions of repressive regimes. The people within the regime have no real way to know whether a poll response will make it back to the government or not, so they must assume that it will. When the repercussions for having the wrong opinion are that you disappear or find yourself "volunteered" for the front line, it's best to either lie or say you think the leader is a top bloke.
You can watch Youtube videos of citizens refusing to answer contentious questions quite easily. I believe William Spaniel has produced videos (relating to the Russian General Election) where he points this out, too.
When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly, but the approval is still estimated to be about 50-70%. In western countries governments with clear minority support start to be almost the norm.
UK government approval has surpassed 50% in a handful of polls in over 10 years, and approval peaks are typically immediately after elections before the government starts to implement its policies. The approval is currently 14%.
> When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly
Bear in mind that the person answering the poll still lives in an oppressive regime where wrongthink can get you killed. You spend your whole life training yourself to never say anything bad about the government in public. Would you be able to turn it off?
Also, there’s literally no free press in these countries. The government will get primarily positive coverage whatever they do! The current Labour government could only dream of such coverage!
How can you tell it is a repressive regime? They have elections, a press and they are pretty satisfied about their form of governance, actually much more than their western counterparts.
So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform.
This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.
In Switzerland we don't elect our Federal Council, which is our executive branch. A bit like in the UK too. Would you say its what matters in a democracy?
Germans and Americans refuse to answer contentious questions about the genocide of Palestinian... They also probably live in a repressive regime, right?
(Also I agree with you, Russia is a capitalist dictatorship)
"Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP."
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
There is democracy in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Just say, "I'm a tankie and I support Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
> Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.
I personally see nothing wrong with this. The word "authoritarian" is virtually meaningless. And those local elections are paramount; Locally elected representatives end up electing MPs on the provincial level, then they chose MPs of the National People's Congress. The rest is common sense: just because we are used to "elect" pedophiles, racists and parasites doesn't mean all other countries should do the same.
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies.
However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party.
China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.
Russia is very similar to the rest of western democracies, so I won't comment further on that.
Regarding China, their leading party hasn't switched in 80 years, but their policies have and have plenty actually. Changing parties matters only a little bit in the grand scheme of things. I'd argue, for example, that Japan, that has been ruled by a single party for all of his modern existence, is still considered by many in the west as a functioning democracy.
In any case, I think all the replies have made my point for me that your dismissal of our rhetoric as based on "western arrogance" are simply nonsense. It's in fact you who's displayed a lack of understanding of those you argue against.
Which is the aim of restricting every information channel and starting the brainwashing in primary school? I'm sure Kim Jong Un is very popular in North Korea, too!
This is an insane take. You'd know this if you had ever talked with a Chinese person before instead of believing the silly propaganda they spread in your "free" press.
I indeed discussed with many young chinese persons while at university and found everyone mostly unaware of the real history of the CCP in the XXth century.
The only ones with a realistic view of what's happening are the sons of the CCP hierarchs, who are emigrating to Canada or Australia.
What’s your source for the labour government’s unpopularity? Not that I necessarily think you’re wrong, it’s just more indifference towards them that I see, more of the same etc.
"Keir Starmer falls to lowest net favourability rating on record"
"Labour’s popularity hit isn’t merely limited to Keir Starmer, with worst-ever net favourability scores also recorded this month by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner (-31) and home secretary Yvette Cooper (-25), while Rachel Reeves has equalled her -48 net favourability rating recorded in mid-April."
"65% of Britons dislike the Labour Party, the most in the eight years YouGov has been asking the question"
I always keep hoping one of these authoritarian measures will kick off a resurgence of a truly uncensorable platform like Freenet or I2P - the big reason they're currently so unusable is mostly lack of participation.
same. as much as i ironically support social media age gating i do hope it creates a new internet frontier for the educated and technologically inclined
Seriously? You can't make this up: she represents the town that did nothing about a massive (and completely offline) child grooming and molestation network for years and she has the gall to say, "think of the children on the Internet"?
Our ability to filter and modify the content of the web constantly improves, and itchy trigger fingers might hover over many nation's "Great Walls", ready at the next galvanizing event to overnight change our relationship with this interchange we exist upon.
My current guess is that if things really went to hell with censorship and disjointedness, that we'd re-establish an ancient pattern - magazines. I recall as a child, my uncle would leave his "Big Blue Disks" around for perusing, and it was a magazine in the form of floppy disks, of various media - essays, games, primitive computer music.
The curation of these always struck me as a great favor. Perhaps not compatible with the current attention span, such a provision, in the absence of access, would, I believe, quickly become a surrogate for what we lost.
Of course, these magazines are editorialized, and so we're at the mercy of the editor's perspectives to discern the truth. I appreciate our current access to information, even in its weakening form.
But I suppose I'd prefer if we could not tinker more with censorship. I think I may be looking for a digital magazine in the next decade, or whatever else we can invent to replace our losses.
I'm under the assumption that the global, unfilitered Internet is on an irreversible course to lockdown and won't exist at all in its current form in 10 years or less. It's sad, and defeatist, but the forces on the lockdown side are too strong and will get what they want eventually, so I can either hit my head against a brick wall or do something productive for myself.
I've decided to deal with it by reevaluating the role of tech and Internet in my life. I certainly don't care about improvements to my residental Internet speed any more, or what the next wireless tech after 5G will be, or what protocols the IETF is working on, or net neutrality, because none of it matters to me any more. It's exciting what's going on with AI but it's all going to behemoths who will be able to tell the rest of us what we can and can't do with it. So... I don't care anymore. I can see myself honestly just not having a wired home Internet connection anymore in a few years and I would get rid of my cell phone if it wasn't necessary for day-to-day life. I don't need symmetric 1gbps fiber to stream the occasional show, text, and do normal-life things on apps.
But when you brought up magazines - it reminded me of that brief period of time of the late 80's/early 90's during the "multimedia" and "interactive" crazes; when BBSes were a thing--there were a lot of interesting CD-ROMs on diverse subjects.
I'm glad optical media hasn't completely died yet. Most new PCs don't come with one installed, but USB ones cheap and easy to find. PCs have come a long way since the early 90's. Fun fact, if your Android phone supports USB OTG I do believe a USB optical drive will totally work with it.
It is inevitable that the "World" in World-Wide-Web will disappear and each major economy will have its own local "government approved" version of the internet with interconnects between the other local internets of the world to access only curated content from abroad.
This genie is not going back in the bottle unless future generations will get fed up with all the safetyism propaganda at the core of internet censorship and unanimously vote against this.
I'm glad I was young enough to see and experience the uncensored and unrestricted version of the internet. God speed for the future generation being subject to this nonsense.
> “West Yorkshire Police denied any involvement in blocking the footage. X declined to comment, but its AI chatbot, Grok, indicated the clip had been restricted under the Online Safety Act due to violent content.”
I’m not involved with X or with its chatbot. Is its chatbot ordinarily an authoritative source for facts about assumptions like this one, that the law “was used to take down” politically sensitive video?
It’s a bad look either way, but I feel like there are important differences between the law leading to overly conservative automated filtering, vs political actors using it deliberately in specific cases. Bad symptom either way, but different medicines, right?
> that the law “was used to take down” politically sensitive video?
You've misquoted the chatbot, which is a new one.
The video wasn't "taken down" and Grok never said that. It was blocked for some users in the UK due to the new authoritarian age verification laws which everyone should be concerned about if access to newsworthy content requires "papers please".
In this case, Grok is stating the obvious. I'm not sure how you can arrive at any other conclusion. The clip is inaccessible to some users in the UK on the day the act comes online, replaced with a message about local laws and age verification.
I've done this for so many issues in the past and not once have I had anything more than an automated reply. Often those replies then go on and reference a totally different bill that I'm voicing an opinion on. This isn't all just one MP either, I've lived in many different areas of the UK in recent years and most of them have flipped parties at some point or another.
Maybe this is the "Westminster Bubble" the journo's keep talking about. Whatever it is, MP's seem very reluctant to interact with their constituents unless they're campaigning for re-election. At that point they'll turn up on your door step in the middle of the day, expecting a half hour conversation.
How is a citizen meant to adovcate and voice their opinions when their representivies, and every candidate looking to replace them, refuses to engage?
This isn't really a specific question, or a critism on your point. It's just venting on my experience in recent years. Maybe someone else has had a more positive experience they'd be interested in sharing?
I've written to mine several times and usually I get a stock reply vaguely relating to the subject, but occasionally I've got actual replies. Once I sent a message about ordnance survey open data and they sent a clearly custom reply and forwarded my message to someone else.
In any case, my sister used to work in an MP's office and even when you get auto replies they tally it, and weight it quite heavily as a representation of constituents' views (unless it's a template letter in which case it goes straight in the bin).
It definitely has more effect than signing a petition - most of them are super dumb (lower taxes!) and as far as I know not a single one has actually changed the government's position. It's just too easy to sign them and too many dumb people do it.
> The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.
This seems like a hard fight to win against determined network engineers without OFAC-level co-encorcement around spending money abroad.
I rent servers in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Tokyo, and many other places, and route tunnels among them all, and this is just mundane aboveboard stuff, many of the providers happily accept PayPal and crypto as well as CC and wire. I haven't even tried to design a system for evading this sort of thing, I can only imagine the ceiling is pretty high: QUIC and shit are increasingly the default.
I oppose this on principle, very much oppose it. I'm merely noting that until they're willing to start licensing the right to spend money abroad, they're going to have a tough time outlawing VPNs with any effect.
Maybe this pushes everyone to switch to Tor all at once: fucking with people's porno is a pretty quick way to move things around in the App Store ranking.
It would serve em right if this backfired massively by getting everyone to go cypherpunk by default.
I understand that arbitrary oppression is possible even with computers, there are regimes that come close today.
My point is that it will cost them a lot of money in lost economic activity to make it happen: we should seek to make that cost as high as possible and make sure that powerful people understand how high it is.
A lot of people are going to be putting their ID details into all sorts of websites and giving this to all sorts of third parties because of this law. Its going to cause a huge increase in ID related theft and fraud in the coming years and its not even going to achieve its stated goal. Worse is its blocking sites it really shouldn't, wikipedia is fighting this in court at the moment because they want to censor it!
I really don't understand why it wasn't just a requirement for Apple and Google to include a client side filter. Parent sets up the phone and it's enabled by default. Much simpler option for everyone involved.
It's because this law isn't about protecting children, but about control of the Internet. They want online activity tied to real identity as a power grab.
Yea, it's all about a permanent Digital ID and the end of any independent forums. It's the first essential steps before you get to great firewalls and social credit scores.
Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US, so even a nation with better speech and gun laws is still not immune from the slow descent into technocracy.
At least in the US the Supreme Court ruled that these sorts of laws are only kosher because they target porn, which is afforded a lower degree of legal protection (albeit not no protection at all). Trying to restrict access to protected political speech or the like the way the UK and Australia did would likely be a very different court case.
Given the rulings of the current SCOTUS, I'll go out on a limb and say that it's trivial to go after left-leaning political speech and impossible to go after right-leaning speech.
They are already suppressing left-leaning speech by defunding CPB, and ahve openly said their reasons for doing so for are politically motivated.
There's a 0% chance this move gets struct down by SCOTUS.
If the 'political speech' is not adult in nature, which is true 99.9% of the time, then it can't/won't be blocked under this rule.
Unless of course this political speech is happening on a porn site, or a subreddit that has been deemed 18+. Which I can't see a legitimate reason for.
It seems like videos of violence are also getting blocked, and I expect eventually stuff about LGBT relationships etc will fall under it. Lots of things are adult that aren't porn.
We all know why - because people view LGBT people in a uniquely sexual light. The elephant in the room is that, for a lot of people, when they see two men holding hands their minds are immediately thinking about anal sex.
Yes, that sounds harsh and crude, but it's true. I've noticed it for decades. It's weird, it's not right, but it's how people react.
That's why a children's book with Mommy and Daddy is so mundane, so boring, so... nothing, that we don't even blink an eye. But Daddy and Daddy is different. Because of the implication.
Of course, only adults make the implication because they're nasty perverts. And they then project that perversion onto the innocent.
I mean, it's so fucked it's almost comical. We put babies in "ladies man" onesies and nobody cares. Do we not see how fucking weird that is? But suddenly we so much as acknowledge the existence of homosexuals and it's so risque.
Because they swing their p*nis in front of children during parades and whatnot. Sounds like a good enough reason to me and it sounds pretty much "adult" to me, unless you think genitalia is not "adult", but then why do we have this porn restriction in the first place if some people could go outside and engage in this type of behavior, in front of anyone, including children?
Maybe they should stop doing that?
Maybe they should stop shoving it (their "business") down your throat?
I do not have a problem with homosexual people. I have a problem with them only if they invite me to their bedroom. It is none of my business, and please do not try to make it my business by force.
'videos of violence' is quite wide: children shouldn't be watching videos of people being executed by gangs for example.
A lot of LGBT content is aimed at adults. I think we should always be clear when we are making statements like this because it causes great stress, a worked example:
People will claim that LGBT is under attack because this law potentially affects some LGBT spaces. These spaces will clearly be meant for 18+ audiences and so fall correctly under the law. Then other people see the first group of people, and from their point of view that group is complaining that their 18+ spaces are blocked from children. "Think of the children" drama ensues.
It is similar to Steam taking down incest/rape games and people claiming it was an action against LGBT creators. I don't think that's an argument that should ever be made for obvious reasons.
I don't think the government, even if it were under the Conservatives, have banning gay spaces on their current agenda.
Even if you think a lot of the content captured by the ban should be banned, I don't think age restriction mechanisms should be put on it. Talks around sexuality, the mere mention of certain crimes and unrest are being banned by social media companies, all because of this act. Companies seem to be acting out of caution.
I simply don't want to be forced to provide my ID / face to be able to read or access politically important news on social media. Some people would be happier if the bill was limited to only pornography: they likely don't think it has a major effect on UK politics.
One possibly significant difference is that the cultural attitudes in the US tend to lean more rebellious and distrustful of the government, and "it's legal if you don't get caught" is a somewhat popular sentiment.
> Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US
Interesting, since when? I'm curious about how it's turned out in practise. For web services I mean. An for anyone hosting a message board or comment section.
The US states are just targeting the big porn sites like Pornhub to add ID checks AFAIK, I haven't heard of them going after random forums like in the UK. But obviously that sort of power always expands, just like how the UK went from arresting a couple people for offensive tweets back in 2010 to doing 12k arrests/yr in 2025
The UK law was designed to be all encompassing. Why block just the 'porn sites' when you can see porn on forums?
The UK law is actually a good implementation if you put child 'safety' as your number one priority, with any other considerations as, in practise, moot.
Unfortunately I think free civil discourse between adults, privacy, etc. are just as important as child safety which makes the current law a bit crap.
This is similar to the video game and MasterCard/VISA issue - you can buy games that promote sexual violence and incest. Nothing stops children downloading them for free, or using their under-18s debit card from purchasing the non-free versions. In this instance it was private companies leveraging their freedom of association rather than an all encompassing law from a sovereign state, but the intent is the same.
As a collective society we do really need to come to grips with what it is that we want. Allowing kids to freely access gang torture/execution videos and playing pro-rape entertainment should probably be tackled. I'm not sure I agree with the implementations though.
> Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US, so even a nation with better speech and gun laws is still not immune from the slow descent into technocracy.
I’m not sure what gun laws have to do with anything but guns are not unreasonably difficult to legally purchase in the UK or EU if you have a specific need for one. It’s a tool and treated as such
I've been warning people in the USA about this for well over a decade. Laws like the states passing porn laws are the foot in the door to expand it to -any- internet activity. Freedom is had to take in a coupe, it's a a lot easier to nip at it around the edges until the structure cracks. Strange how people here in the states value the 2nd amendment so much (including me, I'm a proud gun owner) but they will ignore the 1st, 3rd, 4th .... This is particularly true here in Texas.
>It's because this law isn't about protecting children, but about control of the Internet.
Also in an overpopulated world it's not a given that children should be protected if it comes at the expense of basic freedoms. We need to move away from this narrative that "think of the children" is a persuasive argument. Little Timmy needs to avoid danger or the ghost of Darwin will work his magic.
Probably based on long term concerns that escalating inequality will lead to widespread unrest and violence. Which it will, if unaddressed.
Interesting that decades of government leaves half the country to rot, and their solution is to try to stop that half from rioting about it, rather than - perhaps - making society fairer?
Adding a browser header field would be sufficient, could be easily integrated into the OS and browser, and would let developers handle this issue in a few hours worth of effort.
ID verification is such an invasive measure and prone to the exact same failures as the simplest solutions.
While I'd agree, the issue with that solution is that validating against government issued identity solutions aren't always free. I don't know if this is the case with the UK digital ID, but the Danish version certainly isn't free to query. The Danish one has, to my knowledge, a solution that would allow you to do an age for a person, without getting any other information, so yes, the browser could do that, but there cryptographic bits ensure that now body messed with the header data is still missing. And again, who's suppose to pay for the API calls if the browser does it, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft... Ladybird?
I like this solution, integrated with whatever existing parental controls are in the OS.
That would empower parents to keep their kids from accidentally or casually accessing porn. Of course, an intelligent and determined teenager will probably find a way around it, which is also good; then they've learned a bit about computers.
I'm going to bet most kids will get around it by registering accounts with the IDs that they've taken pictures of, which belong to adults, then sharing the accounts widely.
Grandma isn't likely to have an account on one of these sites (unless one of your cousins beat you to it).
I wonder what the (supposed) anti-censorship people that supported things like eSNI and DoH think about this. They took away our ability to filter our own networks, so now we can't even argue that filtering and monitoring is something that should be done on the client side (per network).
Sometimes I feel like both sides are actually just one side playing the long game. IMO the goal is to get verified digital IDs in use everywhere they can so they can lock down the internet to have absolute control. We'll end up paying inflated subscriptions for everything and watching all the ads.
These are the kinds of regulations that are deigned for incumbents because it becomes impossible for new market entrants to satisfy the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if big tech companies are silently lobbying for this kind of stuff behind closed doors.
The solution is to have filtering on the actual client devices. There need to be specialized minor-friendly devices with parental controls at the OS level, and apps need a standardized framework to integrate with those parental controls. Then create regulation that devices used by minors must have such a system, with the standard that every new action (app install, first time visiting a website, new contact, joining a group chat, etc) first needs to be whitelisted by a parent, and that parents can see a timeline of all actions.
With this solution, kids are far safer than under recent UK/EU age verification laws, while adults and their free, open & private internet remain unaffected.
The 2nd order effect is that nearly every creator will be sponsored by NordVPN - as the market expands. As well as not being able to identify legitimate vs illegitimate uses. So, I guess mission achieved!?
Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're seeing those with a few quid to rub together leave, but as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income.
On the NHS, I tried for years to push for improvements to switch to digital cancer screening invitations after they missed my mother (offering to build the software for free), which is now happening, but suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here. My sister who works in NHS DEI hasn't spoken to me since publishing a book on it.
Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it. Anecdotally, many of my friends have already left, some of the older generation want to leave but feel tied in. My flight out is in 6 weeks. Good riddance, no doubt.
One of these seems like the solution to the other.
> as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income
Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.
I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.
The UK has always been an empire in decline, but the wheels didn't come off until everyone became glued to feeds. It's Garbage In, Garbage Out. If your view of reality is driven by stuff that you see online, it's a distorted lens which then leads to distorted decision making that then leads to authoritarian creep.
IMO, the wheels fell off decades before I was born.
The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and Churchill(!) putting the UK military into austerity to save money, which is how it came to be that evacuating from Dunkirk involved a lot of civilian ships, amongst other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule
I'm not sure the people of the UK have yet fully internalised this decline, given the things said and written during the Brexit process. Perhaps social media really did make it all worse, but it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson may or may not have taken an arrow to the eyeball.
> it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson
This. The UK was a band of feudal kingdoms that somehow managed to create an overseas empire. The empire is now gone, and the feudal kingdom is struggling to transform itself into a modern nation.
The uk is a lot of things, but theocratic really isn’t one of them. If you’re referring to the House of Lords then you don’t really understand our government. The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries.
> The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries.
I appreciate the proximity of the two sentences made it unclear, but the general population isn't what I'm critical of in this case. I briefly had an Iranian project manager, that nation is almost as high as you can get on the theocracy scale (IIRC it would be beaten by Afghanistan), but he absolutely was not and had tattoos of video game characters.
Also, I should say that the use of "theocracy" in the modern sense is somewhat looser than the historical, and therefore ask if we're actually disagreeing? Certainly I don't mean in the sense of the deification of the Pharaohs.
Re the rest:
Given my focus is the rulers and not the people, I think the Lords Spiritual remain relevant (the attempt to replace the HoL with an elected one being promised by the HoC in 1911, still waiting).
Likewise that the head of state is also the head of the national church and there being a religious requirement for being crowned monarch, and that there is no desire to reform away the monarchy as an institution, likewise the Establishment nature of the CoE, making this the only non-meta conversation I've ever had where I can legitimately use the longest (recognised, non-systematic) word in the English language by saying that the UK political system is one of antidisestablishmentarianism.
I don't think I'd count the coins, even though this is about the ruling classes who are much more likely than anyone else to speak Latin and thus recognise the abbreviation printed on them. "FID DEF" has an ironic history, but so does the much easier to read "In God We Trust" and I'm not (yet) going to describe the USA in this way.
Aside from all of that, there's also the requirement of schools that:
All maintained schools must provide religious education and daily collective worship for all registered pupils and promote their spiritual, moral and cultural development.
…
Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination.
That happened a long time ago, the realization was the 70s.
Thatcher reversed the feeling by selling off the nation to rentiers and foreigners in the 80s, we rode that money in the 90s, and the wheels came off in 2008.
Here's some Farage quotes, so you can see that there is no contradiction between the comment you were replying to (him saying it was a disaster is compatible with all this) and him still being a leaver:
“I don’t think that for a moment,” Mr Farage replied when he was asked if the UK would have been better off staying in the EU, the world’s largest single market area. “But what I do think is we haven’t actually benefitted from Brexit economically, what we could have done.”
“I mean, what Brexit’s proved, I’m afraid, is that our politicians are about as useless as the commissioners in Brussels were,” he added. “We’ve mismanaged this totally, and if you look at simple things…such as takeovers, such as corporation tax, we are driving business away from our country.
“Arguably, now we’re back in control, we’re regulating our own businesses even more than they were as EU members. Brexit has failed.”
Why do people vote for populists that inevitably will just do the bidding of the rich and powerful? That man is such a disgustingly clear example.
The same thing is true in Sweden. People vote for the party that blames the immigrants and then goes on to rule with the liberal conservative part. They all know that during the time they claim is the downfall of Sweden, we have more than one third of state tax income and had the worst privatisation of schools worldwide,
. Yet the problems with schools and healthcare is immigration.
It's not "blaming the immigrants"--that is such a gross oversimplification and distraction. No, the immigrants were pawns, and the predictable outcomes caused by having too many immigrants, as well as those who profited off of that situation--they are ones that the anger is directed towards. A lot of countries, the US included, were on a sustainable path, and then BOOM, the influx of illiterate people, totally dependent on government handouts threw a wrench into everything. Our schools are ruined. Our neighborhoods are ruined. Prices of necessities are through the roof. Healthcare and insurance, literally everything is pricing the middle class out of existence. Yet somehow it is "wrong" to assign blame! The immigrants are merely a symptom of a vast betrayal.
That may be the perception, but it's still not how it happened.
All of the currently-rich nations had a multi-generational baby boom*, long enough for their systems to assume and become dependent on that population growth.
* babies being the most extreme example of "influx of illiterate people, totally dependent on government handouts", though people only objected to them in the UK when I was a kid when it was single mothers producing them
Families started to have fewer kids, but the systems still presumed and needed more people to avoid stagnation. Japan chose stagnation instead of welcoming as many immigrants as it needed, and "the lost decade" became a plural: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades
> Healthcare and insurance, literally everything is pricing the middle class out of existence.
I assume from this that you're American? That's basically just America that has this problem. Healthcare and health insurance is fine in most other developed (and developing) nations, even e.g. here in Germany in those few years where it took on around a million asylum seekers.
Influx of illiterate people, sure. But then it is an even worse thing to cut taxes and cutting the budget for SFI (Swedish for immigrants).
The school results are worse. Even here the claim is that it is the immigrants' fault. The privatisation of the school system in sweden has led to increased segregation of the school system. Private schools can be found in areas where they get "easy students". Yet they fail to deliver any better results than public schools. Which is amazingly dumb. The state pays private schools (they are open for anyone and have no tuition fees). The schools can then let less money go to tuition and more to the share holders/owners, while being able to claim that they are just as good as schools with all the tough students. By all measurements they should be much better. It is such an enormous failure.
And who do we blame? Immigrants.
And social mobility is going downwards. Not nearly as low in the US, but I want to think that we at least still believe in the value of hard work.
People don’t vote for populists by accident, votes for populists are a symptom of elite failure to build a society that works for everyone while writing their columns, appearing on their panels, or staffing their NGOs. There's a whole class of politicians in Britain who treats politics as a posture, not a practice - and believes people are too stupid to see through it.
> There's a whole class of politicians in Britain who treats politics as a posture, not a practice - and believes people are too stupid to see through it.
IMO, many of the UK politicians themselves don't realise how out of touch they are, both with the people and with the systematic reality of the world in which they exist. (Thinking back to David Davis on Brexit, saying they had a good idea what Czechoslovakia wanted from negotiations, despite it having ceased to exist in 1992).
I don’t see any change coming until politicians stop seeing public opinion as something to be managed and placated. The lesson taken from Truss seems to have been broadly to never try anything bold again to fix the economy.
"People" is a collective, "Farage" is one person. For people collectively to change their behaviour does not require 100% of the individuals to also change their behaviour. Not even when the singular person is also calling the thing a failure.
Not sure why this was downvoted, maybe the use of "foreigners" is a bit loaded, but this is basically it.
Every inch of our economy is now owned by some faceless fund. All serious capital generated in the country is extracted out into the pockets of fund managers and Californian pensioners.
We're screwed until we can stem the outflow. I always thought taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
It’s true that too much of the U.K. is a piggy bank for those who don’t live there, but that is true of much of the West now.
> taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
This would end very poorly because what the U.K. sorely needs is investment (to create new productive capacity). For example, Americans invested huge sums in North Sea oil and created an entire industry (before we destroyed it). Conversely, if you force people to keep wealth in the country then you just make things more expensive: they will bid up the price of property and the like. Nothing is added to the UK’s real economy by increasing the number of pounds flowing around in it - it’s only helpful if it’s invested. So what you actually want is tax breaks for foreign investment, but with some kind of ownership cap.
The problem is that the investment in this day and age is entirely extractive. Strip the assets, do minimal infra, and jack up the prices. Water here is a classic example. Investors want their returns, and the best way to get it is by rent-seeking and minimal outlay. I'd go so far to argue that "investment" is the problem.
There's been enough in the way of tax breaks and "derisking". A huge part of the problem with our public finances is being on the hook for some very ill-advised "investments".
The money going out exceeds the money going in, because that's what an investment is. An opportunity to make money.
What you are describing, from the POV of the British firm, is ownership, not investment. Water is a classic example of failure because there was no shareholder capital invested - exactly my point. We don’t talk about all the successful investments because they’re doing just fine.
What the UK desperately needs is actual shareholder capital actually being invested into British companies, so that they can create new wealth. They are welcome to take a share of the wealth they create! Everybody wins!
Can we talk about the successful investments then?
What I see is every national asset, every successful company, and increasingly land and housing sold to (typically overseas) capital, with the proceeds sucked offshore.
Whether it's new housing in London, ARM, the water, the electricity, most products and most supermarkets: the beneficial owner is outside the country, being largely taxed outside the country, and spending their money outside the country.
We're discussing this in the context of a deeply dysfunctional Britain. If the "wealth creation" route were in any way effective, we'd be in a very different place right now. There's been concensus among pretty much every party in my lifetime around supporting "growth", "investment", number go up. It's clearly not working for most of us. Everyone but a select few in this country is living on the edge.
I personally see a major component of our malaise as the rentierism practiced by largely foreign interests throughout our economy. Alternative explanations are welcome, but it's hard to see how we'd be worse off without the vampire squid up each and every orifice.
Had we never received foreign investments to begin with we would certainly be worse off, as indeed we were in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
> There's been consensus among pretty much every party in my lifetime around supporting "growth", "investment", number go up.
Yes most U.K. governments have talked about fine talk but other than Thatcher, failed to actually deliver on securing enough investment. It’s not that the investments are bad, it’s that they have been decreasing for 25 years:
It’s funny that you mention ARM because it was created under Thatcher back when the U.K. was willing to start businesses. Yes it should never have been sold.
> I always thought taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
Capital controls. By the time they are applied it's always too little, too late, and they only ever apply to the plebs -- the wealthy always have ways to move money out (and back in, later -much later-, if it becomes necessary or advantageous). Always too little too late because -I suspect- capital controls don't really work -- not against the wealthy.
The response of "we cannot stop water companies dumping raw sewage into our rivers and lakes because it might impact profits of their Saudi Arabia investment funds" is really all we need to know about the issues. It's sickening.
This is not true. There is no Saudi ownership of Thames Water. 90% or so is owned by Australian, European, and Canadian pension funds. Specifically it was the Macquarie Group (Australian) that loaded it up with debt and pushed it off a cliff.
>I always thought taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
Even China with extreme capital controls and pervasive surveillance can't stop money leaving the country. Unless the UK was willing to go fully authoritarian and ban its citizens from spending money overseas, and ban crypto (and build all the internet firewall/DPI infrastructure that doing so would require), it wouldn't stand a chance. And attempting to do so would destroy the value of the pound, because nobody with any options would want to hold a currency that could only be spent in the UK.
Surely you see the difference between ordinary citizens buying online and spending money abroad while on holiday and big foreign companies taking their billions of profits out of the country?
Everyone needs a scapegoat. Why not mention Carter and the near double-digit inflation Reagan faced at the beginning of his admistration and the fact that it was nearly half by the end of it?
In the 90s, it brought us some of the best economic times we will ever see.
You can only do the financialization trick a few times and each time it is more damaging than the last. The end comes when it is no longer possible to outrun the delayed negative consequences. There is an attribution problem, like the straw that let broke the camels back, but for the final straw the back may not have broken, but responsibility lies with the weight in its totality.
Oh hang the economy. I don't care about money, I care about people. I care about the incalculable number of folks who have suffered and died from the politics of austerity, in my country and the UK. I care about government services that no longer function because of this case of brain worms that tells people when a government office doesn't work, the solution is to cut it's funding because that's definitely going to help. I care about the alienation of everyone from everyone and everything, all of us trussed up in our little homes, completely disconnected from the effects we have on our communities because of this libertarian fantasy of you being and island and accountable to nothing and no one but your own piddly, small notion of what moves you forwards.
I'll repeat what the other comment said, since it seems like you were sick for most of your macroeconomics class; you are currently living through the consequences of fictionalization. We did try what you're suggesting, both in America and the UK, and the post-industrial financier economics has the exact same consequences every time.
America is a precise model for what the UK will look like if it shirks liberalization. Here in the US, we've lost almost all of our postwar industrial capacity. We can't ship cost-competitive smartphones or electric vehicles without importing parts from China. We can't mass-produce the things we consume or even export enough to keep out of a trade deficit. Our biggest exports are software services reviled the world over for being surveillance systems installed and moderated by America's government. Our businesses are no longer seen as stable blue-chip stocks, but moonshots and gambling opportunities.
If you actually knew the consequences of a financier economy then you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.
Our politics does have some good parts. The political system we have is reasonably good. We have many political parties due to the proportional representation system. A single party is also unlikely to get a majority in parliament on their own, so parties with different backgrounds will have to work together to form a functioning government.
We do suffer from many political parties not willing to cause short term pain to improve long term outcomes. There are a few urgent issues going on in politics at the moment. Stuff where a decision needs to be made now and action should be taken. But the political parties do not want to make those decisions because they would inflict short term pain to some voters but would also improve the long term quality of life and economics of the Netherlands.
The worst part is that those issues have been known for a long time, but decisions were postponed over and over again because politicians didn't want to make the decision. Making the issues worse and more urgent over time.
At the same time populism is clearly on the rise in the Netherlands. A famous thing happening in a debate before the previous elections was a populist saying "But this woman cannot wait for the costs to be decreased, she needs it now." about decreasing a specific part of healthcare costs for citizens. Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs.
>Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs.
Paradise is maybe a bit much. I’m German and from close to the border. Not right across but close enough that I visit a lot and my city is overran by Dutch people every Christmas.
On average as a tourist, the Netherlands is straight up just a better version of Germany. However a friend of mine recently moved. She’s from India, moved to Germany and then fell in love with a Durch man she ultimately married. In the process of moving she of course also switched into the Dutch health care system and that I think is legit worse than the German one but I don’t know how much that might be a symptom of a greater issue in the Netherlands.
The difference is essentially that the Dutch health care system tries to be profitable which is nice but then results in procedures not being covered by health insurance that a German doctor would find essential. Specifically preventative care and child birth related stuff where very problematic for her.
But otherwise I think the Netherlands takes a very practical approach to society. Is it annoying for cars to navigate Dutch cities? Yes but also it’s the only country where you can basically always take a bicycle anywhere and be safe. Is 100km/h on the highway annoying? Yes but it’s also the most relaxing drive in heavy traffic I can imagine. I think in a quite literal sense, i think the Dutch are less conservative than we are. The way things were done matters less which results in people seeing the benefits of change much more. Like everything car related. Youd start a riot in germany just doing parking like the Dutch do.
While the Dutch healthcare system has challenges I would say it's working surprisingly well give the demographic trends and budgetary constraints. In general statistics do seem to back this up.
There's a strong focus on streamlining and reducing "unnecessary" care (including a lot of preventative care that is accessible in other countries) but without doing that now the whole system will not be affordable in 20 - 30 years.
Is that the optimal approach? I'm not sure, taking a patient wishes into account and doing (some) preventative care does probably have a positive ROI. Having said that I can see both sides of the coin but as a younger person I'm glad they're taken future demands into account.
The more I study that time period, the more I realize how incredibly effed up every decision that those leaders made. They were desperate, I get it, but damn. And then most of the Nazi scum escaped and did their shadowy best to influence world history for many more decades!
> Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe
I only have to look as far as my own wallet to see the effects. I'm being taxed to the eyeballs while there is a glass ceiling preventing me taking any more pay home without a major jump which just isn't coming due to stupid tax rules keeping the working class from bumping into the middle class.
I see mine and my family's living standards drop only to be told by the news that I'm a likely target for more tax hikes, and there's just no room to tax me more while my bills have also gone up significantly, and something will have to give. If it gets to the point where I can't pay my bills despite being a "high earner" I'll have to start considering whether I leave with my family, and where to.
I'm not exactly the milky bar kid, but I imagine beyond my friends and family, I imagine the consensus would be very much the same, yet there goes two "successful" professionals and the children we were raising probably to be high earning professionals too.
I don't do social media, but I do keep on top of the news from all outlets, I try to look beyond the biases and form an opinion on a combination of sources.
I left in 2010 and the consensus is very much the same among my friends, or at least some of them anyway.
I’m no longer eligible to have an opinion UK or local conversations. “how would you know”, “the city’s changed a lot since you left”, “why are people who chose to leave so interested in X”, statements specific to ex-pats.
For those from outside the UK, ex-pat (expatriate) as a singular term is almost always derogatory regardless of context or publisher.
It's kind of wild how people can't accept that anyone would want to leave the UK, plenty of people come here, they're leaving other places, so this must be the best place in the world.
If you don't like it you must be foreign; I'm not, I was born and raised in England to British parents. Nowhere did I say I was even planning to leave, I merely suggested that if things got worse I might have to consider it, and I was jumped on for that.
Things ARE getting worse, but I'm not at that point yet, maybe we'll have a miraculous turn around and our public services will improve and our economy will grow, I'm not even asking for it to be sunny for 3 months of the year, but if they don't, am I just supposed to sit here on a sinking ship with my children next to me?
And let's be real, it's not even about me at this point, it's about what is and what will be for my children, I've worked hard to give them a better life than I had as a kid, and I'll be damned if I don't do it.
That is not how marginal tax rates work. Each income band is taxed at the rate for that band. It’s why it’s called “marginal” - because the rate change happens at the margin between brackets.
You are taxed 0% on your first £12571. You are taxed 20% on your next £37669, or, £7359.80 on £50270 of income. If you then earned one more pound, or £50271, you would owe £0.40 (40%) on that one additional pound only, for a total of £7361.20. There is no income stage where earning more money has you taking home less.
> There is no income stage where earning more money has you taking home less
If you go from £99,999 to £100,000 and have pre-school aged children, you lose £2000 in tax-free childcare per child. If you have 2 children, that extra penny cost you £4000, 3 children, £6000, you take home less, fact.
Combined with the 60% marginal rate, you now have to get to £110,000 just earn the same you did at £99,999 and then there's the side point that a couple can earn £99,999 each, or £198,999.98 and still benefit from it while any single parent who hits £100,000 loses it completely, so a single parent high earner loses out vs a couple. I'm not a single parent but that doesn't seem reasonable to me.
EDIT: and that person who hit £100,000 has the extra burden of having to file a tax return from now on simply because they hit an arbitrary number, and despite being on PAYE, though perhaps some people love doing tax returns, so not necessarily a negative point.
Also at £100k you start to lose your tax-free personal allowance. The commitment of successive governments to avoid raising taxes on "ordinary working people" has created a bizarrely inconsistent tax regime for above-average earners, where people earning £65k could end up paying a much higher marginal rate than people earning £165k.
Yes, once you go from 99,999 to 100,000 you lose 2000 per pre-school aged child you have and have to file your own tax returns for the privilege despite being PAYE.
Annoying that those are, it’s probably more accurate to say you don’t qualify for benefits when you earn considerably more than the median wage (£38k).
Also, if you’re paying a decent amount in to your pension your effective salary is lowered and won’t hit that child benefit threshold until your salary exceeds £60k or more, and you still get to keep all of that money.
Tax free childcare is already extremely lacking in my opinion, if you want professionals to work, it shouldn't be extortionate to have your children in nursery, and costing you 2000 per child per year for one parent earning 100,000 when two parents can earn 99,999 each is also ridiculous.
The real kicker is the 99,999->100,000 trap where you lose all tax free childcare care allowance, £2000 per year per child, it's assessed quarterly, and if you exceed it by a single penny, not only do you lose it, they also demand immediate repayment of all childcare allowance so far that year.
>>they also demand immediate repayment of all childcare allowance so far that year.
So this might or might not be in line with official guidance but I was exactly in this situation and I expected to earn around £99k last tax year then I was given an unexpected £4k bonus in my march salary, and I wasn't told about it until it was in my account already so it was too late to put it into pension. I asked HMRC about it and they said as long as I was being truthful at every quarterly questionnaire where they ask if you expect to make over £100k and I told them the situation changed as soon as I became aware of it I don't have to pay anything back for the free childcare hours. I asked my accountant and she said since I have it in writing it should be fine(but HMRC can always change their mind so who the hell knows).
Compare that to the insane situation of the benefit for carers where people are being asked to repay benefits going back years if they went over the threshold by a single pound - I imagine HMRC is being incentivieed to go after benefit takers more than other areas like childcare hours, for various more or less political reasons.
That sounds extraordinarily linient of them, but I suspect as you say, it's political.
I take it you lost your allowance for the rest of the year due to the bonus?
Luckily for me the childcare tax people contacted me about it the first time it could have become an issue because I received a bonus at the start of a tax year, so I adjusted my pension contributions for the rest of the year lowering my take home. By this point though I'd already been taxed that marginal 60% thanks to the bonus being paid to me, like yourself without being notified.
Don't quote me but I don't think this is quite true if you take tax credits and other "benefits" into account - especially when it comes to child support.
Moreover they generally make the argument, have marginal tax rates explained and then rapidly go off looking for some specific welfare policy where this is sort of true.
Because if they knew about the welfare policy before they started typing, they would've actually mentioned it then - it's a specific problem, with several obvious solutions (i.e. don't means test at all or taper off more gently) unrelated to the concept of tax brackets (and potentially not related to the actual bracket index values themselves.
The problem isn't the percentage, it's that there are tax traps where earning a single penny more end up in you taking home thousands less, then you hit a marginal tax bands of 60%+, and suddenly you have to earn tens of thousands more just to break even.
They're well known an documented, but I'm sure you know that already.
Can you provide an example for others? I know I often hear this complaint here in Canada about entering a new tax bracket, but the reality is that only the money earned above the bracket's lower bound is taxed at that higher rate (if the bracket is $10k and you make $10,001, only that $1 is taxed at that higher brackets rate), and so I'm wondering what the UK is doing differently.
Edit: Ah, there's a baseline personal deduction (12.5k) that disappears between 100-125k, meaning, for that narrow band, every dollar earned in that range has a higher effective tax rate due to that deduction slowly disappearing. It's still progressive, so you don't suddenly start paying 60% tax on everything.
See another comment of mine that also shows how going from 99,999 to 100,000 also costs you 2000 for each pre-school aged child you have per year meaning you actually earn thousands less, and to top it off, you now also have to do your own tax returns because you hit 100,000 despite being PAYE.
EDIT: it's interesting that anyone genuinely asking and trying to understand is getting downvoted as opposed to anyone who just disagrees with me.
Having to do your own tax returns is funny to hear as a North American, we always have to do them.
I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.
> I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.
Having it go away is less of a problem than having it go away all at once. If it was phased out over a range of incomes such that every marginal dollar of gross is still a marginal increase in net, that'd solve the problem mentioned in this thread. Key property of a tax system: the function from gross income to net income should always be monotonically increasing.
To be fair, the original topic of this thread was "tax traps", one of the most famous in the UK being a gradual decrease of benefit that was still a marginal increase in net, but it was still deemed worth complaining about.
Yeah, to some extent it's also important that the marginal tax rate should always be monotonically nondecreasing. But that's not quite as critical as the marginal tax rate never being above 100% (including all accounting for loss of credits/deductions).
It comes at a problematic point where at 100,000 you also lose your personal allowance. It means that when I received a pay rise from whatever to exactly 100,000 I lost £4000 in tax-free childcare meaning I actually earned less.
Nobody is expected not to use it if they earn below the point it is taken away, it's just an arbitrary tax on parents who earn 100,000, while at the same time a few other paper cuts are piled on.
I know Americans always do tax returns, sounds like a pita for you guys, and I believe until recently you had no choice but to use some sort of service and couldn't DIY it?
Here if you're PAYE (salaries), it's dealt with on your behalf, the tax is deducted before you're paid and you don't have to deal with it, unless you're self employed. It's not necessarily a huge issue, but it's a time cost and that has to have a price, and if you get it wrong, HMRC are notoriously hard and will demand full payment immediately, if you're lucky and they accept your "excuse" (their word), they might let you split it over 3 months.
At this point it's best to make sure you have £10,000+ in savings aside just in case.
I've not had to do a tax return yet, but I've frequently seen tax bills in the tens of thousands from family and friends because their accountant got it wrong, and holds no liability.
I don't think it's as big an issue for me people have taken from my original wording, that's fine, poor choice of words on my part perhaps, but it has certainly been blown out of proportion including some minor jabs at me and (incorrectly) at my political leanings etc. Despite this really all having nothing to do with politics or news and quite clearly as I pointed out at it's direct effect on my family finances.
As the saying goes here in England, "I'm sorry I mentioned it".
> it's just an arbitrary tax on parents who earn 100,000
This seems to be me to be a weird framing. It's a tax benefit for parents that's taken away when you hit £100k. When you hit £100k you don't face an arbitrary tax, instead you're now playing by the same rules everyone else is. You're in parity with your child-less coworker. Not disadvantaged, just no longer advantaged.
I'm not sure I agree with that, but I need to give it a little more thought.
The government has been clear they want you to work harder and earn more, they also want you to have children and raise future tax payers, if you do have children either your career and earnings take a hit or you need to put them in childcare, in that case I think all child care should be tax free, they're only in there so you can work and earn and pay tax. It's typical that your wages should increase with experience but you can't un-have children, perhaps you didn't even know you'd hit that threshold when you had them, or more likey that such a threshold even exists.
If we don't think of it like that, but simply that you're no longer advantaged as you put it, the issue is that it's sudden and affects unevenly, two parents can earn £99,999.99 EACH and still receive it, but a single parent or one person in a couple earns that extra penny they're now £2000/child worse off and still have to put their children in childcare.
Of course there's an option to have or not to have children, but I'd argue that the global consensus in countries with ageing populations, like the UK, is that the government want you to work more, and for longer and have more children, so it should be fair to say that from the government perspective, having children is the expected norm.
For those in the US: the UK tax return (actually a partial return and declaration of income) takes 10 minutes. It’s all done online. There are no complicated calculations, you just declare your income, investment income, interest and other sources, minus any tax already paid. You don’t need an accountant and there are no costs for filing.
If it takes you only 10 minutes to declare all your "income, investment income, interest and other sources" then you're either lying or doing taxes wrong. It takes me more than 10 minutes just to download all the tax slips, let alone totalling them up.
I've been doing UK self assessment tax returns every year for over 15 years.
It really does just take 10-15 mins for people that have one job (as an employee) and typical investments - savings accounts, shares, etc.
The income numbers are already there and if I want to check it's easy: my employer gives me a form with the same numbers in the same numbered boxes.
I just need to specify how much income I had from bank interest.
The tax witholding system usually works as well - the main exception being straight after starting work for the first time or changing jobs, when you can have a temporary code. In these cases I just called HMRC and told them what was going on.
The employer gives my pay numbers to HMRC and HMRC give my employer a tax code that determines how much to withhold each month.
I'm in the pay bracket requiring annual self assessment and 10 minutes is probably too generous, purely because you log in to your SA account and the PAYE section from your employer is already pre-filled. You don't need to look at your pay slips, HMRC already has all the info from your employer and literally all you need to do is have a cursory glance whether the numbers look right then click confirm few times and submit at the end.
Obviously very different if you're self employed or have income mostly from investments or properties, but the you have an accountant to do it for you.
No, I was talking about the amount of time it takes to fill in an high-earner income declaration in the UK, which you only need to do if you are indeed a high earner or have multiple sources of income, and it is not anywhere near as arduous as a full tax return (either in the UK or the US).
That jump in childcare costs definitely sounds annoying but if the overall percentage isn't very high then you're not being taxed to the eyeballs.
We could imagine fixing the problem by making the childcare voucher phase out between 80k and 100k, and at 100.2k you'd get exactly the same amount as you get under the current system.
In this hypothetical would you still say taxed to the eyeballs? If so, what would your justification be?
The nuance of the situation was obviously missing from that short "emotional" statement I made, but I wasn't intending to start the argument it caused, just expressing some frustration in passing before someone jumped on my back.
With a progressive tax band, the burden is different, you're aware of it ahead of time and you set your living standards accordingly, you won't see a big sudden drop and can adjust accordingly. You can't suddenly sell your home or find a much higher paying job in the same space of time a small pay increase took you over the cliff.
For my generation, a professional that's having a family has probably focused on their career to get there, having there kids once they break some income threshold at a certain age, let's say it's 80k to fit with your numbers. You bought your home somewhere where those higher salaries are, paid a premium, higher SDLT on a small new build flat, you upsize when you have kids, buy a(n) (old) house, now overpriced due to property price jumps in the last few years, another chunk of SDLT, bills much higher, then you hit 100k as your costs have gone up significantly, that might be manageable, but you've just lost 2k per child to the tax credit trap, then the next 10k breaks even, after that you're taxed at 60% while your salary can't/won't be able to increase enough to offset that additional tax burden and your living standards have materially dropped because you got a pay rise.
I suppose the nuance I'm trying to convey is one of timing compounded by cliffs in the tax system that wouldn't become the sudden problem they are if the tax system wasn't set up the way it is.
One could argue that you could have known this, but I don't believe anyone would be seriously aware of the pitfalls until they have kids or hit a salary where you're going to be hit with a big step in tax burden.
Sure it won't affect everyone the same, but if you happen to meet those specific criteria with that specific timing, it can certainly feel like being "taxed to the eyeballs" even if that isn't the best way to put it. I'm far from the only person in that position, it's just the natural progression for some.
I hope that explains my position a bit better. I wasn't trying to say "I pay too much tax as a percentage of my income", in fact I DON'T think that, but I and others I've spoken to in this situation believe it's a tax-based ceiling on our progression and is a tax-based contribution to the growing wealth devide pushing anyone down that attempts to break into the middle class, which as a whole just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer; no I'm not putting myself in those brackets before someone jumps on me, but pushing the middle down makes the rich richer and the poor poorer (sorry slight tangent at the end there).
I think some perspective is missing if you’re describing this as “pushing anyone down that attempts to break into the middle class” when the cutoff points (when the step changes occur, as you’re correct to note) come into effect at around something like the 95th percentile of UK salaries.
I don't think there's a clear consensus on what is considered middle class in this country now, for many it can be social, and other factors, I would consider it, in this context to be a certain standard of living.
Owning a home, having significant savings, holidays abroad at least once a year, sending your children to private school, etc are probably some things I'd consider markers of being in the lower middle class.
On that basis, homes are becoming harder to own, savings are being eaten up by higher cost of living, the pound is weakening and taxes are making it untenable to send your children to private school.
Maybe my idea of what being middle class is is wrong, but it can't be far off, and that's exactly the group of people who aren't going to go much further beyond that to whatever comes at the next stage, I don't know what living standards look like for people above that; multiple properties, significant portfolios, not working for a living?
I think the general point is you are presenting something as a hardship that is a quality of life unachievable for most people (even in the UK), and unthinkable for most people in the recent past, even in the West.
You come across as out of touch and entitled. You live in the future - enjoy it!
This may be slightly chicken and egg; it's the 95th percentile of salaries partly because no one wants to take a salary above that. Instead they use salary sacrifice, pensions, dividends, capital gains, leaving money in personal service company, etc. anything to avoid having a personal paper income above that threshold.
I suspect it's nowhere near the 95th percentile of earned wealth.
I don't think this hypothetical behaviour would change the 95th percentile or any percentiles below it, would it?
If the income of everybody above the 80th percentile dropped to be equal to the 81st percentile, the 80th percentile income wouldn't change the ones above would just be very closely bunched.
(Last time I checked the opposite was true and they got more spread out)
I think it would, once you put in place mechanisms to move your income down to below £100k, you can and probably should tweak them further to reduce your tax bill even further.
Perhaps my wording was the problem, and I didn't ignore your other question, I said the percentage isn't the problem, I also don't know the number, but I'm sure you do.
Perhaps it was a problem with my wording but your statement about the daily mail suggests you've entirely misunderstood me, but to be specific I'm generally left leaning and prefer broadsheets, though I currently mostly use aggregators to combine sources to find where the facts are as opposed to "cliche talking points".
I thought I was clear when I said that the effect on my wallet is where my opinion is formed, but it seems you might have missed that.
I have no problem with paying more tax as a higher earner, but I don't agree with a tax system that literally prevents me from earning a penny more and would even have me earn less unless I can find a significant jump.
You clearly have a different view on this but the facts of what I see right in front of me have little to do with talking points and consensus and everything, right now, to do with tax or the tax system.
I'm taxed too much on every penny I've earned over over £99,999 and way too much because of the privilege of having pre-school aged children, that's my opinion, agree or not.
>privilege of having pre-school aged children, that's my opinion,
Look at salary sacrifice. This give you the option of buying childcare vouchers before tax. So taking you below the 100,000. Otherwise pay more into pension and drop below the 100,000 threshold.
I wasn't aware of this, I'll take a look and see if it applies thanks.
The pension route is the way I've gone to deal with it, but it doesn't fix the issue of "my bills are going up while my income can't". I'm sure retired me will be glad for it if it makes it that far, and we don't somehow end up being taxed to the hilt on _that_ too when we eventually get there.
For other readers who don't want to go through that:
Say you earn £99,999 and get a pay rise to £100,000 and have two pre-school aged children, you lose £4000 (£2000 per child) per year, so you now earn less.
Now for the next ~£25,140 you earn you'll pay an effective tax rate of 60%, so from £99,999 you first have to hit ~£110,000 to break even, then it's ~60% tax up to £125,140, then beyond that it's 45%.
But also it's a childcare tax credit? Like you will only receive this in it's total value for maybe 4 years assuming you have two very close in age kids, and then lose it entirely 1 year later because they would both have started primary school.
And you wouldn't be receiving it at all if you didn't have children.
Like I would choose to not means test such a policy were in charge, but it's also got nothing to do with marginal tax rates - it's why liberals like me generally oppose means tested welfare policies (because it costs more to deliver and tends to deliver less).
You also don't have childcare costs once they go to school, so the loss of that outgoing makes up for the loss of the tax credit.
I'm also liberal, and I think that everyone should be given the child tax credit, if the government wants you to work, and earn, and have children (it does), the tax credit is an effective way to help everyone work harder and earn more.
The issue I've been trying to describe, is that after you've already had children, and you then hit 100k, you lose it entirely, making you 2k per child worse off, so let's say you get to 100k, and you already have two children in childcare, you lose 4k, then you get a pay rise to 110k, with the loss of the 4k and at the same time you also hit a marginal tax rate of 60%, you now earn exactly the same as you did at 100k.
If you got a with-inflation pay rise every year from 100k onward, you'd be earning less for almost all of that time until those children go to school.
Lowering the higher band threshold to 100k from 125k and not tapering the personal allowance would actually leave you better off.
I'm not familiar with the UK tax system but the usual solution is to have progressive (?) tax bands. Example:
On the part from 0 to 1000, no taxes
1001 to 10000, ten percent
10001 to 20000, twenty percent
20000 to 30000, thirty percent
30001 and more, forty percent
So if you were earning 29000 and get a raise to 31000 those 29000 are still taxed as they used to and the extra 2000 are split among the two bands around 30k.
Yes, except like many others have pointed out there are thresholds where you lose certain tax credits and benefits, so it's entirely possible to make £1 more but lose multiple thousand(for example if you're a parent and you go from making £99,999 a year to £100k a year)
You did not answer the question. You repeatedly dodged it while blaming your "wording" (?) on your failure to answer it. It's right there for all of us to see.
Now despite your previous admission, you are here telling me that you did answer it and I just didn't like the answer. The question has revealed more about you and your motives than we could have ever imagined.
> One of these seems like the solution to the other.
If the per capita spending is exceeding per capita taxation, increased immigration does not solve the problem. More people requires more spending.
> The UK has always been an empire in decline
I find this fatalistic attitude to be very unhelpful in determining good policy decisions. If you start with the assumption that the empire is in decline then it doesn’t seem as bad to add policies that contribute to decline, as long as you get some short-term win out of it.
> I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.
There have been a number of public scandals regarding immigrant crimes, along with subsequent anti-immigrant riots started via social media and people being sent to jail for internet posts. Social media seems to be more of accelerant for social unrest than than the cause. For me (an outsider) observing the situation, it seems to be mainly caused by immigration.
Many of the areas most upset by immigration barely see any immigrants, whilst many of the most persistent spreaders of rumours about terrible things caused by immigration to the UK don't actually live there. Of course, it isn't just social media that obsesses over immigrants in the UK (and many other places), mainstream print media and politicians are pretty obsessed with them too.
Personally, I would rate the grooming gangs scandal as one of the worse things that happened to a western nation in decades. It literally made me sick to stomach when I read the details. I think the obsession is somewhat justified.
News coverage of child grooming convictions in the month of their conviction was dominated by a different group of scumbags who were convicted of similar crimes up to a decade earlier though, which underlines my point about obsessions quite neatly
THOUSANDS of young girls were sexually exploited for YEARS and the government did nothing about it because they didn't want to appear to be racist. There is no equivalence with any of the "average" sex crimes that happen in modern advanced nations. There really is no equivalence with anything that has happened recently - it is a crime unique in its depravity.
> There really is no equivalence with anything that has happened recently - it is a crime unique in its depravity.
With no intention of downplaying the particular scandal that you're referencing, I don't think this is correct. Victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church are also usually estimated to range in the thousands, particularly e.g. in Germany
No credible account suggests the Rochdale grooming gangs' victims numbered in the thousands.
Implying that the recently -convicted gang who spent several years hosting "rape nights" targeting minors in Glasgow I've linked to was somehow less depraved than people of Pakistani descent doing the same thing in Rochdale years earlier because they weren't members of an ethnic minority does kind of underline my point.
Not just Rochdale. You forgot Rotherham, Telford, Oldham, Oxford, Derby, Bradford, Huddersfield, Keighley, Halifax, Bristol, and Newcastle.
Your second point is a hallucination on your part. Nobody is saying it's bad because they're minorities. We're saying it's especially bad because the government was implicated - they very people charged with keeping children safe sacrificed them for political reasons, by the thousands, for years, and still are. That, combined with the scale of crimes by the Pakistani and other rapists and the acceptance these crimes received in their community, form a different type of crime - a massive crime committed by authorities and a whole community over years. That's what's so especially horrifying.
You're literally doing what you're accusing me of "hallucinating" yourself, bracketing a group of crimes by the ethnicity of the perpetrators, and ignoring white British people doing exactly the same thing and also getting away with it for years, and pinning the blame on the crimes committed by ethnic minorities specifically on the "entire community"; Somehow the Glaswegian associates and neighbours of the "Beastie House" aren't tarred with the same brush, and according to the person I was replying to even the perpetrators aren't as depraved. Police and social services (not generally considered part of "the government") failed to put a stop to grooming gangs for a wide variety of reasons; yes, in the case of Rochdale specifically where there were a number of warnings that shouldn't have been ignored that made it warrant a public enquiry and elevated news coverage. Needless to say social media coverage driven by agendas tended to skip the more robustly established findings that police repeatedly didn't take victim reports seriously out of assumptions about the behaviour of working class girls staying out late at night and often failed in fulfilling basic child protection protocols in favour of the "politicians covered it up and still are" angle. Back in reality, we've had a lot of convictions, multiple public inquires and people from all political parties talk more about them than most other sex crimes put together (even including Jimmy Savile)
In any case, the wider discussion was whether the UK's current ailments and political schisms are "mainly caused by immigration", and its quite hard to logically connect even the immigration-driven controversies like Brexit, "caps on migrant numbers" and fixation on small boat crossings to crimes committed by gangs of mostly second generation British Pakistanis, mostly in the early 2000s.
There is not a government-wide conspiracy to cover up the sex crimes of white British people. That conspiracy is what people are most horrified by. I don't know how to say this any clearer.
>Somehow the Glaswegian associates and neighbours of the "Beastie House" aren't tarred with the same brush
Because this is an isolated incident, not something happening at a mass scale in that community.
You are helping mass rape continue by trying to minimize it; you are part of the problem here, right here, right now. Your kinds of thoughts and words are the support that those ongoing mass gang rape of children requires to continue. Hope you're proud of yourself; at least nobody can call you racist.
>crimes committed by gangs of mostly second generation British Pakistanis
It's hard to connect immigration to crimes by committed by ethnic immigrant gangs? Dear lord.
Look up the stats on sex crime convictions per capita by immigrant origin in various European countries.
There is not a government wide conspiracy to cover up the sex crimes of any people, least of all groups of mostly low-status ethnic minority taxi drivers in cities none of the recent governments have paid much attention to except to discuss sex crimes occurring in them and call for more public inquiries.
Although at police level, it came out yesterday that multiple officers in Rotherham were under investigation for sexually exploiting the victims themselves. Which would sound a much more likely reason why victims were ignored until they became part of wider investigations than some high-level conspiracy to empower taxi drivers to rape. I'm quite comfortable in being able to declare this is a major scandal without having to wait for the ethnicity of the police officers to be identified to decide whether it was an isolated incident or the fault of the entire community.
Only one of us is implying that some gang rape perpetrators and groomers are less of a big deal than others; it isn't me. Whether that is your intention or not, it certainly isn't helping victims get the support they needed or crimes get solved.
> It's hard to connect immigration to crimes by committed by ethnic immigrant gangs? Dear lord.
I mean, yeah, it's super hard to connect immigration routes that British Pakistanis and their ancestors didn't use at any point to crimes some of them committed.
> Look up the stats on sex crime convictions per capita by immigrant origin in various European countries.
We've got stats for sex crimes per capita for the actual UK, for convictions and for reports and for those targeting minors specifically. They certainly don't support your argument that white Britons' sex crimes against kids are "isolated incidents". Statistically, they're actually slightly overrepresented on a per capita basis, and that's after decades of large investigations into specific crimes committed in specific communities.
You're pointing to another rape case(ironic there's so many of them) but the other one was the OG that exposed the British government being involved in the cover up of migrant crimes to not seem racist, where the British citizens talking about the Muslim rape gangs were the ones being persecuted instead of the gangs themselves.
You can't make this shit up. It was a betrayal of the British people of epic proportions, whose trust in their leader was lost forever, because if they're willing to sweep that under the rug to protect their image, what else have they been covering up. Then the post office workers comes up.
I always thought linking all the main things not working in the actual world to the alienation caused by too much digital consumption to be wrong/not really making sense. However, gradually, I am getting closer and closer to that conclusion... In your case, what brought you to the stance "Too much social media is what ails the whole world"? What do you think we could do to solve it?
Social Media used to be better when you actually had a connection to the other person. Nowadays it's mostly anonymous or parasocial. All social media sites have drifted to influencer content (TikTok, Meta, Youtube) or to moving the identity of the other person to the background (reddit, HN). The inbetween of early social media with smaller groups of people who know each other has gotten very rare
The other factor is that everyone now knows how powerful social media can be. Remember when we had positive movements like Occupy Wallstreet, the Arab Spring and Anonymous Hacktivism all facilitated by social media? That doesn't happen anymore. Small things like getting traction for a petition still work, but anything that questions existing structures has no chance of succeeding anymore. Instead social media is overrun by bots that simulate broad consensus on many issues
Are you sure this isn't an Eternal September thing where the initial organizers were just an early-adopting minority, now overrun by a majority that actually has broad consensus on many issues? Also, do you actually have any evidence of bot effects? Would you be able to unleash a bunch of bots on Bluesky and make it seem to have a consensus on tariffs being a good policy?
If you go back in history you can find examples of people making the same claims about too much television. Prior to that, too much radio. Prior to that, too much newspaper consumption.
A common thread is that when people complain about too much media consumption, they’re always talking about other people consuming other media. Few people believe their own consumption to be a societal level problem. Almost nobody believes that their sources of media are the bad ones. It’s always about other sources that other people are consuming.
This is why age verification has the most support of these topics: Adults see it as targeted specifically at a group that isn’t them (young people) whose media they dislike the most.
Did you ever consider that all the concerns regarding the negatives of new media might have some truth to them?
Technology is advancing much faster than humans can biologically evolve and very few people seem ready to seriously tinker with the human genome to keep pace.
Perhaps "the feeds" are just the inflection point where the information overload becomes obvious and baseline humans actually need a majority baseline human experience with all of the associated problems in order to prosper?
So, because some people in the past made (to you) incorrect arguments about something, that means anyone in the future making a remotely similar argument automatically has to be wrong? People in 2025 discussing social media have to be "wrong" because some subset of the population supposedly (to you) made a bad argument about radio 100 years ago?
All of that is broadcast / one direction. Social media is two-way. We've never had two-way mass communication. The rate of communication was an order of magnitude different also.
That doesn't make those claims invalid. Too much television is also a problem, and a lot of television content is junk. Tabloid newspapers are a scourge, as are opinion writers whose output often consists of fallacious propaganda designed to maximize confirmation bias.
In what ways? What things would be better without TV and radio? You think they would be more informed? Or harder to manipulate?
People also complained about literacy rates and the printing press, but how would we have been better off without any of these things so far?
Maybe whatever X newest way to communicate is bad, but when the only evidence against it is the same old arguments that failed to hold up to scrutiny over and over again, I see no reason to give it any more prudence than someone claiming carbonated beverages have caused all out problems. There needs to be compelling evidence beyond people complaining about the collective woes of society that have a cacophony of sources and contributing factors.
To me, different and new communication methods only bring a spot light on issues that we already had. Having a town crier instead of a newspaper, radio, or TV isn't going to make me better informed or less likely to have my information manipulated against me. Sure, it limits the number of sources of information, but that doesn't curate the sources of that information any better when I have no control over them.
As the other user said, people have been warning about new forms of media since the invention of writing. It has always been in vogue to be a nay sayer.
But social media is different. For most forms of media, TV, movies, books, radio etc. You had some degree of agency and choice over what you consumed. You couldn't set what a channel or station was playing, but you could change the channel.
You don't choose what you see on social media. You see what an algorithm thinks is most likely to keep you hooked / going.
Our brains only know what's real based on what's in front of it. You can acknowledge something is rage bait, but as you process it, you will still feel some degree of anger / discomfort. You can acknowledge that something is a cherry picked example, designed to tug the sensibilities of users, but it will still tug on your sensitivities.
And so sure enough, as you keep getting rage baited, concern trolled into algorithmic oblivion, it changes your gestalt. Your worldview shifts to one where those are data points, and it starts distorting your perception of reality.
Garbage In. Garbage Out.
Other people have said that it's like electricity consumption. No. This is very much like tobacco. I don't use social media. Even though I get paid to post to it.
However the uncomfortable truth is that many people enjoy what they see in social media, just like they enjoyed the manufactured bait of Jerry Springer and Jeremy Kyle on TV.
organize things offline. political stuff, social stuff, hobbies, exercise. The things that people want, that online life isn't providing. I can't see another option other than waiting until tech is so commonplace that the advances don't interest people anymore.
Man, right now if you're white and male you are very much the bottom of the pecking order in the UK.
The only successful professional white men I know and have known for the last 10 years are self employed...and even that is under attack. If you want a permanent job as a white man in the UK, your hope of career progress is minimal at best. You will only be promoted if there is no other option.
There is so much home grown talent in the UK going to waste in the name of modern ideology.
Its creating a kind of apathy towards work for a lot of people. Especially those now reaching their 40s. There are loads and loads of professionals with 20 years under their belts that have seen nothing but stagnant wages and slow / non-existant career progression.
The sad thing is, all of this hard line "white and male is stale" rubbish hasn't changed the balance in terms of wealth distribution...you can still he financially successful as a white man in the UK, just not through permanent work and definitely not working for British businesses.
Ive seen it first hand, I spent ages pitching a business idea and prototype to raise some funding. Not a sausage. As soon as I had a couple of black ladies involved (great lovely women, but far from the top of their game) money fell put of the sky. They didn't even have to deliver high quality pitches.
What is equally as sad is these two ladies don't want to be given hand outs based on their race. They struggle to work out whether what they're trying to do actually has value or whether they're just being given money because they're black and female. It messes with their heads as well.
Yeah totally agree - whether it’s Keir or Boris or whoever in charge, the one thing I want to scream at them is “turn the ‘net off! Turn it off!” People are simply too stupid to handle social media. If I was in charge of authoritarian Britain the first thing I’d do would be to flip the serious switches in the big network cabinet down at GCHQ.
As if the authoritarian state doesn’t prefer its subject distracted and entertained by Netflix, Reddit, TikTok instead of reading books and meeting in coffee shops to discuss anarchist literature and Uncle Ted’s manifesto. The Internet has proven to be the ultimate sedative for the masses.
Sorry to say, gizajob, you would make a terrible dictator.
The difference between social media and traditional media is, roughly speaking, the absence of a centralised editor that has the ability to gatekeep the nation’s discourse. If that’s not authoritarian I’m not sure what is!
Social media is a forum for people to complain about the problems they face, if you don’t like that the solution is not to censor the messenger but to fix the problems.
As someone who grew up in the UK I can tell you that the elitist mindset of the UK is a huge part of their problem: only the elite are capable sophisticated right-think, all others are wrong-thinking simpletons and must be silenced for their own safety. The BBC is a huge part of the problem as it is inevitably pro-government but trades off a strong image of neutrality, to the extent that it regularly misleads the public and they lap it up.
If editors are authoritarian for controlling what people see, then social media algorithms are super-authoritarian for the same reason. They also decide what people see, they also modify the cultural and political consciousness, just on a more granular level. An editor can try to push one group of people in one direction, but a social media algorithm can push multiple groups of people in multiple different directions.
IMHO, there's nothing authoritarian about either editors or social media. It only becomes authoritarian when they intentionally align with a central political authority.
> I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.
Absolutely. It's not the only problem, but it is a serious and deep problem.
This narrative is bullocks and I’m sick of hearing this framing. “The UK deserves it because colonialism”.
Contrary to your statement, the UK is a center of education, innovation, and still a major player in finance. The current malaise infects the West and is much more than “brexit” or “colonial hangovers”.
> but suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here
I don't know anyone that doesn't complain about the state of the NHS. The only time I've heard anyone defending it would be when compared to countries without national healthcare (e.g. America).
Nothing stops you from getting private healthcare here and still end up paying a fraction of the average per capita cost for Americans - the NHS costs about the same per capita as Medicare + Medicaid, and private health insurance is overall cheaper in the UK, because they "fall back" on using the NHS as a first line.
Just like in the US, where the taxes per capita to pay for Medicare and Medicaid are about the same as for the NHS. Only in the UK this actually provides for universal healthcare, and is far from incompetent.
The irony of you replying like this to a comment that replied to an American is stark, as unlike in the US, in the UK the care you get if you opt to go without private care is very viable, and private insurance costs far less than in the US.
If anyone should be upset over paying twice, it should be Americans.
I haven't lived in another country, but I have never had an issue with healthcare in the USA. It does seem like you can step on a landmine if you are negligent, but I have employer paid healthcare now and it works great. When I was low income (during my early 20s) medicaid would legitimately hound me to keep me on it. I actually had an issue because they kept enrolling me after I got I job that no longer required them.
I imagine medicaid funding is directly tied to the enrollment count so they are very aggressive about getting people on it. Granted it was trash insurance and most specialists wouldn't take it, but it covered basic care fully.
This isn’t the story we generally hear - what we hear about us healthcare is that you need a well paid job and even then medicines are ridiculously expensive - like thousands of dollars a month for something that is tens of pounds in the uk.
That's generally all true. My family's monthly healthcare premiums are about $6000 per month for a family of 6, for a "platinum plan" paid for by my employer. I had my gallbladder out earlier this month, and my out-of-pocket cost (i.e. what I had to pay myself after insurance paid its part) was about $2500 for the same-day surgery without complications where I went home an hour after it was over.
Yes, after paying approximately $70,000 per year in premiums, I still have to pay a couple thousand dollars for routine, non-emergency, common healthcare procedures.
Technology wise, I think we have the greatest healthcare system in the world. Finance wise, it feels like the worst parts of Cyberpunk 2077.
My medication is billed as "thousands per month" but the insurance company pays a different rate than the 'billing' rate and all I pay is $20/month for my biologic infusions. If I didn't have insurance I could enroll in the drug program and get it nearly free. I think its really very rare for the case you mention.
Healthcare coverage generally comes with any fulltime job. It's cheap for individuals (I pay about $150/month) but gets more expensive with families, which is a real problem. Most medications are cheap. The only medications I've heard of that are expensive are new ones not yet approved by the insurer. I pay less than $10/month for my medications.
That's different. Yes, everyone complains about the state of the NHS but the "religion" is that the NHS may not be criticised itself. So it is in a bad state because it does not receive enough money, that's it, nothing else. Any suggestion that the organisation itself might be improved or, god forbid, that patients might pay is indeed usually seen as "blasphemy".
> So it is in a bad state because it does not receive enough money, that's it
In real terms the budget is the largest it's ever been, it's a relic of the time when people worked and died shortly (a decade) after retiring, not when they live for 30+ years longer.
> In real terms the budget is the largest it's ever been
Which it needs to be given the demographic changes you note. It's about 15% smaller per capita than comparable countries spend. That would suggest that we need to increase the budget if we want comparable service.
That has changed in recent years. Now greater than in France in absolute spend per capita, would need a 7.5% increase to match in terms of GDP. It would still require a 15% increase to match Germany in absolute per capita, but only 8.5% in percentage of GDP.
The UK spends about 18% less per capita on the NHS than the EU14 countries do on their health systems.
A lot of that money has gone on stealth privatisation through inefficient outsourcing of contract staff and PFI of infrastructure.
So the actual standard of care is far lower than the funding suggests. And it has been deliberately run down so a US-style system can be implemented.
So yes, the organisation should be improved, but in the exact opposite direction to the one you're suggesting.
The UK's real problem is that it's run by an out-of-touch inbred aristocracy with vast inherited wealth, working through a political system which prioritises stealth corruption over public service.
They don't see why they should contribute anything to the welfare of the peasants. The obligation is all one way - from the peasants to the gentry.
And there's a layer of middle class professionals who have convinced themselves they're the gentry, even though they can't afford to pay their school fees, never mind maintain a huge estate.
So - private ownership good, public spending bad. More sensible countries don't have this attitude problem, and are proud their public services actually benefit the public.
If you go to, say, France, you'll find that healthcare isn't free at the point of use and that the system is much more private than in the UK. I believe this is so in many other European countries, too.
So public/NHS vs private/US system is a false dichotomy, and "free at the point of use" is a red herring.
Looking at the reactions, this whole threads does exemplifies what the OP said about the NHS being a "religion".
It's not a "religion" to have people disagree with you on philosophical points.
In addition, I'd say most of this thread is a bunch of people debating what issues there are with the NHS (I don't see anyone claiming there aren't any) with some people for it, and some against it.
A fair few people believe that it is the duty of the state to care for individuals, and that one right that people have is free access to healthcare.
If someone expresses that viewpoint I don't think it's fair to say that they're being religious or dogmatic about it, just like it wouldn't be fair for people to argue that your view (which I assume is for a more privatised healthcare system) is religious or dogmatic, it's a simple disagreement.
I moved to Finland from the UK and found exactly the same thing you mentioned in France. Plus extra layers of beauracracy (there's no national health service, there are public hospitals that send a bill to the public insurer and you get a bill for an excess unless you are absolutely down-and-out. Either way, a nice job program for public administrators). Prescriptions are far more expensive than the UK (your co-pay on them is something like €600 a year)
One nice perk though is that [private, corporate] jobs offer cushy health insurance as part of the deal as standard really so you can go and see one of the many private doctors in their offices at your choice and leisure.
Same with Canada, they have public health insurance run by provinces which private hospitals bill to. While the UK has a giant national public hospital system run across an entire country (NHS England, NHS Scotland etc).
The UK has NHS trusts that run hospitals etc. For a limited period of time - just a few years -, the trusts in England were reporting to NHS England. NHS England is being abolished.
These ca. 200 trusts operate with a great degree of operational independence, though they are public entties.
The distinction is important because they are what makes the scale manageable, and it also provides resilience.
The distinction is important because they are what makes the scale manageable, and it also provides resilience.
Though it also leads to inconsistency and the "postcode lottery" problem where the quality of treatment a patient receives for a specific condition can be extremely variable depending on where they live.
That's true, but now mitigated at least to some extent by the right to choose (though people are woefully unaware of this, and GP's in my experience never ask so you need to bring it up if you have issues with your local hospital - the NHS could do better at requiring this; in some cases I've been given links to pick treatment provider after being referred, and it'd be nice if that was the norm).
But it's better to have management failings contained to individual trusts, that are monitored, than to have these failing affect the system as a whole. Not least because it does allow patients going elsewhere as a last resorts.
I guess you're talking about healthcare for the unemployed or non-residents or non-French people, because if you're employed there is additionnal and mandatory healthcare.
There's still basic free healthcare if you don't yet fit well in the system but it's like for example to remove a tooth instead of clean it and reconstruct it.
> because if you're employed there is additionnal and mandatory healthcare
Yes, if you are employed in the private sector there is now mandatory additional private health insurance to cover what public healthcare does not.
Healthcare isn't free at the point of use in any case. Things may be automatically paid/reimbursed as the case may be. Private sector is much more involved than in the UK, too, starting from GPs who are all private practices.
The point is that it's not because you have to pay at point of use or because things are more private that you end up like in the US. This is an FUD argument against change.
All the GP practices in England are private businesses working under contract to the NHS. Most people don't notice since the majority of services are covered under that contract.
There are a great many things that the NHS pays practices for on a unit basis which is very much like them seeking payment from an insurer. The system has a far lower administrative cost than the USA model but the contract management process still looks more like a plate of spaghetti and not a circuit diagram.
I like the cut of your jib. I see the class system in much the same way but with different analogies. The middle class professionals are like the 'house n-gro' described by Malcolm X and the minimum wage workers are like the 'field n-gro' (not sure we can use that word even in academic discussions given where the UK free speech laws are going!).
There is also a lack of a respected teaching class. With the changes to universities and schools, there is no longer any respect for those with an education and able to teach.
The one country whose healthcare I’ve studied in depth aside from the US is Costa Rica. Our Plan B is to establish permanent residence there and starting next year we will be spending a couple of months there every winter and maybe in July.
Costa Rica has an affordable all inclusive public health care system
(Caja). But you can also pay for extra for private healthcare. Is it the same in the UK?
Yes. Like no matter what someone thinks about the NHS, it's always affordable, and it's entirely inclusive. And if you want private healthcare, you can absolutely get it. I've had private health insurance at every post-university job I've had, it's a standard offering in tech.
The main criticism of two tier healthcare systems (public+private) is that it creates an unstable system. The private system steals all the talent, the rich don’t care if the public system is good since they don’t use it, and thus the public system dies a slow death of 1,000 cuts.
In canada we’re in a phase where this is just starting. Private clinics (e.g. telus health) have started to pull doctors out of the public system and put them behind subscription paywalls. We’re still paying the majority of their salary, but they can only be accessed if you pay their private overlords a monthly fee.
We certainly have this issue in the UK right now. In dentistry in particular there is a problem that basically everyone agrees on which is that the NHS dental contract makes little sense for the dentists providing the care. In many cases they would literally lose money by performing routine treatments on NHS patients and then claiming what allowances they can back from the government. So of course many don't do that and in large areas of the country it is now literally impossible for someone moving there to register with a local NHS dentist because 100% of the surgeries within a reasonable distance are only accepting new private patients. Meanwhile I can register with a private dentist based just a few minutes from my home who offers a full range of treatments and excellent service with near instantaneous responsiveness - at a price that many people in normal jobs can't afford to pay.
I moved to the UK with my family just before the Brexit vote and left last year. I love the country, but the changes I saw over that time period were so stark -- and, similarly, so many of the friends I made in that time had already left the country.
That I could have multiple negative NHS experiences relating to missed cancer diagnoses of friends in that relatively short span of time is suggestive of a real problem. The institution seemed to have less of an issue with elder care (in the US, the phantom menace posed by Obamacare or any governmental involvement in healthcare was meant to be "death panels" deciding the fate of grandparents) than with avoiding at all costs detecting potential long-term problems in the young. It's a 'rational' fear in the sense, as you note, that such cases put tremendous pressure on services, but there's no world where the best health outcome is refusing to screen your working age population.
> suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here
That's really not my experience. In fact, almost everyone is surprised when I suggest that despite its many problems, the NHS does better for the people than most modern countries' health systems.
No one I know who has lived in France or Germany or any developed country other than the US thinks the NHS is better than the systems in those countries.
I've heard from Spanish friends living in the UK that the NHS is so bad, they fly back to Spain for medical checks and even to see the dentist. That's mind blowing.
Having lived in the UK for 25 years, and being from Norway, which has one of the consistently top ranked (though extremely costly compared to the NHS) healthcare systems, I have not had any problems relying on the NHS for 25 years for most things.
There are times I opt for private services for speed, because I can afford to, but I could also afford private health insurance (which is cheap in the UK), and haven't felt the need to.
That said, dental is a weak spot of the NHS, with too few dentists offering NHS services, and there's a perceived quality difference in that the NHS treatments have fee caps that mean they will often not include the best aesthetic options. For dental I do tend to go private (but dental for adults is also excluded in quite a few other "universal" healthcare systems - like Norway; don't know about Spain)
> There are times I opt for private services for speed
I'm guessing the NHS, being public, comes with long waiting lists. So it's more about speed than quality of service? I'd assume most doctors with 20–30 years of experience are working in the private sector, right?
It's very much more about speed. Waiting lists varies greatly - I just took my son to the GP this morning, after we booked last week. The only reason it wasn't sooner was that they wanted blood test results first. He had blood tests booked in the morning after we booked, and we were seen ahead of time - the appointment took 5 minutes. There was zero wait when we checked in at the GP.
New Years Eve, my son was referred to an out-of-hours GP service within an hour of a phone consultation.
But while the shortest wait I've had for a video consultation for myself (via the NHS) was literally 10 minutes, the longest was two weeks.
If you have an emergency, you will be triaged and given a faster appointment if you use the right channels (111 - the non-emergency alterantive to 999/911, or urgent care walkin centres, or A&E as the last resort), but of course many things that are not an emergency will seem intolerable to wait for, and then it absolutely sucks if you can't afford to pay your way to be seen faster.
This is a political/cost issue - the NHS is bargain basement in terms of amount spent per patient compared to many other countries.
A large proportion of doctors in the private sector also works for the NHS, so quality of clinical experience has never been a concern to me.
E.g. when my ex looked for a doctor when she considered having a c-section done private, the top expert she could find was an NHS consultant that worked privately on the side. This is the widespread, and often the private clinics are operated by NHS trusts, as a means to supplement their budgets, and/or the operating rooms etc. are rented from NHS trusts.
If anything, my only negative experiene with lack of experience here has been with private providers (the only nurse that has ever struggled to draw blood from me in my entire life failed to get any blood from me after 3 agonisingly slow attempts where she rooted around in my arm for a vein. Every NHS nurse that has drawn blood from me or my son have been so fast at drawing blood you hardly notice before they're done even when they're filling multiple containers)
But if you want to be pampered, then private providers will be nicer. They're also nicer if you e.g. want more time - GP's are expected to allocate an average of something like 7 minutes per appointment for the NHS patients, for example, and how flexible they will be varies, while with a private GP you can pay for however long appointments you want.
Location is a huge factor. I live in a rural part of the country where the main hospital serves mainly small towns and villages. The service is not perfect but, compared to the nearest big city, (20 miles away) it is night and day.
I live in London and have mostly been satisfied here too, but you're right it does certainly vary. More people should be aware they often have a right to choose, though, including sometimes private hospitals (though choosing a private hospital is usually only available when the private hospital costs the same or less as the NHS rate).
Oh that's interesting. I wouldn't expect a surgeon with 20 years experience to show up at a public hospital. I do like the idea though, it gives new doctors a chance to learn from them. But I'm not sure what the experienced doctor gets out of it, to be honest.
The private doctors mostly (not always) do the routine stuff. The advantage being you don't have to wait. When things get tricky/complicated you are often better going the NHS route as the doctors there have so much more throughput they have more experience with complex/unusual cases.
It's pretty much the other way around here. For a private hospital, getting someone with experience from the NHS is to a large extent a prestige thing, and you'll find that the practioners profiles on private provider websites often highlights their NHS background.
So what they get out of it is at least to some extent that it is expected many places as a means to getting job offers from private providers.
I have heard the exact same thing. The reason given being a lack of confidence in whoever they were dealing with. For many people, first contact with the NHS is the 111 call centre which really is akin to a health lottery.
Living in the UK but being from another EU country, I definitely see that happening. However, a lot of times it is just due to habits, wrongly-placed mistrust, or not being well settled-in yet because, at the end of the day, there are eg. better GPs and worse GPs everywhere in the world, but if you are still "new" to the country you simply do not know which ones are which, so you prefer to go to the ones you know already.
I'm not entirely sure if the UK has a public-private health system. What I do know is that companies offer private health insurance, even though everyone has access to the NHS. That suggests there's a private system in place, one that probably attracts the most experienced and competent doctors and GPs?
About 10% of people have private health insurance, but note that a large proportion of service providers in the private space also work for the NHS.
E.g. my old GP used to provide both private and NHS services (they were precluded by their NHS contracts from providing private services to people registered with them with the NHS).
Many NHS trusts also provide private services, as they are allowed to do so to improve utilisation and supplement their budgets, so in practice this is part of the reason the NHS is so cheap compared to universal systems in similarly rich countries.
Most private hospitals in the UK also e.g. rely on NHS for intensive care, and this, along with relying on the NHS for first-line care (A&E, GP's unless there's a wait, etc.) is also why private health insurance in the UK is unusually cheap, and why private hospitals in the UK are unusually cheap (if you're in the US, and planning elective treatments, it can be cheaper to fly to London and do it here, even factoring in hotels - and some Central London hospitals have hotel suites, and at least one have or had a previously Michelin starred chef because they cater - literally - to high-end international healthcare tourism).
Oh yeah, healthcare in the US is insanely expensive. They have top professionals, but if you don't have money for long, complex treatments, your options are basically: sell your house, or fly to Cuba, Costa Rica, or the UK for treatment.
The median wait to be seen by a specialist is currently 14 weeks, but the range is much larger and some patients will wait as much as a year for a non-urgent referral. Those waits are on top of a lot of de-facto rationing; referrals will often be rejected for fairly spurious reasons, purely to manage demand.
Speaking personally, the biggest issue isn't the waiting, but the chaos and uncertainty. Every part of the NHS is in a constant state of crisis management. I don't terribly mind that I usually have to wait about two weeks to see my GP (family doctor), but I do object to the fact that I'll invariably be seen by a locum (temporary) doctor who doesn't know how the local systems work and won't be there if I need a follow-up appointment. I could live with waiting lists if they were always 14 weeks, but it's incredibly disruptive to not know if it might be 14 or 40 weeks, to not know if your long-awaited appointment will be cancelled with no notice due to staff shortages or industrial action. I've almost got used to the fact that the corridors of my local hospital are permanently full of "temporary" overflow beds, primarily occupied by frail elderly people, often in considerable distress, sometimes obviously neglected.
I'm fairly high-agency and I feel that the system is hostile and difficult to navigate; I have no doubt that many patients who are less able to advocate for themselves suffer preventable deaths because they fell through the cracks.
Thanks for sharing, makes a lot more sense now why people fly back home for treatment. First time I've heard of someone having to wait 14 to 40 weeks for an appointment. That's mad.
If it were only France or Germany, it wouldn't be as bad. I returned to Poland after almost 15 years in the UK, and despite our health service being an absolute shambles, I still prefer it to the NHS.
I have heard some scary things about NHS from friends. Some mothers of Greek origin preferred to give birth back in Greece. I don't know if cultural differences played any role. A humble N=4-5 from a doctor
> The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're seeing those with a few quid to rub together leave, but as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income.
Have they though about joining some sort of economic union, maybe one with like minded countries that share the same continent?
I think it's always a bit of a bummer when someone takes the time to write a really well-thought out comment and someone comes in with a reddit-style quip that adds nothing to the conversation but derails it for everyone else.
There are so many charitable and earnest ways to make the point you're getting at, why reach for such intellectually low hanging fruit?
It's not a "reddit style quip" to mention the UK deliberately shot themselves in the foot economically when talking about the economic situation in the UK.
So if we’ve agreed with OPs assessment that the problem in the UK is the government attempting to seize more power…how will becoming subjects of yet another government body that is even more powerful and less beholden to the people…help things?
The EU might be better on digital privacy right now, however the emotional winds of the political mob change often and many people in EU government feel differently. The EU is also an aging population of technologically illiterate and immigrant-afraid retirees. I wouldn’t expect much different coming from them in the future.
Both have collapsing demographics, collapsing social welfare systems (turns out forced government pension payments thrown into low yielding bonds for people in their 20-30s who should be 100% equities is a bad idea), non-competitive taxation policy, and decades of underinvestment in risk assets that have starved their business community of capital needed to innovate or grow.
This government didn't even bring this law up, it was enacted in 2023. The law had a two year implementation deadline, which just expired. It's pretty understandable that the government trying to take the country back on track didn't get to repealing the law (relatively minor compared to what's on the legislative agenda), which would require a full trip through both houses of the Parliament.
Any stats showing uniquely high propensity for violence?
> uneducated
Any stats here?
> incompatible with your culture
Any data here? My MP is not white and was granted asylum, what incompatibility are you talking about precisely?
> illegal immigrants
People seeking asylum aren't yet illegal, the legality of their stay is decided when their case is heard.
The reality is that travelling over multiple countries and crossing the channel just to claim asylum in a country someone wants to be in requires a ton of determination, bravery, and desire to improve one's life. Way more bravery than anonymously spreading xenophobia online.
The one that just agreed to pay 3000 dollars per capita to the USA to prevent a trade war?
The one that is also working on a digital age verification system?
The one that created an AI regulation that stopped all innovation, and a data protection innovation who's single result is billions of people having to spend 3 seconds before visiting every website clicking a button that doesn't actually do anything (in 80% of cases)?
The EU is facing the same fundamental situation as the U.K. The latter recklessly accelerated their problems but an aging and shrinking population coupled with unsustainable social spending and precious little technological investment can only result in a downwards spiral. Just look at how far behind the US the EU is since 2008.
This mirrors my experience of the UK. A dysfunctional country whose wheels were slowly falling off and now not so slowly. I’m generally pro devolution but in the UKs case their political class is so god awful that giving them more power didn’t seem to be a good idea.
I left for greener pastures a long time ago and subsequently all of my friends and anyone I knew of any talent has also left, it feels weird visiting a place I once called home and not being able to see friends.
> Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it.
The resistance to innovation in the screening invitations is more down to empire building by low-talent management than to the NHS 'religion'. Dr Ben Goldacre wrote a memorable X thread on a closely related topic some years ago.
Where do you see people leaving heading towards? What’s your emigration destination? It seems like most countries have their challenges and I’m curious where people who have inevitably done more research than me are landing, literally!
Personally I've known people moving to Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, the US, Singapore. There's obviously a variety of factors that go into the choices people make and certainly no perfect choice.
For me, it'll be the UAE. Instinctively, some people will probably attack that choice, which is fine. I've lived in the Middle East previously, it's not perfect to say the least and I have some personal history with that, but I understand the choice I'm making. One thing people won't like is the headline tax rate, but I probably won't come out ahead there initially as cost of living is quite high - it'll cost me about USD 70k just to put three kids in school. Accommodation is also quite expensive, private healthcare also needs paying for, but at least you get what you pay for then.
Where the tax situation is appealing though is that then I'll be incentivised to earn more beyond those high living costs, where I just don't feel I am in the UK. Sun and swimming works for me too. Job adverts there are absolutely rammed with literally thousands of applicants and I'm hearing from recruiters that a lot of people from the UK and wider Europe are trying to head in the same direction. I'll be working for myself though.
I likely won't see out my days there. I'd imagine we'll retire to somewhere on the Med, my wife would prefer NZ but I don't think that works for me. The US is perhaps desirable, but it seems quite hard for a Brit to get into unless they happen to have a job with a company there. We'll have to see.
>it'll cost me about USD 70k just to put three kids in school. Accommodation is also quite expensive,
Just a note to you or anyone else reading this, USD 70k is on the high side; average yearly schooling cost in Dubai is around 40k for 3 kids. And the accommodation cost depends heavily on location; it's more than 50% cheaper if willing to live at least half an hour's drive from the city centre.
I was going to ask the same thing and I hope they answer.
I can't speak for OP but I can report on what I'm seeing... I know a lot of British, Canadian, and Australian expats that have moved to California in the past 5-15 years.
Why? Healthcare is probably everyone's first concern, but expats tend to be well educated successful people who can afford excellent healthcare... I'm an expat from a different country and seeing the top end of the healthcare facilities in the States is a luxury experience compared to national healthcare where I'm from. I wish everyone here had access to that, but at least poor people in California do have access to state healthcare.
Politics is a shit show, and has gotten worse recently of course, but that's true in a lot of places now and everyone I know came in before the most recent decline. I know a couple of families who have gone back to their countries, but all of them went back because they wanted to be close to family again, but none of them left because they didn't like it here.
Across everyone I know, the main appeals for coming to California seem to be weather and lower taxes than their home country. Cost of living is similar to many of the big cities in the countries I mentioned above. I'm not suggesting America is a better place, that's a different calculation for everyone, just reporting on what I'm seeing.
I left around the time of Brexit so I have no useful opinion on the recent financial/admin state of the UK, though it seems from afar that austerity has done the place no favours. But...
- this kind of authoritarian nonsense is just what Home Secretaries do. David Blunkett brought in RIP (then, to his very slight credit, changed his mind). Jack 'boot' Straw was famous for his I-AM-THE-LAWing. I don't think the Tories are any better.
- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly.
- And with that in mind, having lived in three countries (four if you accept that the NHS in England and Scotland are different) I personally think the NHS is fucking fantastic. Someone close to me was diagnosed with a serious illness and immediately swept up in a production line of modern, effective treatment. Sure, it was somewhat impersonal, the biscuits are rubbish, and they were a widget on the production line, but they're also still alive ten years later, and we still have a house and savings.
- kudos to your sister. The UK is an ethnically diverse place, one of the least racist and divided that I've seen, but - like everywhere else - imperfect. The NHS always seemed to me to be a reflection of what things could be elsewhere with doctors, nurses and cleaners hired from all over the world. [which reminds me that while the right-wing press hates the NHS for being free, the left wing press occasionally hates the NHS for bringing in medical staff from poorer parts of the world. They just can't win]
- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly.
This is exactly what I'm saying. The NHS are seen as perfect by some. All criticism is digs that are wrong.
I'm pro-NHS. But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality.
Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation. Consider all the political difficulties the NHS has had in the past few years. As such, negative remarks can be read or misread as dogwhistles for other views, so they're something that have to be phrased carefully and within context.
I was unclear: did you publish a book, or did your sister?
In general, for something both as key and as endangered as the NHS is, criticism isn't always useful -- support is. Problems can be recognised and addressed through support.
I'm not anti-NHS, I've no agenda to see it privatised, I just want it to be better. I tried many, many private routes first. I tried NHS England, NHS Digital, the Innovation Service, AHSNs (many sections having since been renamed/reorganised). About 20 different contact points over two or three years, most of which seemed inappropriate but I made sure if anyone told me it was someone else's responsibility I checked with them.
The problems had already been recognised through public inquiries and yet were still ongoing.
I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. But as far as I could see, offering support was getting me nowhere.
I just had people acknowledging the issue and then shrugging their shoulders, pointing fingers at everyone else. So I wrote a book on it, spoke about the issue publicly and within months it was decided to spend tens of millions on sorting it.
> I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive.
I think it's wonderful that you offered to do that but it simply isn't realistic. Who is going to support this software in the long term? How are you handling privacy concerns? What guarantees can you offer about server security? Who is paying for and maintaining the servers in the long term? What happens (to be blunt) if you die the day after the software is delivered?
There's so, so much wrong with the way governments provision software projects from outside parties. But there is good reason to have contracts the length of the Bible. Picking up work from individuals on a whim is courting disaster.
I don't live in the UK, but the stories we hear about the NHS from people who lived and worked there are honestly shocking.
One guy had a brain infection and was told to wait four months for an appointment. Another went in for a root canal, left without a tooth, and fainted outside the clinic. Someone else was refused an X-ray after an accident.
Meanwhile, in my tiny country, we have a dual public-private health system, and the facilities, doctors, and dentists are top notch. It really makes you wonder what's gone wrong in the UK, considering how much taxes British people pay.
The UK pays less per capita towards the NHS than most similar-income countries do.
And, it's very much a "public-private" health system. E.g. all GP's and most dentists are private businesses, paid for by the NHS to varying degree, but also with many providing private services.
The NHS uses an extensive network of private providers, including (when sufficient funding is provided) to drive down waiting lists. I've personally had a procedure carried out at a private hospital at the NHS's expense.
The NHS has many problems, but at the root of a whole lot of them is that the NHS needs a funding increase of 20%-30% to get to similar levels of funding per capita as similarly wealthy countries.
The UK spends about as much per capita on the NHS, providing universal care, as the US does on just Medicare and Medicaid.
>at the root of a whole lot of them is that the NHS needs a funding increase of 20%-30% to get to similar levels of funding per capita as similarly wealthy countries
As a percentage of GDP, UK healthcare spending is well above the EU and OECD averages. We spend a greater share of our national income on healthcare than Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Finland or Norway.
It really makes you wonder what's gone wrong in the UK, considering how much taxes British people pay.
Unfortunately the main problem is chronic underinvestment by successive governments of all political inclinations. We tend not to fix our roof in the summer because we hope the other guys will be in government by winter when everyone inside is getting wet and they'll get blamed for the consequences of our decision. We've also made some poor choices historically around selling off national assets and questions of privatisation or public ownership.
This isn't unique to the NHS and ironically among the current Labour government the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is one of the few people suggesting significant changes that actually do make sense for the long term future of our country. Unfortunately a lot of them will probably require more than 5 years to implement and that puts the results over the horizon beyond the next general election. So the price for trying to "do the right thing" might be that he won't get re-elected to see it through. This enables the cycle of short-termism and lack of consistent investment to continue even though its horrible results are increasingly clear for all to see.
I see. A polarised two-party system makes long-term planning really hard, like in the US.
Ironically, that's not a problem in China, they have a one-party authoritarian state and can plan 10, 20 years ahead without worrying about elections or political instability.
China also has a healthcare system that has been far more private than public for the majority of the existence of the PRC, that is only in recent years getting close to providing universal coverage for basic service provisions....
I think a great many countries have problems with healthcare. I think if you went hunting for anecdotes of healthcare failures you'd be rich in examples in a lot of countries. That said, I think in the UK it's a result of inefficiency and chronic underfunding for, at this point, decades.
I've lived in both the UK and the US and there are issues with healthcare in both. Maybe the model your country uses could scale up to populations the size of the UK and the US, maybe it wouldn't. Difficult to know.
> I think it's wonderful that you offered to do that but it simply isn't realistic. Who is going to support this software in the long term? How are you handling privacy concerns? What guarantees can you offer about server security? Who is paying for and maintaining the servers in the long term? What happens (to be blunt) if you die the day after the software is delivered?
Good questions, but the quickest way I can answer them all is to say that my company had delivered software for national security purposes to central government departments. This really was nothing.
It certainly wasn't my preferred option. The offer was mostly a tool to ensure that cost of development could not be used as a reason to reject.
TBF the government and its agencies - including the NHS - are doing themselves no favours with how they're managing IT at the moment.
There are persistent and valid claims that the NHS is inefficient in its use of technology. It wastes lots of money, wastes clinicians' time, and sometimes fails to get accurate information to the people who need it in time to be used.
But there is a best being the enemy of the good problem here. The amount of regulation involved in supplying any kind of tech product or IT service to these public sector organisations is becoming prohibitive. Parts of the industry that have been providing these products and services into the NHS are being crippled in productivity or even literally shutting down whole supply chains because it's too onerous to comply with all the red tape. It's not just individuals but the small businesses that employ or engage them and then the medium-sized business that use the small ones.
If you're working with big consultancies with their own legal and compliance teams then sure you can write hundreds of pages of contracts and require compliance with several external standards about managing personal data and IT security and whatever else. But that regulation flows downhill to the smaller suppliers who don't have resources already available to deal with those issues and at some point it becomes overwhelming and everyone has had enough and decides to become a gardener. Now your only options for supply are big consultancies engaging big suppliers who charge big prices and provide big company levels of service and responsiveness (in the most pejorative sense of these terms).
Surely this isn't the best strategy for a system that desperately needs to be more efficient and sometimes more innovative. There is a broad spectrum between "adopt a one-off product with no support from a single well-meaning individual" and "everything requires so much red tape that only the places charging those £x000-per-day consulting rates we're always mocking are actually allowed to provide it".
As someone who does software for NHS Scotland, I can easily believe the tale of multiple difference directorates/orgs believing it was someone else's remit as the NHS is a super complex organization of organizations. But in your case specifically data protection laws probably made it far worse and that's true of pretty much any tech you build/deploy in the NHS. There are strict information governance rules that have to be followed for any personal information, even just emails, which exist for very good reasons and aren't particularly onerous, but they are strict so in situation like your where it's not clear who would own/be responsible for what you were offering I can could see them getting in the way.
There are some rules that exist for very good reasons - and which have been widely undermined by front-line healthcare services though this does at least seem to be improving a bit over time.
There are also plenty of rules that exist for dogmatic reasons and impose absolute requirements that don't always make much sense in context instead of stating principles that should be appropriately applied.
I understand that those administering these rules don't want to leave loopholes where people or cost-conscious suppliers will cut corners for convenience and/or to save money. There is obviously a danger of that happening if you don't write everything down in black and white.
But you have to remember that the starting point here is receptionists at medical facilities asking people to email over sensitive health information or casually discuss it on the phone when they don't even know who they're talking to and what information is appropriate to share with them. Doctors are trying to read vital patient information from scrawled handwriting on actual paper in potentially time-sensitive life-and-death situations. Expensive scanning equipment in hospitals relies on software that runs on 20-year-old versions of Windows from a supplier that shut down long ago.
In this context you probably win a lot just by having clear policies and guidelines that really are short and simple enough for rank and file staff working in a wide variety of different jobs to understand. A reasonable set of basic technical measures would be far better than much of what is in widespread use today. Trying to make everything perfect so we have fully computerised health records and integrated diagnostic and treatment systems and everything is 100% secure and privacy-protected and supported is a laudable goal that would obviously be much better for patient outcomes and also for the daily lives of everyone working in healthcare. And in 50 or 100 years maybe we'll be able to do it. But not today and not tomorrow.
I've written software used across the NHS previously, and a lot for national security purposes since. It wasn't the only option on the table, just one that I was mainly using to ensure cost of development couldn't be used as a reason to reject and so that there was a strawman architecture on the table to help generate discussion.
It certainly wasn't even my preferred option, I'd have been much happier if they said they had a team that could run with it.
> Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation
This kind of political insecurity is toxic for rational conversation. Blindly rejecting the criticisms of our political opponents is just as naive as blindly accepting their criticisms. Either way we handover control of the conversation.
Rhetoric exists. Astroturfing exists. Wishful thinking and name-calling do not make them go away. You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.
Just read the comment further above to see that there are people who cannot stomach any criticism of it.
Many years ago now my sister turned down the chance to go to an international conference held in the Netherlands, when I asked why, she said it was because the NHS was the best in the world and had nothing to learn from other healthcare systems. I'm still stunned, and she still doesn't know anything about other healthcare systems.
> But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality
Very very very few people think the NHS is infallible. What are you even talking about? We all understand the NHS has many many problems, and those of us that have used the NHS understand this even more.
However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model.
Not sure what you're getting out of this weird strawman argument you're putting forward.
> However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model.
What private healthcare mode? WHat they have in the US? Then definitely yes. What they have on France or Germany or Japan or almost every other developed country.? Then No. What they have in Singapore? Still No.
I'm afraid there are people who cannot tolerate NHS criticism, you may not be aware of them until you've tried to see a change in the NHS. Some of them would even describe their very existence as a strawman, but it's not a strawman to the people they've blocked from seeing the NHS improve.
Yet private healthcare is a strawman, I've never argued for it.
You've moved from saying the NHS is like a religion that no one can criticise, to "some people cannot tolerate NHS criticism". I'm glad you've toned down the ridiculous complaints to something more reasonable.
It's hard to recommend anywhere generically, there's so many facets to it and it depends what you're trying to get out of life.
Cost of living and wealth inequalities aren't key concerns for me personally. It's more quality of life for my family, safety and economic opportunity.
You missed out the housing!! How local authorities who issue notices of bankruptcy while in the background buying up properties at full retail market prices. Knocking up rental prices beyond affordability. Shoplifting increasing costs of living on top of the large supermarkets profiteering since covid. Slum lords offered a guaranteed rents for a 5 year Contracts including the maintenance and any works required to bring it up to standard of conditions. To house illegal migrants, while these previously extremely poor housing our citizens was and still are forced to live in. Well not for long as no fault evictions are forcing these tenants out of their home. So shady and greedy slum lords can take full advantage of this home office offer , LL are rubbing their filthy hand's together
In the UK attending a protest against putting illegal immigrants from Afghanistan in a hotel by your kids school is likely to have you on a watch list or arrested. This might not sound that bad to our European friends, but you guys in the US might be quite surprised to hear this.
It's not just "right-wing" positions which are dealt like this either, I should note for legal reasons that I strongly disagree with the actions and views of "Palestine Action", but arrests of peaceful protestors who simply wish to voice support of them as a group (without actually being part of the group themselves) is in my mind absurd. It's one thing to make membership of the group illegal, but to also make debating that judgement illegal is highly problematic in my mind. For those interested you'll find videos of the police arresting elderly women for terror charges for simply peacefully voicing their opinions on Palestine Action. It's vile.
The UK government has announced a new "squad" who will check social media for anti-migrant sentiment. Even if you are not "anti-migration" (whatever that means), I think we can agree that opposing migration is still a valid opinion to hold in a democratic society.
> I think we can agree that opposing migration is still a valid opinion to hold in a democratic society.
Unfortunately, this opinion gets framed as "hate speech" in many countries, with legal consequences. How convenient to criminalize opinions of opponents !
Sorry, you are right, I missed it somehow. Still isn't correct, though.
Detectives will be drawn from forces across the country to take part in a new investigations unit that will flag up early signs of potential civil unrest.
The division, assembled by the Home Office, will aim to “maximise social media intelligence” gathering after police forces were criticised over their response to last year’s riots.
...
“This team will provide a national capability to monitor social media intelligence and advise on its use to inform local operational decision-making.
“This will be a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence to help local forces manage public safety threats and risks.
Some might say that's a sensible thing to do in 2025. Others, might spin it another way to fuel their immigration-focused political agenda. The quotes from the Tory and Farage are painful.
>I don't think anyone objects to what the UK had 20 years ago - genuinely skilled immigration
20 years ago it was mostly Poles whose only quality was that they were willing to work for less than native UK citizens in jobs that said UK citizens supposedly did not want to do (which is doublespeak for businesses not wanting to pay a decent wage). This kind of immigration was one of the reasons Brexit happened.
The Poles we've historically had a great relationship with and there was already a huge ex-pat community of Poles here from WW2.
It was more the later additions to the EU a few years later that were actually problematic and got people's backs up.
It didn't help that we were allowed to restrict immigration from those countries but didn't as the government needed mass immigration to disguise the fact there was no growth.
No-one thinks the NHS is perfect. People are rationally defensive of it because the most likely alternative is not something like the German system (which is better, but has major problems) but a sale of the NHS to an American company such as Kaiser Permanente. Most people are well aware of the deeply rooted problems of the American system, and recognise that almost anything is better than that. Any systematic change would require a government which is trusted to handle it. That rules out the Conservatives (who are in power most of the time) as even their supporters don't trust them on this issue, and Labour is unlikely to either have the inclination to implement deep changes, or be in office long enough to effect them.
Well if they are you're probably getting a greater amount of other selfish, unpatriotic people to replace them so idk if it's a net gain from your pov.
Depends on why they are there. Refugees tend to care about the country they came from more and the one they landed in they view as a temporary shelter.
Complaining is the British pastime so complaining about the NHS is grandfathered in. However if you try and offer any suggestion for improvements to the NHS you soon realise you cannot criticise it in any meaningful form and be decried a blasphemous heretic.
> but as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income.
Your comment was mostly on point until you decided to put straight presenting white guys as the victims
The worst part is I don't see really any western country that's not in decline at the moment. Seeing the "surrender"'s from EU and other countries on tariffs makes me feel so bad. It's like there is no place in the world that's socially and economically strong anymore. The US remains economically strong at least, but they're now run by bullies. Even so, I see people all over the world leaving to immigrate to the US. Canada has the same growing cynicism and economic troubles and emigration, maybe less of a police state though. We're all just pathetic vassals to the US now.
But… you have discrepancies like the town of Middlesbrough , a small North Yorkshire town with crime rates on par with large European cities and rampant poverty and drug abuse with no clear way out because no one seems willing to invest in the once infant Hercules.
I hear about the North turning into a kind of rust belt as the population concentrates around London. I'm not sure how you solve that in a finance centered economy with no local industry - small towns are struggling across the developed world for similar reasons.
If you find a good strategy for Reindustrialization especially in developed countries that have gotten used to high wage white collar work please share it around. Are there any good countries to look at for this?
Maybe a little cynical, but genuinely if any country has got some good strategies for building industry back up after a decline I think we should be stealing their notes. Right now arguably China seems like the only one to me? And I'd definitely favor trying their massive state investment, but I'm not sure if the UK can do that one.
> Right now arguably China seems like the only one to me?
They didn't build it up on their own. They saw opportunity in western businesses who wanted lower wages and less strict environmental laws, and lured them in. The western businesses then moved all their manufacturing to China who then spied on these factories to out-compete the western businesses with "home grown" products they copied.
It’s kind of the opposite. The North is underfunded and often ignored by central government, but it’s also cheap.
There have been an influx of Londoners who have discovered that they can actually afford a house in the North and enroll their kids in decent schools and maintain a good standard of living, especially those who are able to move while maintaining a London salary.
Also second hand from British friends but the current leadership seems really weird to me. Went back on their election pledges, tacking this way and that for something to do to raise poll numbers.
It doesn't fit together as a strategy to me and I don't see it fixing the economy, but I guess they can talk about it as a success?
The British political class has been collapsing for decades. The population just flip-flops between completely awful unpalatable options, Starmer is just reheated third way Blairism. Brits aren't this stupid and they want optimistic view of future not go on the war path or austerity.
They will slowly cycle out this historical group of parties resulting in painful economic results and poor social cohesion nationally.
From tourist point of view UK felt to me like a police state, and I'm leaning more towards the former view. Cameras everywhere, non-stop reminders that you're being watched, being tracked everywhere(including which train car you're in now), constant reminders about possible dangerous bags being left alone etc.
Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happen any second, be vigilant!".
While at the same time, it was vastly more unsafe than Eastern Europe.. and cities themselves were vastly dirtier.
Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
To be honest and to give some context - they have been under threat of terrorism(due to The Troubles first - the name itself seems to reinforce this view, seems innocent..) roughly since end of WW2. well WW2 was a factor too.
To add a bit more context: this wasn't my first nor last trip to UK, and each time i visit it the worse it feels in every aspect:
Cleanliness of cities, safety, and oppressiveness.
I always thought a police state would demand identification at every street corner (perhaps I'm wrong?) and any minor breaking of the law being dealt with severe justice. The UK has always been against a "state ID" unlike a lot of European countries, so I'm not completely convinced the description of "police state" is accurate. In fact I think it's the opposite given people can freely break the law despite cameras being on every street corner.
The UK is basically an end-of-days advanced state: bureaucracy taken to the extreme, with a heavy dose of nanny-state "mind the gap" messaging.
Bureaucracy kills any kind of infrastructure project (see HS2), so don't expect any improvements any time soon.
We do have some nice cities: Manchester, York, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge. (I've probably missed a few from this list). London feels pretty far from 30 years ago - and not in a good way.
>The UK is basically an end-of-days advanced state: bureaucracy taken to the extreme, with a heavy dose of nanny-state "mind the gap" messaging.
Reminds me the latter three dune novels. Frank Herbert had this idea he was exploring about how the inevitable end-state of society is this sort of stalemate between opposing bureaucratic factions which have become optimized towards preventing their own destruction to the point that they aren't capable of doing anything other than prolonging their own existence.
It reminds me of the Republicans and the democrats in America which have become utterly unresponsive towards their own voterbases because they have already rigged the political system to prevent any viable competitors from displacing them but in general it seems like the whole of western civilization has reached this point over the last 50 years or so, because just about any country which is referred to as 'western' has a set of very obvious problems on the horizon with very obvious solutions being stalled by a ruling class which is concerned with maintaining its own existence at all costs even if it has to bring down the entire nation with it.
> opposing bureaucratic factions which have become optimized towards preventing their own destruction to the point that they aren't capable of doing anything other than prolonging their own existence
This is the best 1 sentence explanation of how it feels like to live in the UK. Every institution feels more catered towards preventing it's end than to a goal.
> I always thought a police state would demand identification at every street corner (perhaps I'm wrong?) and any minor breaking of the law being dealt with severe justice.
Those cameras know exactly who you are, and the tracking device your carry around in your pocket serves as a secondary confirmation.
Checking IDs would be a superfluous and costly tertiary method of confirmation.
> minor breaking of the law being dealt with severe justice
This is the case if you do anything that opposes the governments desired narrative. For example, by saying something “far right”. Multiple years in jail for a tweet.
But I agree, what you’re describing is I think best called anarcho-tyranny: not some (disturbed) utopian inspired police state, but a police state of gritty hypocrisy.
Over here under communist times it was definitely a police state - there were no ID checks, crime was rampant, but everyone could be observed at any moment and be arrested/dissappeared as needed.
> Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
Have you ever been to mainland China? I've lived in both places and honestly, day-to-day life in major Chinese cities often feels more "free" in practical ways - safer, cleaner, more technologically convenient.
What is freedom really? In Shanghai or Shenzhen, I can walk out at 3am to get noodles or take the metro without a second thought. In LA or SF, I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, checking who's behind me, avoiding certain areas. The surveillance cameras in China never made me feel as watched as the constant threat assessment you do in many Western cities.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying China doesn't have serious issues with political freedoms and surveillance. It absolutely does. But the lived experience is way more nuanced than "oppressive dystopia."
I used to have similar assumptions before actually spending time there. Western media coverage (cough propaganda cough) tends to focus exclusively on the authoritarian aspects while ignoring that for many people, daily life feels safe, convenient, and yes - "free" in ways that matter to them.
Instead of imagining what China might be like based on western news coverage, why not visit and see for yourself?
Extremely unpopular opinion on HN, I'm sure. But I have a compulsion to challenge stereotypes when the reality is so much more complex.
In my experience the cleanliness of cities is a very good proxy for the overall health of the society. Societies that can't keep their cities clean often also have a lot of other problems. Government alone can't keep cities clean, it requires a society that believes in the common good, an an efficient government that can get things done.
> I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government.
Mostly a failure of democracy - we have two major parties that are hard to tell apart.
They are both cynical and scared, and have for decades believed the future of Britain is managed decline. They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
The sugar tax is a strange example to pick as an example of British decline.
As of 2022, the WHO reported on SSB (sugar-sweetened beverages):
> Currently, at least 85 countries implement some type of SBB taxation.
It feels to me like this was a rare step in the opposite direction - recognising that industry is the driving cynical force and pushing back on its over reach where it has failed. Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately to avoid the tax, with what net loss? (The class-targeting comments were a straw man)
In principle I support taxes that disincentivise production of negative externalities (in this case, adverse health effects).
However the way this works out in practice is a reduction in consumer choice, one that I'm reminded of every time I walk into a shop.
> Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately
This is the problem, really. Rather than adding new "low sugar" product lines, in most instances they're modifying existing ones to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners. The "original recipe" is often no longer available to consumers at any price.
As someone who struggles to consume enough calories to stay healthy, this sucks! (Mostly unrelated to pricing, just as a matter of practicality)
Cigarette smokers for example can still walk into just about any shop and purchase their favourite cigarettes, they just have to pay more for them - this seems fine.
Overall I'm quite on the fence about the whole thing, but on a purely emotional level it feels like an instance of government overreach.
Its not an example of decline, it is an example of nudge politics and trying to control what the hoi polloi do. I was making two points which is why I said "they ALSO believe".
It is a prime example of class targetting because manufacturers of more expensive drinks still put sugar in them, its the cheap drinks that have switched to sugar substitutes.
Is it though? Are other forms of government more successful while remaining respectful of privacy? Or is it more of a reaction to social or societal changes? Why would these social or societal changes be different than previous changes?
> They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
A non insulting way to view that is that central goverments understand incentives, and in the same way there are child incentives for people starting families, having incentives for healthier eating is something a central goverment should use its taxation policy for.
More control over education standards is also a common purview of many good educational systems. Decentralisation is not necesirely better, with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted. Centrally dictated standards was the method of the French revolution, believing that a society where everyone roughly understands the world the same way was a society that was more unified. French "equality , fraternity and legality " is a basis for modern liberal democracy almost everywhere, but they didnt get there without authoritarian imposition of their standards, with entire minority cultures getting trampled along the way.
The hyperbole and bad faith explanations of legislation is not a good representation or argument against why britain is more accepting of som legislation many feel intrusive.
A better argument is that this piece of legislation was passed late on the rule of a disastrous administration and the number of problems in day to day society largely are unaffected by it, so it got no time in the spotlight for people to complaint or know it was coming until it was days away from being implemented. Society is also largely technologically illiterate, this is pretty much the case everywhere in the planet, which means the nuances of tech legislation are lost even on the people writting and voting on it.
>with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted.
I don't know where this is coming from; statistically speaking, homeschooled children do better on pretty much every educational outcome. Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.
> Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.
Home educated kids often teach themselves so the student teacher ratio is infinity so terrible!
Both my kids taught themselves some subjects (had tutors for other, had me for some, so lots of one to one too). They did just as well in the subjects they taught themselves (8 and 9 in GCSE Latin, which as they did not have a tutor and I am terrible at languages is very much self taught).
This is a very common fallacy repeated by people who are either interested in supporting homeschooling, or haven't thought much about the subject.
The most telling stats is that the percentage of homeschooling parents increases, specially in religious communities but the test takers in homeschooled scenarios almost always come from higher educated urban families.
There is a large case of selectin bias, in a public school every kid takes an SAT test. For homeschooled kids, the kid of two doctors who was homeschooled and aces tests for breakfast he takes teh SAT and smokes any underfunded public school near him (although he probably scores average or below prep schools that cost arguably less than his homeschooling, with additional socialisation benefits etc). Meanwhile the hyper religious family wanting their daughter to marry at 16 is not letting that barely literate girl take her SATs.
The two groups in favour of home schooling are hyper capitalistists who think the disruption of public schooling + their advantage will make their kid unstopable, and the niche fringe believes, usually religious who are scared of interacting with mainstream institutions for fear of disrupting their reality. Both are problematic, anti social and harmful groups and their over representation in goverment and media is largely a sympton of the inability of liberal institutions to fight against illiberal threats.
> This is a very common fallacy repeated by people who are either interested in supporting homeschooling
There are many academic studies, across many countries, that confirm the better results. Your evidence is?
> Meanwhile the hyper religious family wanting their daughter to marry at 16 is not letting that barely literate girl take her SATs.
Not really a thing in the UK, or most places. It might have some truth in the US but sounds like a biased view
On the contrary I credit home education with getting my older daughter into a male dominated career (she designed power electronics for EVs).
> The two groups in favour of home schooling are hyper capitalistists who think the disruption of public schooling
Not really a thing in the UK either. Home educators tend to be social liberals and politically left wing
In fact of the many home educators I have come across very few fit your description.
> with additional socialisation benefits
Because meeting the same people of the same age from the same area in the same place every day for many years is a great way to develop social skills and make a variety of friends.
> although he probably scores average or below prep schools
I went to one of the best schools in Britain academically and my kids got a better academic education (as well as in other ways) than I did.
> There are many academic studies, across many countries, that confirm the better results. Your evidence is?
All those studies are either paid for by home schooling groups, or report the same fundamental issue in terms of data collection I have mentioned. Also the ones that break down results by socio economic background all highlight that anywhere from lower middle class to lower class homeschooling results always fall under public education.
> Not really a thing in the UK, or most places. It might have some truth in the US but sounds like a biased view
The UK has had a recent surge in homeschooling, in part because of Covid, also in part because of systemic underfunding of schools. But the religious exception was the most credited answer (some marked it under the philosophical reason) for homeschooling up to 2018. It is also underreported for women in some minority communities like travellers, orthodox jews, and some more extreme versions of islam. those girls are "homeschooled", wanna guess how they would do in their GCSE's?
> On the contrary I credit home education with getting my older daughter into a male dominated career (she designed power electronics for EVs).
This kinda highlights my original assumption of people defending it being because they personally believe in it, but credit to your daughter aside, she probably would go and kick ass regardless of the educational establishment or framework. And while you can't run a double blind study, I am not sure why you would think her being in a regular school she would be denied the chance to go into such a prestigious career?
> Not really a thing in the UK either. Home educators tend to be social liberals and politically left wing
> In fact of the many home educators I have come across very few fit your description.
it is important to point out that the biggest movement for homeschooling is evangelical americans, the same group that managed to get the department of education destroyed under Trump. Their propaganda, think tanks and TV news anchors distribute, enable and control the conversation borderline globally. The UK in comparison has a relatively small home schooling population (despite its recent uptick).
Also home schooling groups tend to be self contained, if you are socially liberal and go find other home schooling parents, you will find your neighbours and people who visit the same in person or online resurces (libraries, websites, forums etc). If you were a hyper religious person who did not believe your daughter should learn to read, you would report that most of the homeschooling parents you have met believe the exact same things you do. It is, by design, not an ideology that promotes everyone being under the same umbrella.
> Because meeting the same people of the same age from the same area in the same place every day for many years is a great way to develop social skills and make a variety of friends.
Almost every study tends to think so, yes. Support networks are important for humans, having people who face the same challenges (puberty, a math test on friday) and that are reliably reachable (same schedule, same place) means kids can learn things like trust, collaboration, loyalty etc organically.
This skills are not impossible to develop elsewhere, in the same way you can learn math elsewhere. But those benefits are not non existant.
> I went to one of the best schools in Britain academically and my kids got a better academic education
Yes, and your grandkids, if you ever have them, will get a better education that your kids regardless of where they study. Because education improves, resources improve, attention to kids increased over the last generation. You and I probably run around all afternoon with our parents not caring were we were, our teachers had not refreshed their knowledge since they got their degrees. Nowadays with things like the internet, Pluto stops being a planet mid school year and the kids get that info asap. Instead of a priest slapping kids like when I was a kid, there is a comprehensive "Religions of the world" curriculum were kids suddenly know tons of greek mythology, buddhisim, islam and plenty of christianity from early sects, to modern catholic, protestant and orthodox divisions. None of that was taught when I was a kid, so of course kids are better off now, as they should be. But that would happen regardless of where your kids learn I think.
The drawbacks of homeschooling for the whole of society I think are too large for any individual benefit. The lowest dregs denying their kids food or basic knowledge, conspiracy theorists denying reality to their children, abusive parents being unchecked, religious fundamentalists not allowing their kids to interact with whats beyond their control... disrupting all that and having kids be together, the same, and learning about different people and following the same curriculum I think is valuable.
I have a very similar career to your daughter, and my first interactin with kids being homeschooled was in an international math olympiad. Some of the kids I met had real hung ups about socialising, and I promise you they would have been just as good as calculus if they had gone to any normal school and just did a lil extra in the afternoon like I did. Growing up and doing some research on think tanks and who was funding what, the people promoting homeschooling had some pretty awful ideas about society and where everyone should fit in it. So while I would never judge any individual parent, there are plenty of good reasons to do it, I am keenly aware that most of the material coming out in support is not always coming from good faith sources.
If most of the public are in favour of the Online Safety Act, then how is it a failure of democracy to have it? I give you the top FT comment:
>I, for one, am glad that porn is being age-restricted online. It gives young people false ideas. You'll never get a plumber to come around to your house that quickly in real life.
The Online Safety Act has a reach and consequences than restricting access to porn. As has been mentioned on HN many times it is causing forums to shut down, and people to move to social media instead. It is causing forums in other countries to shut out British users. It is essentially making UGC something only businesses, especially the tech giants, can do. Even with porn age verification is a concern.
In a word, division. The UK is so divided that people are too busy pointing the finger at each other to realise the root cause of the deterioration of our quality of life is entirely generations of mismanagement of the public purse.
Instead of questioning how MPs are entitled to a pay rise while your average person gets made redundant, people are questioning why people fleeing persecution should ‘be paid for with my tax money’.
Brain fatigue and mixed signals combined with destitution and desperation drastically impede the average person’s ability and desire to fact check and extrapolate. We are moving towards a society of down and out people living with no hope serving the elite and those with a bit of money behind them.
My fiancée and I have had enough and are also leaving in October. No idea where to all we know is we have a one way ticket away and will figure the rest out.
It’s an example, it’s not a mutually exclusive situation. The point is that people are busy pointing the finger at each other instead of the people whom are paid to actually improve their lives.
>people are questioning why people fleeing persecution
Except many of them are not, they are economic migrants. And some have even realised that claiming that they're persecuted for lgbt reasons is an instant in - there was a case with a guy (with a wife and a bunch of children) that claimed to have written a pro lgbt article and now he's persecuted.
As a gay man the thought of that sickens me, economic migrants using who I am as a shortcut to entry, I have no problem at all with genuinely lgbt individuals seeking refugee status; we're still persecuted in so many places and there's not enough of us to make change happen in those places.
But the economic migrants...all they're doing is ensuring their home country never improves and that a steady stream of migrants continues into Europe. It'll never end.
^^^ This is such a great example of the deranged elitist groupthink that dominates the UK’s national discourse.
Holding the door open for fake asylum seekers costing billions while his fellow countrymen are laid off, and pointing the finger at MPs taking a few million between them.
In the U.K. it means taking all your thinking cues from the intellectual elite that orbit Oxford and Cambridge. The sort of people that typically end up as BBC presenters and professors. Viewing yourself as a member of a distinct group of intellectuals that “get it”.
> The migrants on the boats are not people fleeing persecution. Firstly these boats are coming from France. Are you claiming that France is persecuting people?
So do you think that after you get a couple miles away from something, you're no longer fleeing it when you keep going? An argument like this doesn't make you sound very credible.
> These men claim they are children.
What percent of the migrants are you talking about here?
In my high school drivers ed there was a kid who looked like he was in his 20's with a full thick beard, stocky muscular build, deep voice. I thought he got left back a bunch but turns out he was my age - 16. So "obviously not a kid" doesn't really work and potentially puts people at risk.
Its because the popular press has, for a very long time, been pushing a narrative of a country under siege. It sells papers, but to keep selling papers, it has to keep steadily upping the narrative over time.
It is the case elsewhere, remember how close France once got to Frexit and how close the far right were to winning their most recent general election with the same claims.
But the UK has always to some extent enjoyed a fantasy of being an island under siege from mainland Europe and it something the nationalist press like to drum up.
As for its increasing poverty, the UK went all-in on neoliberalism since the ‘80s, and especially in on austerity since 2008. Entry-level wages barely grew for over 10 years. Blame the EU for that, get Brexit, more expensive goods and damage to the financial sector the country relied on. Then Covid…
To me, the most disturbing part isn’t just the laws themselves, it’s the complete shift in the cultural zeitgeist. When I was younger, people distrusted the government by default. We stood for freedom of speech, anonymity, the right to speak without being censored. Now, even among software developers, people in tech who should know better, I see them practically begging Big Brother for more censorship, more control.
It makes me sick. It brings to mind that old quote from Mussolini: “The truth is evident to all who are unblinded by dogmatism, that men nowadays are tired of liberty.”
Is the dogmatism what blinded or unblinded? Considering the source I assume he meant that Italians desired fascism. I’m not familiar with the rise of Mussolini, was he genuinely popular or more of a Hitleresque thug that used violence to suppress his opponents and control measured public opinion?
Politicians have not taken action on a wide spectrum of problems (some of which are crime related, other problems in society below the level of crime) for many decades now. While the economy is good, this doesn't occupy the mind of the public too much, life is OK. Now that the economy is not good, and has not been good since at least 2008, the public has begun to notice these things. The public has even started to notice domestic opinion management (nudge unit, 77th Brigade etc). Passing this sort of "manage the symptom not the cause" legislation has become popular. It's easier to do than deal with the cause, it pushes the actions onto 3rd parties, and superficially it sounds good to the general public. At least for a while. To get an idea of how "off target" the state itself is in managing serious crimes look no further than [1] (warning, pretty grim story, but very typical).
Crime has, despite everything, gradually been falling. Scotland has a 100% murder clearup rate for the past several years.
The incident you mentioned is yet another piece of fallout from Rochdale, but if you look closely the offences mentioned are from 20 years ago. I don't think that should be used to talk about the present. There is a lot more safeguarding these days.
The main negative factor is the press, responsible for both "opinion management", doomerism, and sensationalist demands to Do Something in a way that doesn't help. The Online Safety Act and Brexit are both victories for the Daily Mail that are losses for the rest of the public.
> There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
It's about corporate control - the more regulations like this - the more entrenched the market becomes. Higher barrier to enter for smaller players plus government gets all the surveillance apparatus as a sweetener.
Basically Labour continues taking UK into corporate fascist utopia.
Don't believe the things that you read. Our newspapers have been openly biased for centuries, and there's some very shoddy journalism at times. See, for example:
The bureaucratic and security infrastructure built to manage colonial subjects didn’t disappear, it just refocused inward. You see it in policing, immigration policy, and intelligence. The Home Office runs on a suspicion-first logic rooted in managing threats—real or imagined.
It's one of the reasons the UK has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world. Public tolerance for this took hold the IRA years and cemented post-9/11 and 7/7. The narrative of ever-present threat made "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" sound reasonable to a large portion of the population.
The press, especially the Mail, Sun, and Express, also thrives on outrage. They set the tone for national conversation, whipping up fear and anger that politicians then "respond" to with legislation. The broad assumption is that people can’t be trusted with unfiltered access to information or autonomy, especially online. You also saw it in lockdown, where Britain had to endure one the harshest COVID lockdowns among Western democracies.
Not saying I agree with the legislation, but the UK experienced a lot of pretty bad domestic terrorism in the rememberable past (namely IRA bombs detonating in towns and cities etc, often with devastating impacts). Then there were the tube and bus suicide bombings more recently. And there has also been a constant pitter-patter of "radicalised lone wolf" type things like the Ariana Grande concert bomber, the guy who killed a load of 8 year old girls at a summer camp and so on.
None of this is porn of course, but supposedly a lot of the lone wolf's are radicalised online so it creates a lot of "someone needs to do something!!!!" type attitudes (and no public gun ownership would not work like everyone says it would because the USA had that yet no one lifted a finger when they needed to recently, and now look what's happened), and sadly the older and more little-c conservative population carriers more clout in terms of policies because historically they tend to vote in greater numbers than younger groups. N.b. that 16 and 17 year olds have very recently been given the right to vote so things may change.
Yes but they are part of the lived experience of a large part of the country.
So these are not some dusty forgotten thing from history books that people might read about, it was stuff they saw on TV and is back in the news whenever a round-number anniversary comes up etc.
The point I was trying to make is that quite shocking bad things happened semi-recently, and more shocking bad things continue to happen. It appears in the news over and over and over about people being radicalised online.
I get why people think this is a good idea - you need to prove age to buy knives and cigarettes etc, so they think "why not" for porn and other "adult" things online.
Because the media always paints other countries in certain lights, as it helps them build a narrative for their own governments?
> complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government
I disagree with this sentiment, however it does show how bad "democracy" can be when voting for a complete government change results in absolutely no change whatsoever.
I think its highly relevant when we have people pushing the faulty logic narrative that the UK is China and using CCTV as a measurement for their case.
UK bad because online safety rules, let's ignore US states that already do this.
> Don't mind what we are doing, the UK is worse.
Not defending the UK, but they aren't the first and you dont get the same inflammatory racist language with other countries.
How so? If I have a car lot, I'll have multiple cameras for a tiny area bumping the average camera per person without meaningful results. Sounds like the worst measurement unless you are trying to push a narrative.
Large parts if London are just forests, unlike Paris which is one of the densest places on earth. So of course density of population affects camera per sqm: you tend to place more cameras where there are people. This is also why I said that coverage is even a better measure: "what are the odds that I'm being filmed, now".
While I appreciate the concern, it's worth pointing out that 30 or so years ago "government should mandate id checks for harmful content" was not some radical dystopian notion.
The UK was also one of the first nations to ban indoor smoking and in cars with kids. I think this is very much in that vein (politically).
> I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action
Historically there is no formal constitution in the UK so Parliament is not limited in their power. IHMO it's the main factor why the UK is an outlier.
Outside of techn journalism, this is a non story in the UK. I think it's hard to say much about the society's attitude when they don't know ow about this, never mind understand.
Average UKian is, IME, surprisingly technologically unsavvy. This might be the root cause of lack of interest or protest.
If I were to guess how this whole thing came to be, it would be thus: the UK government is increasingly dysfunctional and polarised. The attention of government and opposition goes increasingly into futile, high-stakes but always drawn battles. But that means that motivated and organised groups can push through things that look benign from the outside and don't trigger the Great Polarisation. Protecting children from suicide, what's not to like? The Parliament, where this should be shredded to pieces, is too busy trying to reshuffle deckchairs.
Meanwhile this is printed on vellum, welcome to the new reality.
You are approaching this from a uniquely U.S. perspective. The U.K. is pretty middle of the road as far as “surveillance” and while this may offend the freedom-at-all-costs sensibilities, it’s a fairly milquetoast change.
Visiting the Heineken website in the U.S. requires that you assert you are over the age of 21. Texas has instituted I.D. verification for pornography.
Regardless of how you feel about this law, it is not accurate to say the U.K. is unique in implementing it.
Discord’s own articles about this change explain that the fundamentals (content filtering) are applied to all accounts owned by teenagers worldwide. The only U.K. specific aspect of all of this is that if you tell Discord you are over 18 you must prove it. That’s a very small difference and not something most people in most countries care about. I’d go as far as to say, I think the majority of people in the majority of the world would be in favour of requiring people to prove they’re over 18 online if they want to claim to be over 18 online.
Again, this is a radical internet-libertarian-freedom-at-all-costs view. Normal people do not think that proving you are 18 is notable. We’ve been doing it for decades with credit cards. The system is more mature now but it is not fundamentally different.
Uploading your government-issued ID to random sites to prove your age is insanity.
We have daily reporting about database breaches where people were duped into uploading their picture/ID, and then it gets posted on 4chan. This is true for the latest "Tea" app this past week, but also ID verification services for big companies like TikTok and Uber. I draw a hard line: I will not upload my ID for some private business to review, because they will never delete it.
My position is very simple. I believe that most of the world is fine with age checks on the Internet. I think that the U.S. free speech laws and attitudes are unique and because English speaking internet culture is U.S. culture, these discussions always end up with an assumption that U.S. values are the values shared by the subjects.
I don’t think my view on the law matters, I haven’t shared it. I am speaking specifically about how everyone here is talking as if people in the U.K. care about “draconian” surveillance. People in the U.K. are not people from the U.S. Age verification is not a philosophical issue for U.K. people as it is for people in the U.S. People from the U.K. are not principled free speech absolutists. Ask a person in the U.K. if porn should require age verification and they will not think nor care about the free speech or surveillance implications of voting for such a law.
And people in the U.K. are not unique. People in the U.S. are. Spend any amount of time outside of our U.S. Internet bubble and you’ll discover nobody cares about any of this.
Whether I care and whether you care is not relevant to the British voters. Not the Australian voters. Nor the Swedish voters. Or the Thai voters. Or the Japanese voters…
Yeah, you are right, we would be fine with age checks. If and only if it was done through zk-SNARE or ZKPs in general. Uploading a photo of myself to a random company's server is a no-go, whether for having my age checked or whatever else.
I am Eastern European, and there is no way in hell I will ever use a service that requires me to verify my age through a photo of my ID.
In fact you have shared your opinion: 'Again, this is a radical internet-libertarian-freedom-at-all-costs view. Normal people do not think that proving you are 18 is notable.'
I would actually argue you've expressed dozens of opinions related to this law and very few facts. Any source on whether Swedish or Japanese voters care for example? What led you to this conclusion?
Furthermore in your last comment you first argue you are only speaking to UK sentiment ('I am speaking specifically about how everyone here is talking as if people in the U.K. care about “draconian” surveillance.') and then double down on your argument that US is the outlier.
You don’t need age verification to access all of Discord, just NSFW servers. You can certainly argue that that’s an unjustifiable interference in people’s freedom to access the internet services that they want to access. But please don’t exaggerate.
> You don’t need age verification to access all of Discord, just NSFW servers.
That’s not correct. The Discord support explains that it’s required to change automatic content filtering or unblur any content that gets caught by the automatic filters.
Yes, that’s what I meant. You can still access Discord, just not any content that’s detected as NSFW. Generally speaking that content will be on NSFW servers (the kind that e.g. the iPhone app would block you from accessing by default).
Obviously there is not going to be a “nah I really want to see this tho” button, or the age check would be completely pointless.
That is not true. Try going to a server that asks for your age and then go ahead to choose "2020".
> Obviously there is not going to be a “nah I really want to see this tho” button, or the age check would be completely pointless.
That is exactly how "ignoring" an user on Discord works. Their messages are still there and you have to click on it to have it uncollapsed, so that is kind of ironic of you to say, lmao. So yeah, there actually is a "nah I really want to see this tho" button.
Look, create an account and when you join a server that asks for your age, make sure you set the birth year to one that makes you less than 13 years old.
For what it is worth, it has to do with Discord ToS (per / by country).
In some countries you must be over 13 to use Discord, other countries 14, but if you are below, you MUST verify yourself to be able to access your Discord account after you set it to below 13. This verification process is done through sending Discord an e-mail requesting them to restore your account, with a video of yourself holding your ID card as an attachment.
The list per country can be found on Discord's website.
What I am talking about is separate from the server settings (require phone verification and/or age verification).
Do you know of other western countries that send cops to your house because you posted memes on X ?
Saying that illegal migrants should be sent back home can literally land you at the police station. A hotel worker was arrested for testifying to what he saw in his hotels, ie. migrants being hosted, given a phone, meals, and NHS visit once every two weeks.
It his law combined with all the other iffy laws in the UK which make this nefarious. This is the issue about discussing anything about how draconian the UK is. If you compare any single law in isolation, it isn't that different. However if you take how the British authorities and how they operate it, and all the other laws you start to see a more draconian picture.
That is what many people, especially those that do live in the UK don't appreciate.
I lived in the U.K. for decades and I have lived in many other countries. I’ll criticise the U.K. government and society endlessly but to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense.
From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation. “Draconian” and “authoritarian” aren’t in the vocabulary of most U.K. citizens. They’re far more concerned about immigration and the economy.
The long-standing “the U.K. has the most cctv cameras per person” meme is further evidence of this. A well-loved fact carted out by freedom-loving anti-surveillance types… that the mainstream of the U.K. could not care less about.
It's a "blip in your radar" until you want to say something that is forbidden by the government. Or when someone thinks that you said it, such as with "non-crime hate incidents" where anyone can report "hate speech" to the police, which will be added to your public file.
There’s no such thing as a public police file in the UK. What I assume you’re referring to is that these records are accesible for the purposes of certain kinds of police background checks (which, as in many other countries, are required for certain jobs).
Same in France, many things are forbidden to say, most of time censored, sometimes even punished (either socially or by the law). US is way way way more advanced in terms of freedom.
You are allowed to say there is censorship but not allowed to say what is forbidden (and you are not allowed to criticize some laws, without breaking the law). You can really go to jail or have your life ruined, or your business burned because of a TikTok video.
This censorship benefits a lot of bad people, but naming them is a crime by itself.
For example, in France, there is no insecurity in the streets. If you say the opposite and start naming examples, you will get shamed or even physically attacked by some people and be prosecuted for “spreading hate” and other crimes whereas your attackers will have zero issues.
This phenomenon is known as “juges rouges” (the red judges), somewhat similar to USSR
Given the US government is actually defunding major universities because "reasons", I find your comment laughable. Problem with arguing about "freedoms" is usaians still believe their constitution applies. Also, Colbert show, etc.
Your take about French censorship is equally ridiculous. I would gather that 90% of French press would not survive a month in the US before being pressured/defunded or worse. What happened to Charlie Hebdo would have happened in the US, by "patriots" instead of islamists.
And let's not even start about the separation of church and state...
You can write to several climate activists in prison if you would like first hand accounts. I means ones who held up placards, rather than the ones that climbed onto trains or glued themselves to roads.
Just weeks ago a couple of pop bands got hauled in front of judges or had police investigations aimed at them for voicing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. (Ok, so they used incediary language, but they’re 20-somethings at festivals and the Gaza situation is abhorrent).
Fairly recently, an activist group which uses tactics reminiscent of the anti-nuclear-proliferation movement and animal rights movements of the 70s-90s got proscribed a terrorist organisation. At present, the law around this and recent implementations of its enforcement are such that I can’t tell if I’ll be arrested for writing this paragraph. I’ve tried to stick to the facts, but interpretation can get you locked up.
Section 127(1) makes it an offence to:
"Send by means of a public electronic communications network a message that is a -
(a) grossly offensive,
(b) indecent, obscene, or menacing, or
(c) false, known to be false, for causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety."
Section 127(2) adds that: "A person is also guilty of an offence if they cause a message or other matter to be sent that is similarly offensive or menancing.
In the U.K. people can be prosecuted for speech found to be offensive.
There have been several high profile cases used as examples, like the guy who was convicted for making a video of his girlfriend’s dog pretending to do a Nazi salute: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
Doing anything considered “grossly offensive” online can result in the police knocking on your door and financial penalties. It’s a foreign concept if you’re in a country where making jokes online doesn’t constitute a risk to your freedoms and finances (which is more than just the U.S.)
I’ve had too many circular discussions of this issue on HN already, but arrests are a low bar. You can find examples of people being arrested for stupid reasons in pretty much any country if you google for it. The exact reasons might vary, but any individual police officer being a moron at any moment can lead to someone being arrested.
There are also some examples of people being convicted for questionable reasons, but the UK is far from the only country with laws against hate speech. It is really the US that is the outlier in having a fundamental legal guarantee of the right to hate speech.
Are there similar examples from Europe or the West? I know there are restrictions for promoting Nazism in some countries, but the UK seems to be an outlier when it comes to censoring offensive content in general.
It seems to be an outlier because news coverage in English-speaking media tends to report on the UK more than other European countries, for various reasons.
It’s super easy to find examples if you look for them. In fact, this example from Spain is far worse than any of the examples you’re likely to find in the UK:
The thing is, it’s not an important part of a certain unmentionable person’s political strategy to portray Spain as an authoritarian hellhole. So you won’t hear nearly as much about cases like this.
Honestly, the point of these laws is that they could get rid of anyone they want to. It is not usually enforced (AFAIK). It is there in place to enforce it on people they do not like, at any point.
An Atheist who burnt a Quran in Yookay and got stabbed by a muslim as a result (proving his point?) got a 325£ fine for "religiously motivated public disorder” whatever that means.
Peter Tatchell got arested by the police for holding a sign with "STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!" because of "breach of peace" whatever that means.
During the recent riots in Yookay, a man was jailed for 20 months for "shooting at a dog", and "using racist slur". While it's sure distasteful, it's no different than Putin's technique of protest repression.
I could go on with Germany, where sharing benign memes about politicians lead you to get swatted and your house searched, the Yookay with its "non crime hate incidents" that require no proof, France and its extensive hate speech laws that prevent asking to boycott another state, Finland where burning the Bible is ok, but not the Quran, and so on.
> I lived in the U.K. for decades and I have lived in many other countries. I’ll criticise the U.K. government and society endlessly but to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense.
I am English. I was born in England, my parents are English, my Grandparents were English, My Great Grandparents were English etc. etc.
I have lived my majority of my life here. So I am English.
You obviously didn't read what I said. I understand that it is nothing special in isolation. However I am not talking about it in isolation. I was talking about the entirety of how the current laws are constructed as well as how the UK state operates.
Also just because other countries have rubbish laws, doesn't mean we should have adopted similar ones.
> From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
Many people do not like this and are actively seeking work-arounds. These aren't uber nerds like myself BTW.
> The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation.
So you admit there is a problem. But you then pretend that this can't possibly be part of the entire picture because you say so.
Sorry it very much well is part of the problem. You stating it isn't doesn't make it so.
So because it isn't discussed through UK mainstream news and publications that means people aren't concerned about it? A lot of things people are actually concerned about isn't mentioned at all in the mainstream news or publications that is why increasingly fewer people are paying attention to them.
People are talking about these things ironically on places like twitter/X, facebook, whatsapp, discord and in person (shock horror I know). I was at a boys football match this weekend and people were talking about it there.
BTW quite hilariously twitter/X are censoring some footage from the commons as that content has to be age-gated.
The myth of things “not being talked about” in the mainstream is a convenient way to excuse being unable to provide any meaningful evidence that a notable portion of the country care about something.
I know it might shock you but people on twitter and discord are not representative of voters. Most voters do not engage with any social media.
People on the internet get so caught up in the international perspective we are exposed to that we forget what national voters actually care about.
> The myth of things “not being talked about” in the mainstream is a convenient way to excuse being unable to provide any meaningful evidence that a notable portion of the country care about something.
If social media wasn't important, politicians, mainstream news publications themselves, and other political activists wouldn't bother with it. So this is patently False.
Pretending this hasn't been a trend now for 15 years is completely asinine and shame on you for attempting to pretend the opposite is true.
> I know it might shock you but people on twitter and discord are not representative of voters. Most voters do not engage with any social media.
False. Almost everyone I know is on social media of some sort. They might not be actively engaging but they do engage regularly in some form or another. Most of them would be called lurkers, or they will check out stuff if some piques their interests.
You conveniently missed out where I said "facebook" and "in person"
> People on the internet get so caught up in the international perspective we are exposed to that we forget what national voters actually care about.
I don't care about the international perspective. I am English (I've already told you this). I care about this issue and I know plenty of other people who are British care about this issue.
The same YouGov polling that had almost every about Brexit issue at 71% vs 29%. Their polling isn't to be trusted.
Even if I took that at face value, that means 1/5 people don't support it. Which isn't an insignificant amount of people. So there are a decent number of people that care about it, even using your own figures. This disproves your statements about it not being cared about and only uber nerds caring about it.
You are simply over indexing for your own circle. Your circle (by virtue of being a nerd) is deeply biased towards people heavily influenced by U.S. attitudes towards freedom. I’m an internet nerd too, I know how easy it is to get caught up in this idea that what you see online is representative of the people, but it isn’t. Go out and talk to real people. Go and stand in the street and ask every passer by whether they feel the U.K. is “draconian” or not. You’ll be shocked to discover that almost nobody cares about anything that doesn’t directly impact their day to day life. Look at the rise of Reform, Farage’s embrace of trumpism. That’s authoritarianism, and the people love it. You’re completely out of touch with the common person if you think any of this matters.
You can take a principled stance, you can have strong views, you can believe in freedom, I’m with you, but it’s patently absurd to suggest that any of what you believe is representative of the people. The people, in the U.K. and beyond, simply do not have a single solitary regard for any of this. Porn bad so porn ban good. That’s the entire thought process.
Could more than 5% of the U.K. voting public even define “draconian”? or “authoritarian”?
> You are simply over indexing for your own circle. Your circle (by virtue of being a nerd) is deeply biased towards people heavily influenced by U.S. attitudes towards freedom. I’m an internet nerd too, I know how easy it is to get caught up in this idea that what you see online is representative of the people, but it isn’t.
False. Most of the people I engage with in real life are not nerds. You keep on stating things that you know nothing about as truisms. How about instead of trying to gaslight people about what is real and what isn't, you actually engage in the points being made by your interlocutor?
> Go out and talk to real people. Go and stand in the street and ask every passer by whether they feel the U.K. is “draconian” or not.
I would imagine if someone thought about it, I would get a statement something about all the cameras everywhere or how buying some with a bank transfer is difficult (if you buy something cash like a vehicle it sets off anti-fraud detection in your bank and transactions can be blocked).
They won't talk about it in terms you are familiar with. They will point to stuff like cameras, unfair charges etc and how difficult some of this makes their lives.
All of this normal people have experienced.
> You’ll be shocked to discover that almost nobody cares about anything that doesn’t directly impact their day to day life. Look at the rise of Reform, Farage’s embrace of trumpism. That’s authoritarianism, and the people love it. You’re completely out of touch with the common person if you think any of this matters.
You mentioned all of those. I didn't mention them. You are projecting onto me what your experience is. The irony here is astounding.
Shrug. I’m not sure what else to say. I’ve shown you that polling shows the majority support age verification. I have asked you to provide evidence of mainstream objection to this law, which you are unable to provide. You have asserted that polling is wrong because you know people who disagree.
You may not like it and I may not like it but the view of the U.K. voting public is that age verification to look at porn is reasonable and that “protecting” children justifies limiting freedoms.
My exercise for you: decide what evidence is needed to convince you that most British people are happy with this law.
> Shrug. I’m not sure what else to say. I’ve shown you that polling shows the majority support age verification. I have asked you to provide evidence of mainstream objection to this law, which you are unable to provide. You have asserted that polling is wrong because you know people who disagree.
You said it "wasn't part of the conversation" originally. Not what the majority agreed with. You've subtly tried to change what the discussion was about. That is known as moving the goalposts:
Then you asked me to provide evidence of something I can't possibly provide. That quite frankly bullshit.
> You may not like it and I may not like it but the view of the U.K. voting public is that age verification to look at porn is reasonable and that “protecting” children justifies limiting freedoms.
I don't doubt that the majority are OK with it. I am taking issue with the fact that you are pretending only libertarian nerds online care about this. I know that isn't true.
> My exercise for you: decide what evidence is needed to convince you that most British people are happy with this law.
Don't talk to me like a child.
I don't have you provide you with anything. You made the claim that only a few people care about this. When even your own evidence disputes. 20% of a large group of people is still a lot. That isn't "nobody cares" like you pretend is the case.
“The conversation” is well understood to mean “the things being talked about in the mainstream”. 80% in favour of a law is so overwhelmingly positive that it is rarely seen. My initial comment, a lifetime ago, was in the context of someone asking why the U.K. is unique when it comes to these laws. I said the U.K. is not and that most people support them. I’ve showed surveying that backs that up. The absence of any mainstream articles about this should be evidence enough it isn’t part of the conversation. Maybe that’ll change in future, but at least for now, nobody cares. Maybe you’re right and there’s a conspiracy amongst the mainstream to suppress the real views of the people, we will see.
(I don’t want to talk to you like a child, but a little lesson: mainstream news is mostly a cynical cash grab by harnessing outrage. Mainstream news loves things that outrage people. If there was any real outrage about this law, it would be harnessed by the dailymail and the Sun and Reach PLC to make money hand over fist. They would milk it so hard they would have to implement age verification.)
> “The conversation” is well understood to mean “the things being talked about in the mainstream”. 80% in favour of a law is so overwhelmingly positive that it is rarely seen. My initial comment, a lifetime ago, was in the context of someone asking why the U.K. is unique when it comes to these laws. I said the U.K. is not and that most people support them.
No it is not. I've asked other politicos I know and they didn't know what you were talking about. I ended up asking the perplexity. Which disagrees with your definition and says that social media and in person is also important.
You cannot judge public sentiment accurately from mainstream media or polling. Mainstream media typically act as stenographers for either the state, their corporate masters or both. Polling has a multitude of issues that are well known.
> I’ve showed surveying that backs that up. The absence of any mainstream articles about this should be evidence enough it isn’t part of the conversation. Maybe that’ll change in future, but at least for now, nobody cares. Maybe you’re right and there’s a conspiracy amongst the mainstream to suppress the real views of the people, we will see.
I've told you why I don't believe them to be convincing. "The conversation" isn't happening on mainstream media. It is happening on social media, in person, on YouTube etc.
You re-iterating the same tired old talking points and showing me a YouGov poll (which are known to be BS) and saying you are right isn't evidence.
BTW. A lot of these polls aren't there to find out what the public actually thinks. They are there to manufacturer consent by making it look like it is supported by the majority.
> I don’t want to talk to you like a child, but a little lesson: mainstream news is mostly a cynical cash grab by harnessing outrage. Mainstream news loves things that outrage people.
You are literally still talking down to me in a condescending manner. Do you think I don't know that msm doesn't engage outrage?
BTW, you are presenting this like this is a revelation. When in fact it is a trite observation about how the media operates.
There are actually much more interesting ones if you look at how sometimes the exact same headlines are pushed by newspapers that are supposed to be opposing one another.
Earlier on in my career, I used to integrate news feeds for news sites (sports news, but still news). Most of the news you see is literally bought from several source providers and copy-righter/editors (or AI now) literally rewrite the article in the style of the site. That is why many news sites literally just repeat the same thing and then put their own spin on it based on their audience.
God forbid we start talking about subjects like how the media manufacturers consent, how the British State (MI6) has engaged in psyops against it own citizens.
I really suggest you spend some time reading some books about these subjects because you are way out of your depth.
> If there was any real outrage about this law, it would be harnessed by the dailymail and the Sun and Reach PLC to make money hand over fist. They would milk it so hard they would have to implement age verification.
Firstly, everyone who has two brain cells to rub together know that these are rags.
Secondly. Your argument is that if there was real outrage about this law it would be covered by outrage mongers. Why would they need to create outrage if there was already real outrage? Doesn't make any sense.
Thirdly. There has been coverage by MSM. I was visiting my parents house at the weekend, and as I walked into the living room, ITV news had two so-called experts talking about the issue. So somehow I stumbled on the mainstream coverage by accident (I don't ever watch TV these days), but you can't find it! Strange that.
> From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
You're commenting on a story about VPN use surging in the country after the law came into effect. Clearly folks noticed.
>to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense.
From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
This is a very dangerous measure of how worryingly authoritarian or not a particular place is becoming. People's perceptions are notoriously subject to all kinds of blindness and unknowns. The perceptions of most average Germans living in the first years of the Nazi state were also of minimal concern for authoritarianism, and little more than a series of modest blimps on the radar, and where did that take them?
This is not to compare the underlying savagery of something like the Nazi state with the soft bureaucratic smarminess of the modern UK, but the underlying risks of any creeping authoritarianism are the same: a steady normalization of deviance.
>The U.K. is pretty middle of the road as far as “surveillance”
Just, no.
5-eyes is the most heinous human-rights-destroying apparatus under the sun, and it wouldn't be happening if it weren't for the British desire to undermine cultures they have deemed inferior.
It wouldn't be oppressive at massive scale, violating the human rights of billions of people, if the UK hadn't roped its lackeys into its co-criminal behaviour ..
> The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
When it comes to pedos in specific, the UK got absolutely shaken by the scandals of the last few years - Jimmy Savile, Epstein being involved right into the Royal Family, just to state the obvious ones.
As for terrorism, the problem dates back a bit deeper, the UK has had the IRA conflict for decades, and to this day the conflict isn't resolved, the only thing that did happen was the IRA got formally disbanded in 2005.
Regulating porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol has nothing to do with authoritarianism or a lack of freedom. It's about protecting people, just like we already do with seatbelts, speed limits, and food safety.
Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find workarounds. They can ask an older friend to buy it for them, just like they can use a VPN to access porn.
The difference is, regulation shifts accountability. It moves the responsibility from a greedy, insensitive business owner to the kids. And at least with the kids we can guide them, and help them spend their time and money where it actually matters.
Note: I know people who love guns or porn are probably going to downvote this, but someone has to say it.
I'm not from the UK, but what you're saying comes across as a bit dismissive of the effort British people there have made to protect students and keep schools safe from violence. They've worked hard to introduce laws and regulations that actually make a difference. Maybe we should focus on things that matter, rather than getting caught up in Halloween costumes.
“It’s for your own good” is always a laughable argument.
The state doesn’t regulate these things to protect people, it does so to manage risk to itself. Porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are tolerated so long as they are contained, taxable, and politically useful.
Regulating porn is this system likely trying to move the needle on declining birth rates. You can look to a host of pro-natalist efforts in China as the likely inspiration.
And without a doubt, overreach by governments will continue.
Regulate porn to increase birth rates? How does that work? Less porn usually means less sexual activity overall, which would lower birth rates, not raise them. In China for example porn is banned, and their birth rates are still low.
Banning pornography alone hasn’t moved the needle on fertility in China. However, in places like Tianmen, where broader pro-natalist strategies were implemented, including porn bans, there’s evidence those multi-pronged efforts had measurable impact.
What’s less clear is the claim that pornography is inherently harmful to children’s development or wellbeing, the research is mixed at best. And the justification that age-gating websites and apps is purely about safety remains deeply unconvincing.
So then either this effort is misguided, a hollow gesture for optics, or a small piece of a broader agenda that hasn’t been made explicit. It just seems to me that this is creating a lot of chaos for a hollow gesture.
I get your point about the research being inconclusive, but the real question is whether child protection should be the default, or if we're okay with giving kids access to porn until we're sure it's harmful. That seems backwards to me.
I'm not sure I agree that the government makes businesses ask for ID because of some hidden agenda, beyond protecting minors and collecting taxes, which are both pretty standard.
That's the combined power of the worst tendencies of the media and a deliberate propaganda campaign.
Take this law: it's not new, it was passed in 2023 by the previous government. The law had a two year deadline attached to it, and companies didn't introduce any restriction before the deadline. The new government has a lot on its plate, so it's hardly surprising that repealing a law that was already passed with little attention to it was not high on the list of priorities compared to things like not defaulting or unblocking planning permissions. And yet, twitter and other places are full of very loud voices describing the law as new and designed to oppress them now, even though the deadline was set two years ago.
On a more general note, we have our problems, but the UK is in a pretty good place. Sam Freedman covered some bases in his recent post [1] (crime is down, the economy is struggling but improving, etc), but I'll add some more:
* We're probably the least racist, most integrated society in the world. The leader of the opposition is a black woman and first generation immigrant [2]. When Rishi Sunak became a PM, his race wasn't brought up once in any media, including very right wing; compare and contrast with all the bullshit about Obama and his birth certificate dog whistles.
* First time in years we're reducing the backlog of asylum applications. People applying for asylum can't work because they haven't proved their status yet, so naturally they need to be looked after. All the noise you hear is caused entirely by the conservative party defunding and then outright pausing application processing. This means that people looking for asylum had to live in limbo for years, which caused multiple problems. No backlog, no problems.
* We punch WAY above our weight in arts and theatre, and the industry is flourishing. Ever noticed how overrepresented British actors are in Hollywood?
* Compared to our main ally overseas, we have a very effective parliament. The executive is kept in check even with the very large majority Labour has now, and the Lords proved their worth during Brexit, putting brakes at the worst impulses of the previous government.
* We largely preserved our core military capabilities and alliances over the decade of austerity, slowly repairing, recovering, and expanding now. We're a major partner on nuclear programs, tier-1 partner on F-35, AUCUS is happening, we do a lot in Ukraine, and we're one of the only two nuclear countries in Europe and just signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France.
* We are helping people in Hong-Kong, Ukraine, and Afghanistan with targeted immigration programs.
* We're rolling back anti-nuclear nonsense, building two large NPPs, and deployed wind generation at a massive scale.
* A bunch of important reforms are going through the parliament [3], from enhancing renters right to a YIMBY reform.
But very little of that filters into online environments. The most unhinged, xenophobic, paranoid voices get amplified, creating the impression that you cited, even though it can't be further from truth.
Britain is a beautiful country, open to the world, with a globe-spanning network of alliances and relationships, and an incredibly resilient democracy. We should do SO MUCH MORE, yes! But it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate where we are now, too.
I have receipts for every point, just didn't want to post a wall of links.
It's not just emergent disconnection, there are many documented cases ([1][2][3] etc) of nation states trying to sow division and fear. The impression that you got is a good example of them succeeding.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society
I feel like this is 100% true of the US as well, the only difference is there are multiple factions (the blue EAs, the blue EAccs, the red pro-Trump, the red anti-Trump, the red EAccs, ...) scared and cynical of different things.
The Bourgeois love to divide the working class, typical divide and conquer. Indigenous worker vs imported worker, men vs women, queer vs straight, old vs young, car user vs bicycle rider. This is important because it weakens existing solidarities and prevent the emergence of class consciousness. It's part of their modus operandi and has been for centuries, only now they master it thanks to algorithms and machine learning. This increased surveillance also happens to be extremely useful at taming future strikes and protests, or rat out future pro-workers groups
This view (“the Bourgeois’, etc.) seems to imply there’s a group of very clever manipulators somewhere, overtly planning and executing this (presumably in a dark room with armchairs and cigars). But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example.
What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.
Elements of the UK media fulfil this role, continually advancing a corrosive narrative that the country is broken. E.g. frequently using the words ‘lawless’ or ‘tinderbox’ in any headline or op-ed title that also contains the word ‘Britain’
The closest I can imagine would be media owners - the Murdochs, the Barclays, etc. And of course, they can all be in bed with their own special interest groups, or particular friends. But they're also acting differently, mostly out of self-interest, and in totally different uncoordinated directions.
> This view (“the Bourgeois’, etc.) seems to imply there’s a group of very clever manipulators somewhere, overtly planning and executing this (presumably in a dark room with armchairs and cigars). But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example.
If you read any history about any daring military action during WW2, a lot of it was done by men thinking up of stuff in dark rooms while smoking cigars. Why is this so unbelievable now?
BTW, The UK ran the world's largest empire and until recently this was in living memory.
> What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.
Hanlon's razor IMO is nonsense. It is honestly believe it was invented so people could explain away their malice.
Anyone who is relatively intelligent will work at out some point, that if they don't want to do something they can passively aggressively work against the authority while working withing the rules. My father (who builds luxury yachts and is near retirement) was telling me how he maliciously complies with various companies rules to make his superior's life more difficult, this is a way to get back at them for their poor planning.
Even if you accept that Hanlon's razor is mostly true. It cannot be applied when you are dealing with political actors. Political actors, the media and anything related are literally trying to manipulate you. In fact it is a good rule that whatever they tell you that it is, assume the opposite and that is typically true.
Are you aware of the reason Epstein island existed? Do you know about the history of intelligence agencies influence on national governments? Transnational corporate lobbying? (All incompetence. I suppose.)
No dark rooms, armchairs or cigars are needed. Did you guys even read Wikileaks?
Yes indeed. But aren't these all discrete examples, rather than a centralised deliberate process of manipulation of the proletariat?
e.g. corporate lobbying clearly exists and operates, and may be nefarious, but is broadly directed towards the corporate entity's gain, rather than dividing and conquering the masses.
You are still not truly understanding Epstein Island, how is that NOT a centralised hub to subvert democratic processes to divide masses? (Not just the USA…)
Conspiracies are a very common part of business law, people just do not accept that it can happen in the political realm.
Okay, let's roll with the idea that Epstein was somehow involved with (or working for) a country or its intelligence service - which is the commonest conspiracy theory I've read.
So sure, that's probably blackmail and subversion (via kompromat on prominent politicians or business people) in favour of that country's interests, but again that's insolated and self-interested (i.e. in the interests of the particlar country in question). But it's not centralised 'divide and conquer the proletariat' in favour of the (ultra-)bourgeois, which was my original point.
I'm not saying that such things don't exist; I'm just arguing they're not as centralised and targeted at creating divides and unrest amongst the people as the original post suggests, as usually that's not a tactic that results in a beneficial outcome for the group involved. Epstein's putative handlers weren't going "nah, forget infiltrating the mil-tech sector in your country; what we're really interested in is a few headlines about immigration in the UK".
The goal is to create compliant leaders who will not rock the boat too much. These compromised leaders cannot provide their own input into policy decisions, bypassing democratic institutions (elections).
I don't understand how you don't see this as textbook conspiracy or centralised?
They are not a hivemind, after all they also suffer from intraclass conflict, as seen in the NATO-Russian war. But there are definitely interest groups, and we know since the mid 19th century that the class that controls the economy is also the class that shapes society as a whole. So no, it's not a conspiracy theory, it's sociology and marxism. After all, it's not crazy to think that the handful of capitalists who own the British press also defend their own interests through this same press.
>But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example.
No need to imagine it. Read the Wikileaks. Names are named. The class division is real, and it is fomented by those who seek to profit from the subterfuge - and they DO profit, at massive scale.
We have a history of trying banning bad stuff. Magna Carta in the 1200s against the right of kings, slavery abolition in the 1800s, now porn being pushed to kids.
I don't think child grooming or hate is particularly bad here but we tend to try to stop that kind of thing. We also had the first modern police force in 1829 and other innovations which have caught on in some other countries.
Some of the US alt right media pushes broken Britain stories because we have some muslim immigrants or something. The majority of the public support the bill https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-poll-finds-7-in-10-ad... I wonder if it's more the US is afraid of the their government that if they say they are promoting online saftey they are really going 1984 on the populace? Here people tend to assume they are in fact promoting what it says on the tin.
It's more the protect kids from sites 'that carry pornography as well as other “harmful” material that relates to self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.'
I guess other counties are like screw the kids, I'm terrified of being IDd in case my government does bad things?
The new online safety rules are already being used to shut down government criticism. How it works is their new elite protection squad, if someone is deigned an influential critic of government policy, trawls through your social media posts until they find something against the laws. A lot of government critique is coming from the working class here now, who have virtually no political representation in the UK. As you can imagine, some of these social media posters don't mince their words, and end up getting caught out and arrested.
Having lived in one and visited the other many times over, I can assure you that they are pretty similar in what makes them unsafe for certain groups of people.
Yup, nice town, friendly people. Bit run down and scruffy, but that’s hardly the fault of the people who live there, rather the economic policies of several decades that destroyed the region’s industry and has failed to encourage growth for a replacement - similar to the USA’s rust belt or similar post-industrial regions in Europe.
There are discussions in parliament about grooming gangs on X. These are soft-censored (you can't see it without passing the the age verification). Few people will be bothered to make an account to see a post and pass age verification. Therefore it slows the sharing of information.
It isn't about outright banning the discussion, because that will cause considerable push-back by the public. So you dress up a policy as doing one thing knowing that the effect will be another. I don't take anything the British State says at face value. If you do, you are simply being naive.
But we are only in the first week of the bill passing. After say 6 months or a year, most people who want to see things on those platforms will have done the age verification, and therefore there will be no "soft censoring" or slow down of information.
This seems like a non issues isolated to the initial period of being introduced.
They're not really being arrested for criticising a law though.
They're arrested for supporting a group that's been banned for causing around £30 million's worth of damage to our national defences at a time of hightened national security.
There's the implication that Palastinian Action are going to continue attacking us.
If they just stuck to protesting they would have been fine.
And at the same time, while people burning down hotels have been arrested, other people who have been egging them on and causing "stochastic terrorism" have been left alone.
What gets classed as "support for" and "terrorism" is not evenly enforced.
I think this is an inaccurate description of what has been happening: people have criticised the government heavily for being extremely harsh on people "just making tweets". A woman was sentenced to nearly three years in jail for posting a message online that said "set fire to the hotels for all I care" (paraphrased).
These riots are spontaneous and "organised" via people getting riled up online. There isn't a central organisation that people see as leading these anti-migrant riots/attacks. They seem to be an emergent property of the protests. If there is a named group organising criminal action and it includes things that threaten/damage national security then that group should be banned.
Palestine Action was conducting organised criminal raids with the specific intent to cause damage to anything it felt was Israeli, Israel related, or somehow benefited Israel. A lot of the time the link was tenuous at best. They also attacked national security assets. Honestly this group's actions has done more harm than good for the Palestinian cause.
Whenever one of these stories come up, we find there is a side missing. In this case, it's a school, so for safeguarding reasons they're not going to say anything at all about the children. Quite often "arrested for saying X" turns out to be "arrested for a lengthy campaign of targeted harrasment, culminating in X"
Until you really restrict the net, it's just a matter of building new software that can't be the target of those laws by design. If you restrict the net, there's no inter-net.
Especially since different countries/cultures have very different sentiments on most topics. For example Western Europe and the US mostly agree that minors should be protected against alcohol, drugs, pornography and excessive violence, but the thresholds are wildly different.
Europeans like to joke about the Americans being fine with gratouitious violence in kids movies as long as there's no blood, but a single female nipple immediately makes it R rated. Now consider that even France and England have different nuances on what is considered acceptable. If you extend beyond Western culture it becomes even more diverse. In some of the more religious Muslim countries a women shaking her full head of hair might be seen as erotic content. A lot of Japanese anime skirts very close to sexualizing children (from a Western perspective).
If every country became serious about enforcing age verification for their value system you could post barely any image or video content without marking it as age restricted for some jurisdiction. And the lines wouldn't neatly follow communities but you really would need a judgement for each piece of content. That's obviously not going to happen, so you will always have people from one place visiting communities in places that are more lax on one specific measure they are interested in.
And that's assuming all software and platform operators want to follow the restrictions, despite the obvious profit motive of not doing so. Restricting the supply isn't completely useless, but also provides huge incentives for those able to meet demand
> I daydream about some kind of overlay network, without censorship and surveillance, where only people 'in the know' participate.
These have been getting build for years now, and the rate is increasing. The open, public web is on its last legs and is being replaced by a multitude of private networks.
I liked the series, but that part seemed like they jumped on some kind of blockchain bandwagon and jumped the shark.
It's a shame, the previous seasons were kind of timeless, but it feels like they jumped onto a buzzword that backfired before it was well understood. Although I may have dropped it early and it would have backfired on them after their cryptochain is used by criminals or whatever, but IIRC it was very early Bitcoin era and the themes were something like a 51% attack by china, it was way too early to make a comment on Blockchain, they were able to do good satire on the dot com era precisely because it was already dead.
Phishing for material for sextortion has never been more trivial. The implementation of this is going to lead to mass fraud. Walk into parliament, ask who is willing to go to jail in defense of the act if and when the first lot of randy pensioners are bankrupted, or kid commits suicide out of shame - and if no one raises their hand, repeal it.
The idea that you should verify your legal identity to load a website is reprehensible and not something that should be treated seriously. It should be ridiculed like the authoritarian nonsense it is.
Yes, in a perfect world the downsides are limited. But in the world we live in I predict a lot more leaks similar to the Tea app hack (which contained a lot of passports, linked to some quite private data from chats like medical documents)
The biggest hope I see is that the EU also wants to implement age restrictions, but with a lot more effort to get it right and make it compatible with a strong desire for privacy. Maybe that will make "proper" implementations easy and common enough that many of the downsides will be mitigated
It seems to me that your argument is: if the system can make mistakes, it should not exist.
However, no systems are fault free. Whether we are talking about computing systems, mechanical systems, or societal ones.
Sometimes police can arrest an innocent person before they realize the mistake and release them.
Should we stop policing completely? Or maybe the right question to ask is “how do we minimize the chance for police to make mistakes?”. Note, these are two separate issues:
1. Do we need the police at all?
2. How do we make police to not arrest innocent people all the time?
You are ascribing thoughts to me (and root comment) that I have not expressed. I recommend that you reread the thread and separate what is being explicitly said, and what you believe is implicitly said.
Then reread it with only the explicit meanings in my and root comment: we are talking about the consequences of the law without making any comment on the morals, probably because we are network admins that see this news as input and we are not lawmakers that see it as output.
I hope that by rereading the comments in this light, communication might be improved.
This is absolutely going to lead to the black mail of people in both the private and public sector. Ruling parties are going to have access to this information and will use it to force votes. Intelligence agencies will do the same. On top of that its only a matter of time before you get a Tea app style leak where this data was simply not secured. Forcing people to identify themselves before engaging in their sexual peculiarities is a recipe for disaster and the rationale behind it is weak at best. Its about control, nothing else.
Note: Forgot to add, this is going to give some low level data or software engineer access to all of your darkest secrets and what is to stop them from using that to blackmail you? Some guy is going to ring up their local millionaire and say "I see you are into X, give me a 100k or everyone else will know as well" There is no end to how bad of an idea this is.
plus once they have your id, what is to stop them from just using it for themselves whenever they want to join a site? It allows them to access all manner of heinous things using your name and likeness. If a crime occurs how much money is it going to cost to clear your name if you are even able to?
What message does it send when your government tries to impose costs on your preferred behavior while at the same time being unable to do it when you download a single app?
The words that come to mind are malicious and incompetent. The only 'achievement' is to increase contempt towards the government. And the times aren't exactly stable to begin with.
This is one of the times where law is outrunning technology. Apple and Google are both working on anonymous attestation but they're pulling the trigger before it's ready.
But that's not what laws like these are about. In the US at least these laws are driven by Christian Nationalists are setting up a situation where PII of porn users is able to be leaked. That's what they're counting on. They also want to have political control of platforms by continually holding a Sword of Damocles above any publisher's head.
>"Nigel Farage ‘on the side of predators’ with Online Safety Act criticism, says Labour"
Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist?
The end goal here is digital ID and censorship. Compare this to the perennial efforts for encryption backdoors. If there is a characterization that accurately encompasses this, it is the illiberal, statist, authoritarian impulse. Sure, they used a sex-panic to advance their agenda. However, this is merely symptomatic of the larger illiberal trend towards authoritarianism and the expansion of the state.
I guess I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that Americans who want age verification laws have some entirely different motivation than people in other countries who want age verification laws.
I'm more interested in the motives of those who would utilize the fear of pron or other taboos to advance this agenda. The coalitions reacting with fear are less interesting.
I'd really like to reconcile the different views expressed by this fascinating chain of comments.
First we hear that the people behind the push for online identity verification are Christian nationalists. Then, after being informed that the British Labour party is also pushing for the same measure, we hear that the common denominator between those factions is their crypto-fascism.
To call the Labour party fascist, you must be some sort of extreme Thatcherite. To call Christian nationalist fascists is somehow even less defensible, as fascism is strongly collectivist[1] and the American political Christian extremely individualistic.
This entire discussion points to a horrific crisis in civics education, which I believe can explain the increasingly authoritarian policies of modern western governments far better than some crypto-fascist plot.
[1] "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the
importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as
his interests coincide with those of the State", The doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini
American Christians are extremely individualistic... As long as your individual interests coincide with their rigid moral code and what they see as a "good Christian lifestyle". Seems right to me
Christian Nationalists are extremists, nationalistic, and xenophobic. They have a strong desire to force other's to conform to their world view, including the use of force, mis/dis information, and bribery. They work by an in-group which their laws protect and any evil inside is excused, and an out-group which must be converted or destroyed and any evil those people commit is proof of such. They are individuals so long as they conform to the tenets of their religion, They vote as a single block.
So... national socialists and National Christians have a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram... to deny or miss those parallels seems disingenuous or ill informed.
I'm not informed of the British political landscape, so I can't speak to that.
And no, not every Christian is a NACHRIST, and it also isn't a coincidence that NAZI's co-oped and used Christianity opportunistically when it suited them.
None of the things you describe are remotely fascist. Winston Churchill was a fairly nationalistic and xenophobic person who was often in the extremes of the British political system. A strong desire to make others conform to your worldview and voting as a block is near universal among political movements.
And it's near universal because fascism is the major exception as it really doesn't desire any conformity from the designated inferior. That's what distinguishes the policies of NSDAP from prior cases of anti-Jewish oppression - the Nazi party wasn't interested in conversions at all.
As such, you really shouldn't call anyone ill informed on political topics.
It doesn’t have to be the case that everyone who supports age verification has the same reasons.
In the US however, this campaign came from the same think tanks and strategists associated with Project 2025 (taking cues from folks like Enough Is Enough), who are pretty upfront with their Christian Nationalist views. In Project 2025 they include a bizarre connection of porn with transgenderism that tips their hand on the religious bent to all this, but elsewhere in the plan outright state their Christian Nationalist ideals.
I mean, I think you probably have a range of motivations. In the UK, a lot of it will be control-freak-ery, always fairly popular across the political spectrum there. In the US, some part of it will be the lunatic-fringe Christians (a group who don't _really_ exist in meaningful force in most developed countries, but who are quite politically powerful in the US).
It can be both. Some Americans can want it because of Christian/moral-panic reasons (there is a stated goal of making porn illegal here by some conservatives), and some can want it for authoritarian purposes.
I expect the make-porn-illegal crusade is more common in the US than elsewhere.
The motivation is the same, power and control, but you need to run a slightly different playbook in different countries. In US, Republicans have been having Christianity as a front for decades.
Interestingly while it'd be daft to call them Christian Nationalist the Labour Party does owe a lot of its early philosophy to various religious groups descended from the English Dissenters. This is also true for many groups that'd fall under the Christian Nationalist label in the US, even though their politics are very different.
Of course this just shows the English Dissenters ended up being quite influential on both the left and right over the course of Anglophone history.
Strictly speaking the law was passed under the conservatives, albeit in collaboration with Labour (it's bi-partisan). But I would agree that the drive is more authoritarian and it just uses moralistic arguments to shame people into siding with it.
The law could mandate that retail device OSs ship with a turnkey child safe mode complete with app and extensive site whitelists and run an educational campaign on the subject. But instead they've gone the needlessly invasive route which is telling about the true motives.
The law was passed in 2023 by the tories, and Ofcom has concluded what the tories asked them to do -- write the statutory instruments that implement the law.
The Labour government would have to repeal the law (really unlikely; governments don't usually rip down their predecessors' laws because if they did no progress would occur) or set the statutory instruments aside.
I think the "true motives" are what the law says. I don't think they will ban VPNs (which would support an alternative reading of motive).
I also, again, encourage US readers to understand that your own supreme court has rubber-stamped a law that requires US porn firms to do all this and more for the benefit of Texas, and there are 24 more state laws that have similar impacts.
Pretending this is just something crazy we Brits are doing out there on our own is disingenuous at best and often hypocritical and whiny at worst.
The problem to me is this thing is full of holes. It basically just sets up ID checks but it can only do that on accountable websites who self select to do so. It can't stop people sharing extreme content on WhatsApp groups for example which are one of the modes of communication increasing in popularity the fastest.
As it happens I am from the UK and have no particular love for the way the US handles things either. In fact one of my biggest problems is that it encourages us to send extra PII to some of the most odiously associated US companies out there.
But in general I don't think doggedly pursuing this route where children get access to the full internet sans some self-selecting sites with ID checks is the way to go. There's too much out there which is outside the realms of accountability. If everyone installs VPNs (which appears to be what's going on, especially given that far more than just pornography is being blocked this way) then guess what happens when the child borrows the shared family device?
People want a magical solution which exonerates caregivers from having to worry about this and shifts the burden elsewhere but unfortunately one doesn't exist and the online safety act certainly isn't it. Education and turnkey child proofing of devices are the only thing that will really help.
> Education and turnkey child proofing of devices are the only thing that will really help.
Strongly agree. It kills me that nobody is seriously discussing robust, industry-standard childproofing.
Even if you require a driver's license, how hard is it really to swipe your mom's ID from her purse and write down the serial number? There is no solution to this problem that doesn't require parents to actually parent their children a bit and lock down their devices.
I don’t support this legislation, but I think your argument is weak because everything relating to age checks is full of holes in all kinds of contexts. People under 18 can obtain alcohol and cigarettes without extraordinary difficulty, for example. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the laws requiring age checks for these items should be repealed.
I think this sounds similar on the surface but the nature of the distribution of physical goods and digital media are so different that the premise doesn't actually hold up. Age verification has a meaningful impact in the physical world because supply of goods is limited by physical process and marginal costs of supply/production. Reproduction and sharing of digital media, especially illicit digital media, is essentially free and limitless, and can be done by anyone and even be done anonymously or pseudonymously. You can't just link hundreds of people to a single unregulated bottle of beer you found out about but you can do that to a site hosting some adult content. The dynamics are totally different.
To an extent, but people can’t have this both ways. If the checks really are trivial to get around then why complain about them? In reality we know that most people are lazy and have poor technical skills, so it’s rather likely that this will substantially reduce the amount of porn that under 18s are accessing.
I think this is wishful thinking. Using a VPN is very much so within the capability of normal mobile users today and many people are aware of them (wide advertising on social media, news articles, discussions, etc.). It's not harder than installing e.g. WhatsApp or TikTok. Couple that with the Streisand effect and just normal teenage rebellion behaviour and honestly it could lead to an increase.
It’s not “wishful thinking” because I don’t have any reason to care particularly whether less porn gets watched or not. I don’t wish for it. I just think you’d be surprised at how much small inconveniences will affect the behavior of average people.
Another factor is that a lot of sites won’t work well with a VPN these days. So you really need to keep switching back and forth, which is a pain (especially on mobile).
Preventing children from accessing porn has broad public support (as we might hope). That is very different to saying the OSA has broad public support though.
The YouGov survey results that have been much discussed in the past week came from three questions - one about age restrictions for porn, one about whether the new measures would be effective, and one about whether the person had heard of the new measures before the survey. The answers were essentially that the majority hadn't heard of the measures, almost everyone supported preventing kids from accessing porn, but the majority didn't think these measures would be effective in achieving that. Probably none of those results is very surprising for HN readers.
What is notably missing from the debate so far is any evidence about whether the public support the (probably) unintended consequences of the actual implementation of the OSA - which are what almost all of the criticism I am seeing is about. As with any political survey the answers probably depend very much on how you ask the questions and it's easy to get people to say they support "good" measures if you gloss over all the "bad" parts that necessarily go along with them.
Requiring device side child safe modes would be far further reaching and likely mean your cannot run your own software anymore. Requiring providers of adult content to check id is much more limited in scope.
Not if it is enabled by the buyer, which I took to be the point.
Mobile phone subscriptions in the UK go the other way: By default they filter some content. If you tell the phone company to turn it off, they do. It's less invasive than this law because you don't need to tell them why you want it turned off, but still more draconian than if we could turn on a child safe mode that e.g. then required a pin or something to disable.
The requirement that such functionality be available is likely to preclude FOSS. e.g. in the US, California has a bill[0] that would require anyone distributing software to ensure it hooks into an age verification API in the operating system, and requires device manufacturers to provide such an API, which appears to me to say computer manufacturers can't let you install Linux and developers of any software including FOSS must do these checks.
I can't imagine that it would pass as-is since on its face it seems to apply to all computers and all software including things like nginx or nftables that the entire modern economy relies on, but who knows?
It's possibly some badly written requirements would, but there's zero reason why it'd need to preclude FOSS if such restrictions are written to be under the buyers control presuming they demonstrate age, as all they require is a way to restrict reinstalls and replacements of whatever software produces sufficient controls without an unlock code.
It doesn't need e.g. code signing or anything else of the sort.
To be clear, I think all of this is a massive overreach - my point is only that you can achieve the claimed aim with far less invasive means.
That, if anything, makes the chosen idiocy even more troubling to me, as either they're incompetent, don't care at all about the implications, or there are unstated aims.
This is 1000000% where we are going between Google moving away from AOSP and Samsung removing the ability to unlock bootloaders altogether.
There is a conspiracy and it's being rolled out. There was already some country that declared anyone running non-standard OSes on their phones are highly suspect.
> Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist?
Honestly? Yeah, pretty much. It's a little hard to think of them that way since they're the leftmost establishment party in the UK, the same as the Democrats in the US, but historically speaking they're pretty right-wing. And theocracy has pretty deep roots in Anglosphere politics, so it's not necessarily that visible from the inside.
Americans don't understand that the liberal democrats are the "anti-authoritarian" party of the UK and would be who most American mainstream democrats would vote for in practice.
Labor during the Corbyn years made Bernie Sanders look like a fascist and the current labor is back to being milquetoast and embracing its social authoritarian roots.
Similarly, Americans cannot understand that the Canadians have an "NDP" and "Liberal" and they don't understand their differences - though these days I don't think the NDP knows their differences either!!!
Worth noting that this bill was introduced in 2021 and passed in 2023 under the previous Conservative governments, all of which were fairly libertarian/anti-state at least in their rhetorical positioning.
I mean arguably, Labour could have repealed it or could have decided to disown it and discourage implementation, but the terrible design of the legislation is pretty much entirely the responsibility of the last government.
All of our platforms are inundated by an overwhelming amount of well crafted, targeted (specific per person) campaigns of disinformation by foreign actors.
China, Russia, Iran, and others cannot even remotely hope to stand against the West. Yet if you cannot stand against your adversary, you must weaken them.
You promote infighting. You take minor issues which can be cooperatively resolved with compromise, and seek to turn them into issues of great division. You spread falsehoods, creating useful idiots in great numbers.
You find the most radicalized, most loony of citizens that you can, and then secretly fund them.
Understand, any concept of "we do that to ourselves" is like a gnat in comparison. This is a real threat, it's been getting worse, and the common person is not capable of even understanding the concept. The common person, even when told repeatedly, thinks there is no downside to having their Pii stolen, or hacked. They simply read click bait titles, youtube or tiktok videos and 100% believe every word without any skepticism.
You may disagree with any or all of the above.
However! The above is what is actually behind the move for KYC to this extent. It's not about age verification, it's about identity. And it's not even about one westerner talking to another, it's about a foreign adversary seeking to pretend to be a domestic.
Of course, this is all rife for abuse. Of course, there are immense downsides. Yet the downsides of leaving an endless stream of propaganda, disinformation spewed at everyone including our youth, unchecked, is far far greater.
And I say this as someone that has fought for an open internet. It's already dead. It's dead because foreign interests use it as a tool to destroy our societies. It's dead because soon AI will replace most generated information.
Age verification laws are really identity laws, and any work to provide anonymous verification will fail, sadly, unfortunately, because the perceived threat is so large.
(I do not even necessarily agree with this, but if we don't understand the logic and the why of this, of why it is happening, then we're complaining about the wrong thing...)
Even in that context, I believe you could provide semi-anonymous verification. You just need a weaker encryption of sorts. One you can crack in a month instead of never ever. Then have that shit rotate, and the government can invest money to find that one identity posting BS all day with multiple bots until it rotates/regenerates, but they can't keep track of everyone.
It's far simpler. All you need is KYC to generate anon tokens, and then make it illegal to store any linking information and illegal to use any such information in court.*
The issue is no one in government would buy into this. You'd prevent them from catching bozo criminals who can't use a VPN.
*For example, you get up to N anon tokens a day you can use for anoning online. Only a count is stored daily to limit generations.
At the time she was the Neocon Presidential candidate.
I've always found it difficult to believe that voters are capable of critically consuming information and voting for wars, regulations or confiscatory taxes, and simultaneously are incapable of thinking critically about propaganda. Under this model, the fact that some deceptive sources may be foreign is largely a red herring. The entire premise of Democracy rests upon the presumption that voters are capable of making informed decisions in an adversarial information landscape.
I don't see the desire to control Internet speech as a novel phenomenon. The rationalizations have evolved over the years. The proliferation of AI, Russian sponsored podcasters and Wumaos are iterations of an appeal to special circumstances.
If the West truly believes that authoritarians like the CCP are immoral and should be opposed, it stands to reason that they shouldn't be seeking to emulate the CCP's methods. That's the surface level, ideologically consistent view.
Beneath that, there is a rabbit hole of fringe theory. Like the above poster, I provide this information to better explain possible motives, without endorsement. In the conspiracy sphere, the PRC is regarded as a trial lab for social engineering schemes. The allegation is that concepts are ironed out there first. Examples would include: social credit scores, digital ID, Internet censorship and the confluence of all three. Whether these theories are true or false, it wouldn't be unreasonable to be wary of these outcomes.
The opposition in the West does not come from foreign propaganda but from sky-high house prices, sky-high education and health insurance costs and dropping living standards.
All of which is the fault of the establishment parties and not of foreign actors.
Even Trump now continues or, in the Middle East, exceeds the existing long term neocon policies. So the foreign online propaganda, which does exist, is completely overrated.
I mean, yes and. I'm sure that social media of all stripes is rife with funded propaganda. It's been proven several times. It helps them tremendously that to tear the United States and other western powers to shreds, all you have to do is point at the facts on the ground. Our governments are completely in the pocket of corporations and barely if at all represent any actual people's will, the only people's will they express interest in being directly traceable to various hate campaigns they themselves concoct (fucking with transpeople, fucking with sex workers, etc.) while the rest of the country has the copper pried out of the walls by these low-rent grifters.
I don't need China to tell me via Tiktok that my life is getting demonstrably worse. I know that. The fact that China gets to tell me and be completely honest whilst doing so isn't something they've "engineered," they're just pointing at reality.
> Of course, this is all rife for abuse. Of course, there are immense downsides. Yet the downsides of leaving an endless stream of propaganda, disinformation spewed at everyone including our youth, unchecked, is far far greater.
Or we could, you know, trust people to exercise their critical faculties without the intervention of overbearing Civil Servants, Cabinet Office officials or the guiding hand of the BBC. Radical idea, I know.
Ah right, yeah, because the Guardian-reading, PPE-educated, civil service "concerns have been raised" class that we trust to govern in our enlightened best interests have been doing such a fantastic job of things. My mistake.
Mass alienation didn’t begin in a troll farm in St. Petersburg, it began in think tanks, boardrooms, and editorial meetings that decided ordinary people were an obstacle to be nudged, not a public to be served.
This is a tangential argument. I want neither foreign nor domestic propaganda infesting our information streams. We seem to agree that people as a group are quite prone to systemic influence, and the fact that US corporations do it does not mean that we should allow everyone else to do it too!
Largely, you've got it already - but a lot of the propaganda (and by far the most influential form of it in Britain) is aimed at propping up the mores and power structures of the prevailing establishment.
The propaganda in Britain isn’t loud or foreign (largely). It’s quiet, domestic, and politely credentialed. It's Otto English, it's James O Brien, it's the BBC. It doesn’t scream at you, it nudges, omits, and reframes until systemic rot looks like unfortunate happenstance.
The message from the BBC and the like is overwhelmingly don't think too hard about why things are the way they are, don't ever question the root causes, and if someone from the credentialed classes says something, they're probably right about it.
It's why the article is never "Wait why have your living standards fallen through the floor?" or "Is lockdown actually working?" but "Here's how to make a meal for £1" or "How to make a really good sourdough loaf".
By setting up a world where people can only access "pre approved" bits of information, you're not lessening access to propaganda, you're just picking winners.
I agree with much (if not necessarily all) of what you said, esp about foreign actors and adversarial propaganda and disinfo (APD.)
I worked on the latter problem space precisely for the US State Department. Its challenging, esp at scale, and esp if the folks trying to fight back are not given a free enough of a hand to do whats needed.
This is not pushed by Christian Nationalists in the same manner that the Steam bans were not pushed by Collective Shout. They are just a good scapegoat. You find a group that preaches what you want to do, you do it, and then say that it was because of them, not because you wanted to do it. This way you can claim that you didn't want to do it, but do it anyways.
Not just porn and abortion, but the US is also targeting political speech now. The moral nuts are overlapping with the corporate and government interests such that the public loses.
Several examples: government employees are being vetted for loyalty instead of qualification; public corps like CBS are not only self censoring political speech but they also have a "bias monitor" to appease the government; normal people are being denied entry to the country for various wrongspeak on socials.
My understanding is that the way they do these attestations still links whatever account you did the attestation for and your real identity.
It's possible to do truly anonymous ZKP's of being a member of a set (eg. over 18s) but in practice it would be very cumbersome. It would involve having a setup with a central authority (government) to build a Merkle tree where users would submit hashes of randomness and then a user would generate a token through a ZKP that would decouple them from their real identity with the anonymity dependent on the set size. New participants can be brought in but the anonymity set sizes would fluctuate.
Even with this method it will link together all services utilizing the token. And if you attempt to solve this by allowing to generate multiple tokens the entire scheme becomes somewhat meaningless as durable bypass services would emerge.
Screw anonymous attestation. We don't need to be controlled at every frigging second by people who are time and time again proven to be corrupt and working for their own interests. *Oh, I just received this thousands in gifts but it doesn't affect my decisions".
The only thing to do is denounce every bit of bullshit and not try and "find a way to make it work". Just stand for freedom for once instead of bending the knee or pushing for authoritarianism like most people do with every invasion for oil, during covid, when there's an accusation of some -ism or whatever the next label is.
Agreed. This is our Prohibition Era for free speech and expression and privacy. We must act as bootleggers, creating and maintaining private spaces which strengthen communities, preserve autonomy and discovery while still protecting its users from harm or predation. I owe everything in my life to websites I wasn't allowed on as a kid.
The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare. The US should start a refugee program for UK citizens who understand what freedom actually means and want to live in a free country again.
It wouldn't be the first time: when the Parliamentarians gained control over England in the English Civil War, large number of Cavaliers fled to the American colonies.
Many in the UK find the US quite a frightening place right now. We will also welcome US refugees into the UK! Don't want to create a refugee-deficit after all ;)
> The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare. The US should start a refugee program for UK
Hilarious, you literally have a president shutting down free speech by getting a talkshow taken off the air so that the owning media company can pass its merger regulations; he’s also threatening to sue or actually suing other media organisations, universities, newspapers,... And on top of all that has built a private militia to grab people off the street and deport them.
All while major corporations have so much money and control over the government and its representatives that individuals have little to no say in how things are done.
And let’s not even start on the electoral system that encourages only the issues of a few states to ever be ‘heard’.
The whole country is indoctrinated to pledge allegiance to the flag and is taught that the constitution is of equivalent standing as the stone tablets brought down from Mount Sinai, leaving you all more vulnerable in a world where anybody can say anything and have it broadcast to billions of people at once. Or, you know, to being shot. You're indoctrinated to believe that the founding fathers were infallible geniuses, when they were just men, with opinions.
Often in these discussions we get quotes like:
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
That was said by a man, a regular man. He said a thing. It is entirely devoid of nuance, but you will all recite like it's the word of god. It's a form of self-oppression in its own right.
The vast majority of so-called oppressive laws introduced in the UK were well meaning, not done for power (like with your current president). The anti-hate speech laws were brought about because preachers were openly indoctrinating people who went on to commit atrocities like 7/7. I have never fallen fowl of those laws because I don't preach hate and foment violence. But to Ben Franklin that's the thin end of the wedge.
This latest law is for sure misguided, but it came from a desire to reduce online harm for children -- more opposition was needed when it was going through parliament. I get it, they messed up, it's bad law, but we also have a parliamentary system that functions, so it will almost certainly be refined over time.
The goals are right, the implementation is wrong, but that doesn't mean the UK is falling into authoritarianism. We're not trying to overturn elections, or you know, stop them altogether.
The idea that the US is some paragon of freedom and liberty is utter, utter nonsense. It’s more fucked than the UK will ever be.
Yeah, it objectively is better. Because if the government is trying to do good things and they mess up in the process, then good people can change it. But if the people are bad, then they're gonna do bad regardless. One is a functioning democracy, one is sliding into authoritarianism.
You wrote: "The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare." - it just isn't. For those of us who live here, nothing is really different. Not being able to access porn without a VPN is not the definition of "authoritarian nightmare".
The UK, for sure, has its problems. Some related to our democracy. But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
> Not being able to access porn without a VPN is not the definition of "authoritarian nightmare".
Linking your real identity to the ability to load text on a computer you own absolutely is. Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is. "Knife control" absolutely is.
> But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
Good god come on. I hope I remember to come back here after the next election and accept your apology.
> Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is.
This is a _bit_ of a myth; very few CCTVs in the UK are run by the government. It does have a very large number of CCTVs but they're generally privately owned and operated; they're largely a product of insurance company requirements.
As someone who lives in neither, the US seems considerably scarier at the moment, in general, and a lot further down the road to Hungary-style authoritarianism. The British government hasn't, as yet, made a serious effort to take over the media, say.
Assuming you live in the US, I sincerely recommend that you take all the energy you’re expending decrying the UK’s supposed slide into authoritarianism and see if you can find a way to use that energy to do something about masked thugs kidnapping US citizens, or stop scientific research being defunded for political reasons. How much time have you even spent in the UK? We have our problems for sure, but it’s baffling that anyone in the US at present would feel that they were in a position to lecture us on freem and moxy.
Also, as sibling says, you’re simply misinformed about CCTV. There is no centralized government-operated network of CCTV cameras. In fact, all figures you read about total numbers of CCTV cameras are basically just guesses, as there is no accurate way to track numbers of privately operated cameras.
>> Not being able to access porn without a VPN is not the definition of "authoritarian nightmare".
> Linking your real identity to the ability to load text on a computer you own absolutely is.
You're responding to something I didn't say.
> Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is.
That's not true either. You're just lying. There are police CCTV cameras in trouble areas, sure, but the idea that there are 50 pointing at you at any one time is a lie. Most CCTV cameras are privately owned and they can only be sequestered by the police with a warrant.
But just to be clear, you call that an "authoritarian nightmare". It's an exchange of some freedoms (privacy on a public street) for some safety (freedom from criminal assault/theft/etc.). Because we haven't been constitutionally indoctrinated we can see the nuance in that exchange. Some may think it's gone too far, others not far enough, most appreciate the drop in crime.
> "Knife control" absolutely is.
The last time I bought a knife the Amazon delivery driver just had to check my ID to make sure I was 18 or over. But again, because we haven't been indoctrinated to believe that the constitution was given from upon high, we understand that if kids or young adults are buying knifes to stab each other, then we'll do something about it.
How many school shootings have there been in the US this year? The fetishisation of guns and violence is literally insane. The rest of the world looks at the US and its lack of gun control as lunacy.
>> But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
> Good god come on. I hope I remember to come back here after the next election and accept your apology.
You first. You've already lied several times about the UK, so whenever you're ready.
This whole debate is utterly pointless. There's a clear divide between how the constitutionally indoctrinated American sees the world and those of us who live in countries without constitutions. Our system will always seem crazy to someone who only believes in one set of laws written down 200 odd years ago.
The difference with the UK to the US is that we have tended toward freedom for the past 1000 years. We are more comfortable with our system and institutions. It's certainly not perfect, but on the whole it doesn't oppress.
The 'First They Came' poem in the UK would go something like this:
* First they came for the Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers, and I did not speak out because I was not a Islamic fundamentalist suicide bomber.
* Then they came for the Nazis, and I did not speak out because I was not a Nazi.
* Then they came for my PornHub access, luckily I didn't need anyone to speak up because I had VPN access
* Then they came for me - and there were plenty of decent people to speak up for me, cos life in the UK ain't as bad as it's said to be on Hacker News.
I know lots of companies working on anonymous attestation, and have been myself interested in this for decades. I don't get why we would need any form of age verification for porn at all though, since the cost outweighs whatever little benefit exists given that it's so easy to work around. Online age verification is like the NFTs of internet law.
I don't particularly want to be required to have an Apple or Google device (and to accept their EULAs) to use social media either! If we're going to do age verification (and if we must, doing it in a privacy-preserving way would be best), can't we make it an open standard?
>This is one of the times where law is outrunning technology.
Not really. China's great firewall has been doing that a long time before these laws. It was only a matter of time till our leaders ask Big Tech "do for us what you did for China, except add a coat of paint over it so it doesn't look evil".
That’s plain idiotic. Have you ever met a kid? Good luck with that.
And even if it were somehow feasible to control internet access points 100% of the time, do you think most parents could figure it out? I have friends with teenage children, I assure you, most of them would be easily outsmarted by their kids with anything tech related, and they’re above average intelligence.
I’m not necessarily saying this is the correct solution anyway, I don’t know what is, I’m just saying we don’t need to make up dystopian conspiracy theories to explain the motivation of the people who want to do it.
Christian nationalists have properly been identified by James Lindsay and others as the "woke right." They deserve that title because they think, like the woke left, that their needs to be some vanguard with unlimited power to "fix" society, and that the constitution, separation of powers and objective justice and meritocracy need to be done away with. Of course as soon as they gain power, all the white christian people who supported them get sent to die in a stupid war in a trench somewhere. That's the big joke with communist/fascist revolutions. Their supporters all think they will have a special place in the government after the revolution, but most of them wind up dead in a trench(Hitler) or doing hard labor in primitive conditions in the countryside(Mao), or purged (Stalin).
There are a lot of comments and thinking along the demo and gloom lines.
On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something.
And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult).
With any luck parents might even be forced to gain the skill their kids already live and breathe and don't think twice about.
I used to be optimistic that way, but if you look somewhere similar developments happened before like China: yes, people adapted to circumvent their regime's oppression, but the laws never changed.
Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
But we did, I've been protesting against laws like this for 17 years now! Genuinely, they've always been trying to implement these laws, and simply relied on us missing the ship one time.
If COVID policies and mandates including the vaccine passports which absolutely paved the way for digital IDs for any action in society, didn't wake up populations around the world, nothing will.
You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that.
Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere.
Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.
Everyone with any ability to open their eyes migrated to the US from the UK ages ago. The civilization that exists today is what happens when people too scared to get on a boat live in the dregs of a dying empire.
Critical thinking is quite literally the most difficult thing for children to do. It's one of the very last skills we develop. So yes, the idea is to teach them, but while they're still young and dumb and physically incapable of the critical thinking required here, we need guardrails for them.
How should small social network sites, forums or any sites that post user-generatrd content etc who can't afford to do age verification respond to this law?
Block all requests from UK IPs?
We are building a niche social network and don't want to be in the cross-hairs.
Is anyone in a similar position? How's your company dealing with this?
Edit: apart from cost, storing user IDs etc goes against our goal of building a private social network. We would like to retain least amount info
(also applies to GDPR, and even though GDPR has wider applicability, devs should focus on the low-hanging fruit first instead of going around in what-ifs and exceptions)
If you need to use a VPN in your country, maybe your government and elected officials have failed you, are not representing you, and need to be voted out.
Yeah, that's the problem. In the UK, thanks to the party system, "first past the post," and certain longstanding procedural and cultural norms, it's literally impossible to vote them out.
At best, as we're now seeing, they'll go from Tories to Labour to Tories to Labour. With the members of both parties from the same schools, the same social circles, living in the same neighborhoods, and supporting the same policies.
There's no voting their way out of this mess. At this point they need something like the Restoration of the Stuarts. Failing that, they need divine intervention.
Leaving the complexity of attempting to circumvent the great firewall aside, VPN isn't free. Not many are willing to drop £60+/year just to avoid identifying yourself on PH. Easier to find a website that doesn't enforce it.
In the UK case, TOR seems to happily get around these restrictions for free (I gave it a quick check yesterday). I'd imagine that there might be some kind of crackdown on TOR exit nodes in the future though
For a self-hosted VPN, you'll need to use a protocol that is specifically designed to be resilient to censorship. VLESS, for example. Things like WireGuard and OpenVPN are very easily detected.
Maybe it's changed recently, but I knew a lot of locals just using the VPN stuff to use the outside internet (though, like a couple other countries, they have a big enough homegrown market to where for most people not having fb or whatever is a no-op)
My experiences in the country using VPN stuff was pretty interesting though... it _really_ felt like depending on where you were physically in the country that you were going through completely different censorship pipes. And things like Apple push notifications would just get through no problem so you could at least receive stuff via push from banned apps.
I wonder what kind of detailed explanations of the mechanics there are, because I don't have a mental model of it that works beyond "censors just tell each regional office of national operaors to do stuff and they all do it slightly differently"
"Seems to be working in China."
Yeah, let's follow the example of the authoritarian countries just to prove how liberal "democracies" have nothing to do with freedom.
The parent comment is not about following examples, but rather that the impact Streisand effect is going to be very limited, and the common folk will not bother to circumvent.
This is how it worked out in Russia. First, around 10 years ago, they adopted very limited laws that required ISPs to block websites. Things like drugs and suicide, with the classic rationale "won't someone please think of the children". Then piracy websites were added to that. Fast forward to now, ISPs were mandated to install black-box "ТСПУ" devices on their networks, "to protect against threats", so now Roskomnadzor doesn't even pretend to care about the law. Half the internet is broken. More if you're on mobile data. Everyone knows what a VPN is. I personally have set up DPI bypass tools for many of my relatives.
In other words, if you censor enough of the internet that your population knows ways around that, your censorship simply ceases being effective.
At least in Russia and in china, the governments don't pretend that what they are doing is to save the children(TM) whereas in the west we like to drape our authoritarian tendencies under such false pretenses.
In Russia, access to websites was restricted initially "to prevent the spread of information that might harm children", it's in the names of the first censorship laws.
It sounds like it is time to create a new internet and not invite these people. I wonder how difficult it would be to create an entirely new internet infrastructure that doesn't rely on anything that currently exists and doesn't or can't connect to the existing network.
It'd seem that local mesh nets with some sort of satellite relay/backbone would facilitate this. That's just moving the goalposts to a certain extent, though. If a system like this came to be and they weren't happy about it, you'd have to figure out a covert way to get satellites up and keep them there.
If wifi meshnets were actually popular and not just some enthusiast thing that's mostly used for better free wifi you could reasonable route around network-side blocks. Most of the content might move through some kind of high-capacity backbone, but anything blocked on the backbone could still find its way through the mesh. At least in places with high enough population density that linking across cities and villages with just wifi or other low-cost methods is viable (Germany and surroundings come to mind as the obvious example)
Yeah, how hard can it be connecting every damn home on this planet with each other, again? Piece of cake! The internet was created in two days, so I’m sure we’ll be able to do it again. Especially without clear financial incentives.
Maybe pivoting to things like Tor makes more sense.
It already exists; Yggdrasil. It's a fully decentralized IPv6 mesh network. Most users do primarily use the internet for transport now, but it can work just as well over link-local (e.g. ethernet, P2P wireless). It's fast, end-to-end encrypted, and relatively simple to set up.
And that doesn't rely on or comply with the law? Enjoy your CSAM filled network. This has happened with TOR and Freenet, and Telegram (although they rely on law for their benefit but they don't comply themselves).
If you want to make a new internet and take all the trash that is on the current one with you to the new one, please do! It will make the current one much more tolerable for the rest of us.
Not so much "threaten" as kill, right? Can't have an open Internet if access to it is gated and blocked. Maybe a semi open Internet or some new category.
Or target it under the same law. All you need to do is shift the blame for providing adult content onto the vpn provider and suddenly they'll stop providing services to the UK. Might be a little more tricky to enforce globally but perfect enforcement isn't necessary to be a deterrent
I don't really understand why every adult should need to jump through hoops because parents won't spend 5 minutes enabling it on their kid's devices.
Hell, modern parental control software with an image classifier is arguably better than these online age verification systems since it works with anything that appears onscreen.
This is the exact system I suggested to a friend. I don't mind having to 'prove' my age, but I do not really want a third party to have my identifiable information nor do I really want the Government knowing what fetishes I may or may not have.
For a digital only solution, I think the best system would be some form of public-private key attestation:
The government advertises their public keys for 18+ verification.
A website generates a unique token - this token is then taken by the user and submitted to the government receiving a signed attestation. This can then be given back to the website to prove the user is 18. It only has to be done once per profile and no information is shared between the Government and the website on who is who.
Unless of course the token is saved by both the website and government in some forever database and then a lookup is done.
Another solution could be a timed/signed token produced by the government that has no input from the website. But this still has the downside that this could just be saved by both parties and in future you could identified if both sides compare data.
There's a bunch of other "digital wallet" development going on in general, effectively providing digital certificate-backed identity documents and similar (driving licenses, passports). The plan for age verification is that these wallets will also be able to provide a cryptographically signed attestation of age (signed by an EU verification authority, i.e. your id-issuing government org) but with no other personal info included. Then you can present this to anybody, and they can independently verify the signature to confirm it's a recent proof-of-age attestation without knowing anything else about you.
It's still fairly early - lots of blueprints and proof-of-concepts, not yet rolled out anywhere AFAICT - but looks like a reasonable solution I think. In practice I suspect most people's experience will be a government-backed mobile app that you authenticate with once, and then it can handle verification requests on-device or show a QR code that other people can scan & verify.
That also happens with alcohol and tobacco. Cops can run sting operations to catch illegal dealers. But IRL id verification removes easy access for most children while preserving the privacy of adults.
This reminds me that when payment processors cut off an adult site in Japan, they were able to fall back on users paying for points in cash at convenience stores instead or something like that.
Not a bad system really? Pseudo anonymity and avoids some third party tech firm getting involved?
This is just moving personal data responsibilities from service providers (e.g. porn sites) to the central authority (QR code maker and verifier). Unless there is a semi-anonymous way of purchasing age proofs, e.g. over the counter.
I don't think anyone has a problem with verifying their age.
What many people do have a problem with is requiring disclosure of unmodifiable biometric data and government documents that once "hacked"/sold into the data collection pipeline becomes forever tainted and easily stolen.
You can't "reset my password" with biometric data once a malicious actor has it
I have a problem verifying my age or any other piece of information that isn’t critical to whatever service you are providing to me. Beyond that it’s none of your or anyone else’s damn business. If you don’t have a legally issued warrant then leave me the hell alone. This isn’t an area for compromise.
I’m sure it’s only the adults using VPNs so don’t worry, this is still a fantastic law that is definitely helping children not watch porn and absolutely not just a massive attack on civil liberties in disguise.
This sort of thing is why the US has turned into a governance-averse society in some pretty bothersome ways.
People suggest some sort of regulation for something, or some social service, often ones that are similar to those in the UK, and people who oppose it will point to things like this and use them to illustrate the slippery slope fallacy.
The US is a "governance-avere" society from conception. The Constitution decrees that the government should only have a few explicitly enumerated responsibilities, and nothing else. The country was set up such that the laws that affected a person were supposed to be from as much of a local level as possible. It was set up such that there wouldn't be some rulers (even if democratically elected) lording over the country, deciding things for everyone. A huge chunk of the founding fathers argued for not having a federal government at all.
The US was literally the people rejecting the UK governance system and starting their own, setting it up in a way so that it would never be the UK governance system. And here you are complaining that people in the US point to government happenings in the UK as something to be wary of, saying that the US has become "governance-averse"? Seriously?
Well, if you look at the US, similar laws are being enacted at the state level as those you see in the UK, often by the same people who would reject the other features of governance you see in the UK (the NHS, stricter firearms regulations, etc.) because of them being "overbearing".
Since it's about VPNs - what are good VPNs for someone looking for safety/privacy but not anonymity or even IP hiding?
Not even for streaming. But for general "safety while on the Internet" when the devices (Mac, iPhone) are mostly on public or not-so-secure WiFi (at the residence or on the go). Plan is to keep it always ON or almost always ON.
The best VPN is to host your own. I used Digital Ocean. They have preconfigured droplet images for OpenVPN access server. The droplet even serves a client pre-configured with the connection settings.
You can recreate the instance every 60 minutes, I've tried such approach once. But such setup is useless anyway, most services block datacenter traffic by default.
Oh god. I should have said "other than self-hosted". I swear to god I thought about it but forgot and added only Mullvad. I can't edit it now.
And thank you for saying this but I have tried. Both on DigitalOcean and on a VPS bought from a deal on LET - didn't do it for me. It was a pain unless I left it literally untouched, un-updated, un-upgraded forever and ever. I know, I know - I must have done something wrong or I need more patience or both. But sadly it didn't cut it for me. It made it hate the entire thing.
Other self-hosted option could be one of those sites where you can use one service and pay for it like pikapods or so but then if I am doing that then why not just use a VPN because anyway I would have to sign up for different services and then pay for it too while not having the control a droplet or vps will offer (talked about above)
Please give a bit more detail and justification when you give opinions like this.
Otherwise it sounds like you’re saying everybody already knows which one is good and which one is bad -- but if everybody knew, you wouldn’t need to say anything, right?
I am not the original poster, but there are a few reasons to pick Wireguard.
Performance is better due to the in-kernel drivers, UDP design and crypto choices. If you're simply looking for the fastest option wireguard is it.
Openvpn's protocol is somewhat more janky than wireguard. It looks tls-like but then does its own transport thing. It has a lot of flexible options and ciphersuite choices meaning you could very well pick something less than ideal. The complexity of the code makes an undiscovered bug slightly more likely.
The downside of wireguard, mitigated by some VPN providers, is that it is UDP-only. You may find environments where you cannot tunnel out this way, even if you try to impersonate QUIC by running the remote port on 443. Mullvad has a udp-to-tcp proxy as part of their client and server to work around this.
I have tried NextDNS and I think I should try it again but the last few experiences ended in a lot of sites breaking. Maybe this time I will try someone from country who has written a tutorial about it.
But a VPN would have been more appropriate for this task and if ever I needed to use a different IP from a different country (that would be rare and mostly to access websites for a short period) I could just do it easily.
For me, it doesn't break anything with their filters. Using it on both phone and PC and I don't manage to hit the free limit for the month. (unless I forget to close the GOG launcher, which for some reason is pinging all the time and blows through the monthly usage limit in a week)
Mullvad, however, leads to Captcha City and is straight up blocked on a couple of sites, namely McGearHub and, for a time, Runescape. Btw, if you have a friend using it, you can likely mooch off their sub. I share mine with 2 other people since the device limit is 5, and I only have my phone and PC on it.
I'm guessing the captcha city situation might be better with more "casual" VPNs but I doubt it makes much of a difference once you have a bunch of people on the same IP.
Connectivity and IP blockage (I assumed) issues last time I tried it.
But the main reason is — it’s the default recommendation on HN. So I would prefer to know what else good there that people are using. Because it would be really sad if it’s the only one. I kind of refuse to believe that.
It's the only one. It's technically difficult, and there are lots of things to do to sell out the user in the name of not leaving money on the table or bowing to authority, or other excuses for bad behavior. Principle in anything is rare, we're lucky to have mullvad.
Next best option is self hosting. Beyond that, it's a thoroughly enshittified marketplace.
iCloud Private Relay has the benefit of more accepted by payment processors etc, but the downside is that because it doesn't mask your country of origin the UK censorship rules still apply whilst using it.
I've found that Mullvad generally has the best privacy reputation, but I've also been blocked by a lot of sites whilst using it.
The mainstream consumer VPNs like Nord, Proton etc aren't as great for privacy but I suspect they're less likely to be blocked. I'd love to have more data to justify this though.
UK and Australia are slowly going the way of China in their blocking, and the eventual end effect could be that they will get their citizens cut off from the internet.
I run a website that provides English articles to trending topics from Chinese social media. It’s kinda funny that topics discussed there are sometimes “too sensitive” for western LLMs who will straight up refuse to write about them.
Take from that what you will re: China vs western censorship
It's just that Australia and UK tend to lead the way when it comes to authoritarianism and then it becomes "this has always been like this, you conspiracy theorist".
They're coming for AI tools next. Here in Australia they're rolling out the academic socialist activists on the public broadcaster. These experts know how to keep us safe apparently.
This morning it was all about "think of the children" in the context of banning AI tools that could potentially be used to make AI generated CSAM. Even adult nudity is in the firing line. Ban the lot was the advice from the expert. Not just banning access, but making it a crime to even possess the tools.
What next? Ban paint brushes because someone might use them to paint offensive images?
I'll say it again, if I can sign my consumer rights away with a checkbox and agree to terms and conditions with only a checkbox.. Then I can verify my age with a checkbox.
You shouldn't be able to do those things with a checkbox though, and we should all be ripping apart the fact that practice was normalized almost entirely and unilaterally by the tech industry.
I genuinely think that some 20% of the population are incurable moral busybodies, and the main function of liberal democracy is to protect the rest of society from these people. In this case liberal democracy has failed to protect us from some truly terrible legislation. Its impact goes far beyond adult content, it's an open attack on freedom of expression in this country that will lead to the proliferation of scams and identity theft. The amount of absurd things I've been asked to show ID for already when I've forgotten to turn on the VPN is exactly as bad as predicted, and I'm not going to trust some two-bit identity checking service.
The depressing thing is this seems the one thing a government that's famous for U-turning won't U-turn on. Even if (let's be honest, when) a list of MPs proclivities emerges from a data breach the most they'll do is exempt MPs from the provisions rather than admit this is a terrible law that makes the UK more dangerous rather than safer.
Liberal democracy's actual function is to convert the will of the people into a functioning government.
If it was actually true that 80% of the population opposed this law, MPs would be falling over themselves to run against it and it would be gone immediately after the next election cycle.
I think it's a dumb law, but I also don't think the UK's democracy is that broken. It's pretty clear a majority of UK voters support or are at least ok with this law.
Just a reminder “Brexit” happened just a few years ago. Suddenly no British man can be more than 3 months in another European country before being “banned”. You can’t even move to Switzerland and setup a company.
Yes technically it’s possible but I was told my a Swiss accountant “just don’t bother trying unless you can get a European passport - if you can”
This is from personal experience. As odd as it sounds Brexit really affected business ( always thought it was posturing) I can’t imagine what it did to mega corps etc
> As odd as it sounds Brexit really affected business
With all due respect, this was never odd. It was immediately predicted from the day the UK voted for Brexit, along with many of the other very obvious side effects of leaving the EU, like free movement & ability to work, logistical challenges etc.
Unironically, people thought it would end free movement for other people and not them.
When Brits go to another Country, they are expats, bringing their wealth and culture with them. When people come to the UK they are immigrants or economic migrants refusing to get jobs, learn the language or integrate while taking all the jobs.
> Suddenly no British man can be more than 3 months in another European country before being “banned”
That’s how visas work in most of the world.
I’m curious now, did you vote for it and not expect this? It doesn’t sound odd at all, it is exactly what everyone said would happen other than people promoting Brexit as some form of nationalism/pride movement.
As a Brit that was too young to vote in the referendum I feel like I’m stuck in a venus fly trap and the jaws are closing. I would have liked to live in Europe for a while, but welp, now that option’s gone. An image of a frog boiling in a pot also comes to mind.
Alot of people seemed surprised, that I was surprised.
I was surprised, because I dont follow politics.
I just sort of stumbled upon issues when travelling around Europe.
The point of my comment is not that I was surprised, but that Brexit "happened", from my pov. Im sure many others understood the repercussions like gifted clairvoyant giraffes before it occurred, but I alas did not.
In fairness there was a lot of uncertainty between 'hard brexit' which we got and 'soft brexit' which wouldn't have changed much. My biggest gripe about the whole thing from a democracy point of view is no one really knew what exactly we were voting for. I think it should have been two stage - do you want to leave and then here's the deal - do you still want to do that? I think we would have remained if people had seen the real terms and condition rather than "have our cake and eat it" make believe pushed by certain politicians.
To be fair, it is relevant because UK is both in Europe, the EU but not in Schenghen. Its the whole point of the discussion. The points is complexities of immigration in Europe.
If anything I would have expected the market to explode in Portugal. The digital nomad visa they offer is one of the easiest for us to get and after living there for five years you regain the right to live in the EU. I’ve considered moving there but their immigration system is dysfunctional apparently.
Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.
UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.
Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.
Assuming these numbers are relevant and correct, there is a reason why qualified migrants prefer other countries.
If you were a French or a German doctor or an engineer, would you spend 3 months fighting with the Home Office for the questionable privilege of earning £50K per annum in a country where a half decent flat costs £2500 a month?
I always find funny how the new, supposedly progressive, arguments in favor of mass immigration run so close to the ones given against when slavery was abolished, that society can only exist with cheap,exploitative, labor.
Also it seems a teensy bit unfair to rob the developing world of its skilled workers so that we don't have to bother training them ourselves (plus they'll accept lower pay than natives).
Why do they have a young population? What happens to the old people who live in those countries? Why would that not happen in the receiving countries if enough people are imported?
It's because the arguments ultimately originate from the same place as they did back then: the elites who benefit greatly from the existence of said cheap, exploitative labor.
The sorts of "progressives" who unconditionally support mass immigration are just useful idiots being used as tools by said elites to enforce their narrative. Just have to push the idea that "disagreeing with this is racist" and they'll all support it without question.
Its because both the left and right argue for extremes which are just the same energy with different wording.
I do not distinguish the far-left from far-right as they equally polarizing and extreme, and only seeks to pull people in the center towards them through violence, censorship and intimidation.
People in the center seeks a balance between the extremes. Some industries require immigration of labor force but it can't come with delusional ideologies that seek to manipulate the wages.
I mean I support what could be termed "mass immigration" and hold no biases as to what kinds of work they would do. I see no reason they wouldn't find work in all sorts of fields. But one of the most common talking points against this kind of immigration is that because they're "unskilled" they won't find work and be a burden on our welfare programs and social services or whatever. So then you start to list jobs that are positive value to society and don't require specialized training—that even if I accept the (admittedly racist premise) that immigrants won't seek education and skilled positions that we will still be fine.
This is a far-right talking point that ignores the other concerns of progressives that are bundled up in the argument.
Progressives (in the US at least) generally support immigration with protections and fair wages. They also recognize, rightfully, that systems built for decades upon exploitative practices (low wages, no protections) if removed overnight will cause mass disruption of those systems.
Neither of these is in any way supportive of slavery, modern or otherwise. The first - suggesting that immigrants be treated civilly and paid a living wage - has been fought tooth and nail by 'free market' literalists. The second - that there will be disruptions in social and economic systems when an entire workforce is suddenly removed from the systems that it has propped up for decades - is common sense and historically founded.
You're conflating these things to try to justify a talking point that was just created three months ago.
The fact remains that UK (or US) is well below the replacement rate. If your progressive society can continue to exist only because oppressed women elsewhere keep supplying the human material, then it's not that progressive after all.
Nothing in this talking point is remotely „far right“. Words have lost all meaning. You also haven‘t answered his argument one bit. In the end, all you say with your smart words is that indeed, someone has to pick the cotton and it won‘t be you.
The "far-right" propaganda comes in when we try to argue that actually the right cares about immigrants, and they want to deport them because they just care so damn much.
Like, come on now. Give me a break. This type of reasoning is so caked with bullshit I don't think anyone on the right even buys it.
Sure, we can say maybe the left is arguing for exploitation, but certainly the right aren't champions of human rights. I mean, what's the big picture here? "Don't exploit the immigrants! Instead, violate their rights and force them into camps!"
We can solve the immigration problem overnight, if anyone cares. Just say that if you're found hiring undocumented people, you go to prison. I garauntee you, the problem will solve itself with such expedition it will leave you in awe.
But nobody on the right actually proposes this. Because they don't actually care about immigration. They care about populist messaging. They want you to believe there's an enemy within causing all your problems, and they they alone are the solution.
But no - they, too, directly rely on the exploitation. They won't ever patch it. It will always be lip-service, propaganda, and populist messaging.
The right doesn't give a shit about the livelihood of the immigrants, but they have accurately observed the line that goes from "heavily increase low skill immigration" to "emergence of a low trust society" to "implement authoritarian surveillance state to manage the low trust". The left has no answer for this, because it requires them to admit that high levels of immigration have negative qualitative impacts on society that don't show up in GDP figures. They can't do that, because immigration itself is part of the ideology.
No, the right just loves surveillance and authoritarianism. That's just what they trend towards if you leave them unchecked over time.
Immigrants are the populist scapegoat needed to get the authoritarianism. They're an easy to blame demographic that are physically marginalized - you can literally see them with your eyes.
Without immigrants, this populist messaging problem isn't solved. In the US, we just used black people before. Chinese people for a while too. Japanese people. We increased surveillance, built camps, required registries, you name it.
That's just how the right operates and how their populist messaging works. You need to convince poor "incumbents" (usually white people) that there's some other demographic coming for their money and they're dangerous. Don't let them into your neighborhood!
But don't worry, we can clean it up! Just give us unilateral power and a surveillance state, and we promise these pesky brown folk will be gone. And then, somehow that will magically improve the quality of your life!
It's the same story again and again, over and over. If we haven't already done this a bunch, I might be inclined to believe you. But we have. So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
Yeah yeah been there, done that. Just give the authoritarian's what they want at this point, they're not even being slick.
>Without immigrants, this populist messaging problem isn't solved.
This conflicts with basically everything else you wrote. Not sure if you meant to do that, or meant to say something else, but the immigration issue is definitely driving the messaging from Reform and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives. If suddenly the boats stopped, the Afghans were beamed away back to Afghanistan, and ~30 years of mismanaged immigration policy was reversed overnight I don't see how a) reform exists, b) the election at the end of this 5 year term isn't just about funding NHS and Labour holds a majority with the rest split between the Tories and the Lib Dems.
>So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person and therefore anything else that person said is wrong and "bad", and then they get to sidestep any meaningful discussion about policy.
Honestly that's pretty much how we got to the place where Reform is leading in the polls by 10 points, so bravo for a very meta comment.
> but the immigration issue is definitely driving the messaging from Reform
Yes, my point is that we've already done this countless times.
The messaging doesn't go away if you get rid of these particular brown people. They just shift to some other demographic, because that's how right-wing populist messaging works.
Nobody would actually be satisfied if the immigrants were beamed away.
> People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person
No, it's not, and I don't think you're racist.
To be clear, I'm from the US, so I'm speaking from the perspective of what we've done and we keep having this same thing happen again. And again. And again. For literally hundreds of years at this point.
That's the meaningful discussion. I yawn not because you are racist, but because you are unoriginal.
All those other right-wing populist dilemmas turned out to be hot bullshit. Looking back, I don't know how people were stupid enough to fall for them, but evidently they were and we implemented a lot of surveillance and authoritarian laws. Luckily, many repealed.
But, I have no reason to believe this particular demographic panic isn't bullshit. They've always been bullshit. Just based off of track record it's not looking good.
The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
It seems to me that, coincidentally, just like every other right-wing panic, mostly brown people are targeted. Hm. Interesting. Look at that. So why is this panic real, and not fake like the other ones?
>Yes, my point is that we've already done this countless times.
>To be clear, I'm from the US
I'm also from the US, and am still able to discern that these immigration levels are unprecedented in history, in either country. So ... hand waving it away because it's icky isn't sufficient. Your position amounts to "immigration, in any amount, does not matter" which is a much more extreme claim than that of the "far right", either in the US or the UK.
>The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
I don't know how to parse this sentence, other than for it to mean that as long as the immigration is from countries that are "brown" (your words) it's not legitimate to criticize it.
The immigration is certainly not unprecedented, we've had significant chinese, polish, and even Italian immigrantion. And they too suffered prosecution.
If the same thing keeps happening and we keep being wrong, I lose faith in the premise. I have no reason to believe the right is faithful on these issues, so I don't care. I'm just going to assume they're making a big deal out of nothing and I'm probably right.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of one side does not mean that the other is right. I still remember when the progressive pro-labour argument was against immigration to favour the increase of wages of the locals and I'm puzzled when they switched to "you know we need immigrants to work the shit jobs we don't want to do".
Canada has legal immigration pathways for nurses, I don't see why any other country couldn't if there was strong demand. Gambling on illegal (and dangerous) border crossings to fill those sort of roles seems deeply irresponsible.
The US doesn't really have any interest in fixing the problem. Both parties benefit from the mess we have now.
That's what pisses me off about the whole thing. People buy the crap the politicians are feeding them and the immigrants are the ones that pay for it. You'd think people would have realized after decades of this crap that neither party is going to do a damn thing.
The only employment related categories on that report are the skilled worker visa and the health & care worker visa. I presume nurses would come under the latter.
For cleaners it's a little less clear which employment visa they'd have been more likely to use. Potentially either depending on the specifics of their job, their income and the precise definition of skilled worker.
That chart is almost useless because it doesn't break down by settlement/non-settlement visa types.
Study visas do not have a pathway to settlement. Students paying through the nose for the privilege of staying for a few years to study and then leaving (or getting work visas like everyone else) is hardly a bad thing.
Somewhat annoyingly, this is the definition of long term immigrant per UN definitions cited in the report includes students:
"The use of the UN definition of long-term immigration means that whether someone should be counted as an immigrant or emigrant (and hence contribute to the net migration statistics) only becomes evident after 12 months.... Currently, the ONS publishes provisional estimates with a 5-month lag"
The discussion of international students is less relevant to employment related concerns, but still contributes to other aspects of population growth like rental housing demand or water consumption.
How does immigration boost productivity? It's labor-saving automation and machinery investments that boost productivity. I would expect these to be driven mainly by labour scarcity. Growing the labour pool seems like it would drive exactly the opposite. As two examples, Japan has low immigration and an aging population and despite that its productivity has never been higher. By contrast Canada has had extremely high immigration and rapid population growth, and its productivity has flatlined since 2019.
At the end of the day, you still have to have humans to both carry out certain labor tasks and consume the outputs of that labor. For example, having the ability to manufacture a car with minimal human intervention doesn't mean that you can ship steel to the stamping plant without human intervention, and it doesn't mean that the robot used to weld the car will buy one after it's built. And since "real" Americans/Canadians/Brits/etc. haven't made the babies to do the labor and consumption demanded by capital for almost 60 years now, the labor and consumption must be brought in some other way.
Ultimately you have to balance the incoming immigration with the demands that produces, and that's where a lot of countries fall short. For being as similar as they are, Americans and Canadians have radically different experiences and opinions on immigration from India, for example. Why? Americans mainly think of them as either business owners providing needed services (even if it's just as the stereotypical convenience store owner) or people working in cutting-edge and important industries, because that's who American immigration policy allows in from India. Canadians have far less charitable views, because over the last decade or so, Canadian immigration policy has been far less discriminatory. Whether it should or not, this produces social friction with people who have roots in the society that receives the immigration.
I don't think that should be the be-all and end-all overriding the natives qualms but regardless.....Is it increasing productivity? In nearby mainland European countries that doesn't appear the case.
We have had more immigration every year since 97 than almost anyone could imagine prior to that, peaking at a million a year, productivity remains shit.
It's not about productivity, it's about the gross GDP numbers (and initially new labour were 100% OK with a demographic transformation project at the same time)
I remember when Gordon Brown promised "An end to boom and bust economics." I didn't that meant realise no more booms.
In the 90s in the UK, skilled working class tradesmen making huge amounts of money was such a stereotype that there was even a comedy character about it. I can't imagine seeing that happen again.
Welcome to the sticking plaster economy. This may be the economic orthodoxy, but it completely ignores the root causes of poor productivity - and ultimately leads to the state of xenophobia you're seeing today in Britain.
If you believe that this law really is just about protecting our dear sweet children, then they're completely unrelated. But if you really, truly believe that, I'm not sure anything could explain the link simply enough that you'd understand it.
So the law isn't about little Johnny wanking it to PornHub. It's about control. It's a government that has proven time and time again the only thing it cares about is more control over the people it should be serving being able to get a little more control.
If you already have a faltering cultural and national identity, and immigration - both legal and illegal - is skyrocketing[0][1], it's basically a straight line to see a large cohort of people link the two and and vote for the people saying they will end it. It's also not a remotely "far right" opinion to think that people should not be allowed to come into a country illegally, and if you do come into a country illegally, you should be removed. The idea that this is somehow bad is itself the fringe opinion.
Reform appears to be on track for a major win in the next UK election. How will they address the problem of the UK nanny state?
Looking at the USA: the federal policies are currently as anti-immigrant as possible, and in the US states which support those policies the most, age verification has been passed into law.
I fail to see how being anti-immigration, no matter one's opinion on that matter, resolves the basic issue of a nanny state.
I think this is the most uncharitable reading and understand of Hobbes that exists. The main argument (and context) is that men is evil and can only live in "civilization" by being forced into it by an absolutely powerful state.
The fact this state is a monarchy, a dictatroship or a democracy is not the issue. The fact (in which he is right) a state needs absolute power and monopoly of that power. Modern democracies are a good example, they have the absolute power and thus are more stable and peaceful that warlord controlled pseudo-countries in Africa.
"The purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord. Therefore, the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse, who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes, and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published."
This is an explicit restriction of free speech, in line with what's happening nowadays in the UK.
"In Hobbes’ view, the sovereign had a crucial role in overseeing religious matters. This included the power to appoint religious leaders, regulate religious practices, and ensure that religious teachings were in line with the laws of the state. By doing so, the sovereign could maintain control over potential sources of dissent and prevent religious conflicts from arising."
Exactly. The idea that pornography has to be available to anyone regardless of age/maturity at any time and for any reason is insane. I suspect that a lot of the (mostly judicial) lawmaking in this area did not foresee the internet and its impacts. There is a big difference in the allowing people to go see a pornographic film in a specialized seedy cinema (where age-gating is trivial) and having it available to every child in their pocket.
Incredible that you’ve managed to bring this conversation to immigration. In fact, it sounds like you’re saying the root cause of this crappy policy is somehow immigrants.
It's a valid topic for discussion. Even as a foreigner who was in UK on a visa and eventually got ilr I'm still concerned about it.
The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable, particularly when it's proven that the majority are not fleeing persecution but are economic migrants. They're taking advantage of a system designed to help people in trouble, how could you defend that?
And when does it end? Will the UK always accept small boats ad infinitum?
I played by the (harsh) rules and got here legitimately. Why should I have bothered.
> The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable
the current situation regarding small boats is the inevitable conclusion to a badly implemented brexit policy and a negligent tory party rule over 13 years. Startmer took 5 months in power to talk to France and have them agree to tackle it on their side of the water. Also no brexit, no boats. The anti immigration chest thumpers caused the problem and then scurried like rats. Farage was impossible to be found the year after brexit won, dude aws the face and suddenly wanted to part of the "glory"
If we are going to start discouraging tangents on HN, which would be a drastic change, we're not going to do it selectively for topics you don't want to see discussed.
>If we are going to start discouraging tangents on HN, which would be a drastic change
This is straight from the guidelines
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. "
Bringing up immigration policy in regards to a new internet identification legislation seems less like a "discourageable tangent" and more of an "overt breaking of one of the few enforceable rules of the site"
Sure, let me break it down. You attempted to dress up the point about increased survailance (low trust society -> increaed authoritarianism to control low trust society) which is tangentially related to the VPN regulation, in a number of far right buzz words. that gives it enough cover to not count as flamebait or politics, even though it arguably IS both of them and should be removed.
The guy below you, whom I replied to, is nowhere as good at dogwhistles as you and straight up brought up the boat conversation, which has 0 to do with vpns and honestly its just "build a wall" but for the sea, a conversation so boringly transplanted from american media is almost not wroth discussing.
You bragging about how you manged to say the things you shouldn't by talking around it and how many people either fell for it/or agree with you and know the dogwhistles is not something I would be proud of.
Just to be perfectly clear, the far right is surging because the demands of the lower and middle class are ignored, in serving both old money aristocrats, landlords, media moguls and foreign oligarchs all of which are economical leeches. We are in a post Tatcher "there is no society" world, not in some kind of left kumbaya "we are the world" reality. The far right is up because they thrive in dog whistles and anger like you are riling up, good at burning down Reichstags more than building any sort of succesful society.
> increased survailance (low trust society -> increaed authoritarianism to control low trust society)
That might be a factor, but the main things I see is that British society is very sharply divided -- dangerously so maybe -- and that these new online safety rules might be an attempt to reduce the ability of one side of the division to influence the public discourse and to engage in collective action. If so, then immigration policy is relevant to this thread in that it is probably the issue most central or essential to the division.
That's a lot of assumptions in one comment. No one claimed that the far-right is the solution (or at least I didn't) but rather the consequence. HN demographic is not even generally far-right and the agreement comes from the fact that people understood the context of the comment that you just failed to understand.
thats the advantage of dogwhistling, is that you can always feign ignorance
> No one claimed that the far-right is the solution (or at least I didn't) but rather the consequence.
the consequence of the far right economic model of hyper individualism? So far right breeds more far right, and calling it out is just "making assumptions"?
> HN demographic is not even generally far-right
It is one of the more susceptible groups to fall for their spell though. HN tends to skew nerdy and libertarian, two groups that think of themselves as intelligent which means if you trick them into thinking something they tend to internalise it because they think they came to the conclusion themselves. It is also a highly targetted demographic by far right groups.
Or do you think its a surprise that the "far left hippie" Sillicon Valley reputation got shredded in a second when half of LA was in Trump's inaguration? We had tech bros in front of elected officials. Crypto, videogames all oriignally very HN areas are all now constantly under threat of "manosphere" influencers, all paid by the same 5 think tanks, and far right billioanires.
> he agreement comes from the fact that people understood the context of the comment
Sure, thats not an assumption, that is you being an all knowing entity that can analyse why 60 people upvoted something. I mean it could be one russian farm pushing for "destroy cultural identity" text recognition as they have been known to do on X and Reddit. Or it can be 60 hyper rational individuals all of which understood the context I clearly seem to miss. But your assumption is right of course.
Just to be clear, I am not accusing you of being far right, you are just repeating their talking points and strategies. If you are doing it on purpose and pretending to be unaware that bad. If you simply are unaware I am explicitely explaining how and why they do and say the things you said and did.
Well you clearly have a higher sense of awareness and probably intelligence than a lot of other people in the community. I'm just going to let the Russian farm and the easily tricked continue to engage how they want.
I dont, im a dumbass like everyone else. But im not unaware of the kind of people visit HN or what our achilles heel is. Knowing that far right movements are infiltrating and would like to use me to repeat their viewpoints is something I found worrying and worthy of self reflection.
Your flipant attitude is either lack of self reflection or worse, you are aware of what youre doing and downplaying bad faith dogwhistling.
> badly implemented brexit policy and a negligent tory party rule over 13 years.
How about:
2018 - Sandhurst Treaty
2022 - Interior Ministers’/ Home Secretaries’ joint declaration of November 14th
2023 - UK-France Joint Leaders' Declaration
Yes, these did nothing. Starmer's/Macron's joint declaration will also do nothing. If you don't understand why, try starting with the past 204 years of anglo/French relations.
Immigration is becoming the #1 political issue in the UK for a reason.
If they didn't want this, they could have just restricted it and it would have largely gone away as a topic of discussion, but current levels makes it inevitable it will become the main thing people think about
It's the #1 issue because the Tories spent 15 years running the economy into the ground and are now trying to blame someone else. It's a power grab - don't look at their piss-poor fiscal policy, it was... uh... immigrants! Please elect us again!
If this were the case, then you have to explain why other things that are heavily leant on (e.g. global warming, or trans issues just to give two obvious examples) by a large part of the political establishment and mainstream media fail to have much cut through with most of the population.
The reason immigration has cut through is it corresponds with people's own direct lived experience. It's not an abstract concept to people, it's visceral and real
There are some issues that people are absolutely feeling: housing costs, low wage growth, job losses and unemployment, stress on the NHS, crime, societal change etc. These are very real issues that are causing people pain.
Some politicians and certain parts of the media are blaming immigration for all of those issues. There's a constant barrage of talking points on the news and other forms of media. They cut through complex issues and appeal to 'common sense'.
People are directly feeling the pain. People are being given a reason for the pain. People feel that reason is the direct cause of their real pain.
None of these problems live in isolation. It all feeds back to the same system that is driving itself into the ground.
The refusal to accept these problems is what is creating a surge in far-right popularity. The very people that oppose them have inadvertently become their biggest cheerleaders.
Why is it that the only people who have to justify their beliefs are those who are not in favour of enormous demographic, economic, and political change required to facilitate mass immigration?
One of the reasons they want to make discourse on the internet as painful as possible is because immigration has become an mainstream concern in the UK. Many of the things that are being soft censored is clips about from the British parliament where this and related issues are being discussed.
Just because people like yourself happen to think it is uncouth to discuss, doesn't mean that it isn't part of the equation.
Everyone always wants to bring it back to immigration, because they've seen US ICE snatch squads and internment camps and decide that they want some of that here.
Growth is much easier with mass immigration than mass emigration, regardless of if those crossing either direction are skilled or unskilled.
And the UK welfare system isn't all that good. I'm a landlord, and at one point a letting agency told me they refuse to deal with anyone on the welfare system because it's simply too difficult to actually get the council, who are supposed to pay, to actually pay. The necessity for food banks is another big hint that the government system isn't covering basics.
(As in: migrants will be asked to prove entitlement, it won't be assumed).
If you moved to the UK for work, you're paying twice for the NHS, because not only is it supposed to be covered by national insurance contributions, but there's also an NHS immigrant surcharge: https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...
States such as California were allowing them access to Medi-cal, their version of medicaid. Many get free housing- NYC entered into a $980 million dollar contract to house people in hotels.
Federally, no, they aren't getting assistance, but it's all a slush fund as money flows back and forth between local and the federal governments anyway.
California also has, like, the 4th highest GDP in the world. Take complaints about their money mis-management with a grain of salt - of course people from economically failed states like Louisiana and Tennessee are going to tell you California has all these problems. PS - I live in the South.
The US guarantees ER health services regardless of citizenship or ability to pay. They also get free public education (with all the burdens of being non-english speaking).
They pay taxes (in Texas) through gas, property and sales taxes which fund much of the state.
Yes, immigrants are a critical component of several industries like healthcare.
Legal permanent residency/work visas should be easier for skilled workers who want to work in high demand jobs. And all wealthy nations should be more wary of unlimited, unchecked economic migration by poorer populations.
(IOW it's complicated)
I think social media is at least as big a cultural weapon against us, and if I had to choose between deport/imprison a small number of business and political leaders who abuse that weapon or four million undocumented US residents, I would choose the former.
What tangent? pjc50 was responding fairly directly to points in the comment he replied to. Who was in turn replying directly to his comment. Which was a direct reply to the next parent up. Which was expressing surprise to immigration being present at all in a root level response to a story about UK use of VPNs.
Veen made a comment about US ICE suggesting that political positions limiting immigration are a backdoor to human rights violations as a matter of fact, and suggesting that immigration has nothing to do with the push for more surveillance.
My comment was responding to that and to pjc50's reply.
Veen was in reply to pjc50, who also did not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44712105 — "they've seen US ICE snatch squads and internment camps and decide that they want some of that here."
("here" can be read as either being "the UK" or "all places outside the USA", but the one place it can't be read as is "the US" because the US already has that).
• Los Angeles County General Relief (“GR”, undocumented adult) $2,348/yr
221 × 12 ≈ $2 650; actual monthly household max 2 adults = $442 (LAC DPSS 2023 schedule). Family with kids rarely gets full GR cash, so book 50 % = $2 348.
-------- Food
• CalFresh for 3 citizen kids $8,940
Max allotment for 3 children household = $780 / mo × 12.
Housing-subsidy value (Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher)
• Local Payment Standard (3-br in Central LA, 2024) 28,640
FMR $2 655 / mo × 12. Actual voucher covers 26 600 after utility allowance; market-value differential is tax-free.
-------- Medical care (only the kids qualify under “Restricted Medi-Cal”):
Is this actually what a typical immigrant is getting, or did you just pull this straight out of your ass? Who is actually getting these benefits to this degree? Do we not understand that it's very difficult to apply for a lot of these and most people don't know how to do it?
Also, elephant in the room: California has the 4th highest GDP in the world. Clearly, what they're doing is working. So well that they provide what, 1.5x more federal dollars than they take?
I mean, Louisiana doesn't provide jack shit to nobody. And how's their economy holding up? Anybody check on them recently? Last I checked, despite providing fuck-all, Louisiana isn't even breaking even with federal dollars, let alone touching California's 1.5x ratio.
Sad thing as that the good times are very likely never coming back, and the far-right in power will only make everything worse by bolstering even more tribalism and mistrust among the public.
Um, no. Sensible people don't support the far right. The country has lost all sense, so there are fewer sensible people, so the fools who vote for the far right are on the rise.
After rereading it with the sibling comment in mind, the swap does make sense in that it subtly shifts the implied causality of the surge in far right polling. My bad for misunderstanding, thanks for the clarifications!
Every day preteen boys around the world are destroying their premature brains by watching stuff that should be 18+ by simply clicking a single button that says "I am over 18". They form lifelong addictions that stunt their emotional and developmental growth at the click of one button. Many of these kids are never the same after their innocence is stripped.
You can blame the parents for allowing them unfettered access to the internet, but their classmates will show them something while they're hanging out after school or waiting for the bus. This doesn't even include the softer stuff that gets _recommended_ to them every day on tiktok and instagram reels - actively pushing them towards more explicit content.
I don't necessarily agree with the politicians here and I do believe there are ulterior motives at play such as information gathering for blackmail on adults, etc.
What is the solution here? I don't think there is one that satisfies everybody.
I feel much the same way. This is a real headache of a problem for me because I'm pretty privacy-oriented, but this is a serious, serious problem that needs real intervention.
Way too many kids are rotting their brains away either becoming gooners or clout-chasers. I thank God every day I was born too early to have access to this stuff as a kid. I can't imagine what this "you must always be online and also sexy" culture is doing to our youngest generations.
Interestingly, the youngs in the US seem to be much less into sex and drugs than previous generations. The stuff we got up to as GenX youth are legitimately shocking to our children.
I've seen nothing to state that sexual activity is down. Unplanned pregnancies maybe, but that's not the same thing. Do you have a source for this? I could be convinced pretty easily, it just sounds wrong to me.
Look at this article - not so much for the article itself, scroll down for the CDC and NIH data it links to.
"While generalizing about tens of millions of people is always difficult, a series of studies in recent years have reported that teens since the tail end of the millennial generation trend towards being less sexually active; they launch their sex lives later and have fewer sex partners than earlier generations."
Interesting, I missed that. Anyways, while I think this is an important piece of info, we're still talking about porn rather than sex. There's a difference between exploring with an also-awkward person your age and watching someone else do things they don't actually enjoy while making noises they don't really make, in positions that are more obnoxious than fun, making it look more desirable than it really is. I get this because that's how I discovered sex - just like every other human for the last however-many-million-years.
This is the first time you're getting dozens, maybe hundreds of hours of watching someone do it arguably "wrong".
IMO it's a stronger desire to "do no wrong" than to "do right". The adult entertainment industry is rife with trafficking, drugs, assault, etc. - it wouldn't surprise me one bit to hear the youngest generations are swearing off it simply because they won't associate with that level of dangerous stuff? I'm just pulling things out of my behind here though. I could be totally off the mark.
Give me the IP addresses of every site and I'll blackhole them on my router if I want to. That solves the home problem. I'll also ask why gambling sites, which litter sports broadcasting, aren't included, and indeed why gambling is allowed to be advertised to under 18s at all.
Doesn't solve the away problem, which is mainly 5g. I should be able to do that as the account payer.
That's great, but unfortunately most parents don't know how to do that, and as I've read recently, tech literacy is going down in younger generations, not up.
Pornography addiction doesn't exist. No major medical body in the world considers it an actual condition. Studies show that self-reported pornography addicts consume the same amount of pornography as non-addicts, but have much higher rates of religiosity and conservative sexual norms. Pornography "addiction" is a moral panic narrative, not a medical reality.
I agree that children should not have access to sexually explicit material and that it can warp their relationships to sex. I also agree that some people have unhealthy relationships to pornography; there are plenty of psychological and psychiatric factors that lead people to engage in disordered sexual behaviours.
But people NEED to stop bringing medical pseudoscience into these discussions. Statements like "[children] form lifelong addictions that stunt their emotional and developmental growth at the click of one button" are neither true nor useful.
> [T]he last 5 years of pornography research is marked by increased attention to the impact of context and individual differences when assessing pornography use effects. Particularly, researchers have provided compelling evidence that differences in religious and moral values regarding sexual behavior can impact estimates of pornography use and perceptions regarding the problematic or addictive nature of pornography. Considering recent findings, a systematic review of recent research (within the past 5 years) on how religion and morality shape pornography use effects was conducted, with a particular focus on findings regarding pornography problems due to moral incongruence.
> Fifty-one articles were included in the present review. Findings demonstrate religiousness, moral disapproval, and moral incongruence as robust, strong predictors of various problems regarding pornography (e.g., psychological distress, relational problems, perceived addiction).
Like they say above, it's hot-button issue and this sort of result is fairly easy to replicate, so a lot of papers have been published along these lines in recent years.
These sites implementing this could also implement a DNS TXT record or similar saying they are over 18s only (gambling sites would be included here too, and with a little thought you can categorise the sites).
They could publish their IP addresses so that the traffic can be blackholed at the router by the account holder.
The choice would then be down to the person paying the bill whether to block or not.
It won't apply to shady sites, but those sites won't do age verification anyway.
The problem is nobody wants the account holder to have the power.
I mean, ZKP of age seems to be a good enough compromise. Does it add friction? Yes. I used it a week ago to test, it isn't a smooth experience, but honestly, it's good enough.
The fact that people need to install vpn to access porn is also a solution. I doubt children younger than 13 could do it.
A 13-year-old is one year away from highschool. You're underestimating the user-friendliness of VPNs and the tech-savviness of, if not the average middle-schooler, than the 85th-percentile middle-schooler at least.
> They form lifelong addictions that stunt their emotional and developmental growth at the click of one button. Many of these kids are never the same after their innocence is stripped.
[citation needed]
> What is the solution here?
The kids who grew up on violent games and unlimited free internet porn are adults now. We're fine. I don't understand what's all the ruckus about.
Unless the real issue is that people are noticing certain societal changes that are very difficult to combat so the politicians blame porn because otherwise they'd have to admit that they have no solutions to more pressing problems. Please note how suddenly the housing crisis, vote manipulation, inequality, fucked job market, mental health crisis, genocide in Gaza, war in Ukraine, loneliness epidemic, unchecked immigration, phone addiction all became irrelevant side topics because right now we're laser focused on making sure that boys going through puberty won't see a naked titty. Truly a clown world we live in.
I went through puberty in the golden age of internet porn. After widespread high-speed internet became a thing, but before we started algorithmically monetizing every second of people's attention. I'm so happy of that. I still have my collection of porn I downloaded as a horny teenager.
I'm guessing this is technically challenging. There are VPN protocols designed to be difficult to differentiate from other encrypted traffic. As a result, VPN providers based outside the UK know that they can just ignore the UK law and probably won't be successfully blocked in the UK.
Enforcement, one countries laws don’t apply in another. Which is kind of why the age verification thing won’t work… There will always be some jurisdiction that’ll ignore things for profit.
Not entirely true. If I'm incorporated in country A and want to offer a service in country B, I'll have to comply with the local regulations. Furthermore, most VPNs have local presence in the EU as well. NordVPN is incorporated in Panama, but also has an entity in The Netherlands.
Many areas of law enforcement are whack-a-mole. There's no online gambling regulation so strict that it will stop unlicensed sites from existing entirely; that doesn't mean the rules are pointless or resources dedicated to enforcing them are wasted.
Sure. However, the effort spent vs. what is gained has to be considered. Not all games of whack-a-mole are created equal.
VPNs are incredibly easy to spin up, gambling groups are not. Within a week I could probably spin up a dozen or more semi-legitimate VPN companies. Multiply that by however many hundreds of people are willing to do the same. Add a few thousand more people willing to spin up completely shady 'free' VPNs.
The scale quickly exceeds what you can possibly block, unless you firewall the nation.
Sure. But majority of the people (as seen with China, or Russia) do not care about VPN and won’t care. So, it seems to me that this way it will be easier for law enforcement to achieve what they want just because the target pool is already smaller.
>But majority of the people (as seen with China, or Russia) do not care about VPN and won’t care
The article that our comments are under are about an 18x increase in sign-ups from the UK for one provider, a 2.5x increase for another provider, a 10x increase for yet another provider, etc. in just days.
I'm curious about your stats for China/Russia, though. Where/how do you find out how many internet users in those countries have a subscription to and/or use a VPN? Would those stats continue to hold true if there was not a great firewall in China, and just rudimentary IP-blocking of VPN providers?
> The article that our comments are under are about an 18x increase in sign-ups from the UK for one provider, a 2.5x increase for another provider, a 10x increase for yet another provider, etc. in just days.
Those numbers mean nothing without the baseline. What if before it was 1 person and now it’s 18x more, totaling 19 people?
W.r.t. data about China and Russia, I don’t want to pay for market reports, but occasional discussions about China, for example, show that about 35% of internet users use VPN (https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/i3afnz/how_many_peop..., the thread has some links for more info). However, it is unclear how many of those users are private citizens use VPN to specifically bypass censorship. From my anecdotal experience from work and my PhD, most Chinese I met just don’t care about censorship and lack of access to FB, YouTube, or whatever. Chinese are like western users for the most part, on average they need social media, financial apps, maybe search, etc. they are not actively looking for censored info.
>Those numbers mean nothing without the baseline. What if before it was 1 person and now it’s 18x more, totaling 19 people?
They obviously don't mean nothing. Knowing absolute numbers would be much better, but knowing that the direction of the trend (people previously not caring now care) is informative by itself. It's safe to assume that more than 1 person had a VPN subscription previously.
I appreciate the link and additional insight. The way you phrased it before, I was expecting you to quote sub 10% or less. 35% is not inconsequential, especially considering the environment.
In the end, I'm not convinced you can extrapolate Chinese internet usage patterns to the UK, given the large cultural differences (specifically in regards to internet, history of censorship, etc.). Someone who has grown up their entire lives under the great firewall will react differently to censorship than someone who has grown up their entire lives under a mostly free internet that is now being censored.
> but knowing that the direction of the trend (people previously not caring now care) is informative by itself.
Sure. However, without baseline numbers how do you know who are the people signing up for VPNs? This is the whole point: is it the general public en masse, or some of tech people who had no VPN before?
> In the end, I'm not convinced you can extrapolate Chinese internet usage patterns to the UK, given the large cultural differences (specifically in regards to internet, history of censorship, etc.). Someone who has grown up their entire lives under the great firewall will react differently to censorship than someone who has grown up their entire lives under a mostly free internet that is now being censored.
Of course culture makes a huge difference, but you cannot strongly prove the opposite just based on the assumption about cultural differences. I think the the average consumer simply does not care enough. Remember, the expectation on average is that the access to the information is free.
I see you’ve never been anywhere that blocks VPNs.
First they will make it seem like only criminals would use VPNs, then they’ll target some actually shady VPN services to use as a scapegoat, then they’ll apply punitive measures to them specifically; then they will use the fact that they have already used punitive measures as a reason to use them blanketly.
Technically: it’s pretty trivial to block almost all VPNs at an ISP level. I think only anyconnect/openconnect is difficult (not impossible) to block.
That this would affect businesses is of no consequence.
> That this would affect businesses is of no consequence.
This is a historically unpopular government, where a significant proportion of their own membership is opposed to the government as well, dependent on business donors because its membership numbers has crashed.
I think the effect on businesses would make going after VPNs entirely dead in the water.
Honestly as long as you can connect two pcs together, you can theoretically create a proxy.
Its theoretically possible to create a proxy from one pc to another using iroh/quic/(dumbpipe, which got like 880 upvotes I think on HN and I think is trending which is nice)
I feel like Its a cat and mouse game but that's just my 2 cents
It doesn't have to work on a technical level. Just grab a few people at random, torture them until someone admits guilt, then televise the guilty verdict and life-destroying sentence. Do this two or three times and fear will do the rest of the work for you.
Get the websites blocked too, some kinda minor fine if you're identified as using one, make it seem scary in the public eye to discourage it, ban advertisements?
You can't really stop it, but you can start treating it like Piracy. Maybe ISPs could snoop and report traffic that seems to be going to a VPN even if they can't inspect it.
They could probably manage to deal with the big players (who have enough advertising reach to be used by "ordinary" people). I doubt they could ever block the long tail of non-standard VPNs, especially those that share infrastructure used for legitimate purposes (are they going to ban SSH connections to AWS?).
I can be extremely wrong and so pardon me but I have only ever felt as if China/Iraq/Russia blocks vpn which are extremely authoritarian
if Britain does block vpn, it would look extremely authoritarian but yeah tbh, its looking the same right now too...
I do think that there is some level of bottom tech that needs to go unsupervised/unrestricted otherwise vpn's can fail (china?)
If however they restrict that level of tech too using (packet filtering?) etc., I don't really know, maybe there could be some side consequences too,like maybe some websites can stop working (like how china is cut off from the world from the outside websites primarily)
And honestly, the vpn providers can just change their techniques to be more sneaky and hope that UK govt. doesn't catch them and the UK govt. can try the vpn and find its techniques and then block them too
Its a cat and mouse game really.. The one where there is money incentive on big vpn players to play this game forever, so I wouldn't be too worried I guess.
What I am more worried about is that UK users might download free vpns or bad premium vpns which might make their phones botnets etc., so I would recommend proton vpn or mullvad but I don't want to recommend them too much because I don't want to imagine these products turning bad if a lot of people use it. (enshittenification)
To any Brit citizens, do you feel like the general populace won't fight back about their freedom being taken, or do you think that this will continue until a semi-autocracy result? Is it a topic of conversation in the general population, or is it just a shrug of acceptance?
Tech savvy like me think maybe I'll have to click the vpn button on the browser one day - not that big a deal.
Non tech savvy probably haven't heard of it.
Semi-autocracy result? It's a democracy. The policy was fairly popular. The next election, quite likely Reform will win and scrap it.
The conversation seems to go something like: UKgovt: "kids are being hurt by porn and self harm stuff on mostly US and overseas sites - we'll stop it and fine them £18m if they do" US folk: - freak out - "how can they harm our precious websites? The UK is over. It's going 1984!" UK people - whateves.
Bear in mind we wrote 1984 and are familiar with that stuff and this bill isn't it. That agent Krasnov guy is more of a worry.
I think a decent amount of people don't even realize what is happening. For example, lots of people still don't know about the iCloud backdoor that's trying to be implemented by the government.
Those who know are annoyed but not enough that it will cause change; I don't think most believe it will get worse either.
Unfortunately the default will be people going on the App Store, getting the first app that has 'VPN' in the title, download, and forget. Completely failing to address a systemic issue.
I was thinking last night how many in some ways these age verification laws might actually have some upside for those of us who were fond of the early internet...
Ultimately what these laws will end up doing is pushing internet traffic towards the "normie web", create a separation between sites which refuse to implement these measures and those who will.
Ultimately for this filters to work authoritarian countries like the UK will need to ban sites like 4chan which do not comply with their age verification demands despite hosting adult content. As it stands until the UK do this the age filtering may as well not exist because kids (and adults) will just go to other sites.
Additionally search and content aggregators will likely come under increased pressure to blacklist these "rogue" sites so slowly both the ability to access non-compliant sites and the ability to find non-compliant sites will diminish.
Like in the old days when cool sites and blogs spread more by word of mouth than social media and search aggregators, we're likely heading back to a world where those who are savvy enough to work around the filtering of authoritarian states will have access to a new kind of "semi-dark web" or a "rogue web".
I almost like that idea. If the internet bifurcates it might actually become a more authentic place for those of us in know. I suppose the only question then is whether authoritarian countries like the UK will ultimately come after private VPN users as well, but I feel like that would be impractically costly to enforce.
Oh for sure. I personally think this was the whole point of the bill.
We've seen from online bans in recent years that it doesn't really matter if someone is still technically able to access a the banned content, at some point if you make the content hard enough to find its influence becomes increasingly irrelevant.
This new legislation basically gives the UK government an excuse to ban large sections of the internet from UK ISPs since they can say they weren't complying with UK law and shift the blame/responsibility in the eyes of the public – "it's not censorship, they're breaking the law!"
In doing this it will likely be enough to reduce UK traffic to those sites by 90%+. While it might technically be possible to buy and install a VPN to access them realistically most people won't bother.
This alternative approach is fine. When people use extra money to pay for such services, it boosts economic activity and creates a market-driven filter. If you are economically advanced, you can afford this workaround. If you are not, well you are surrendering to govt safety rules. And thus everything works.
They banned porn with choking in it. They banned toy advertising in the evening. They tried to ban client side encryption for iCloud. Make no mistake they will go for vpns too.
Funnily enough. They just need to claim it's "protecting the children" and people fall for it.
The funniest part is that high profile criminal cases go unpunished very visibly. Even if they have minors in their context, because the elite figures in question must be protected from the enforcement of rules.
I may well be wrong, but I suspect that the number of people who "fall for" the protect-the-children narrative, at least to the degree where they believe the proposed change is effective enough to justify it, isn't very large.
I'd argue it works because it's a rhetorical tactic that's highly effective at suppressing dissent. Anybody sticking their head above the parapet is going to get painted as somebody who favours pornography over the safety of children, even though this legislation and opposition to it has very little to do with either.
In my experience, people in real life do absolutely parrot the talking points that are deemed to be good (TM). Whether they do it out of fear or not, ends up being a moot point since they create an environment of apparent cohesion.
Banning porn depicting choking "to protect women from violence" is so funny. You could not ask for a better example of moral panic from people that didn't do their research. Choking is a strongly women preferred kink.
There's also a reported epidemic of women being choked during sex unprovoked, and who certainly don't want it. Unfortunately these laws are being made from things happening in the real world that get traction.
Is the law a good way to stop this? I don't know. The main tool of governance for our elected leaders are laws, and so that's what they do.
I have no reason to believe pornography caused that. If anything, I'm more quick to assume puritan values caused that.
We don't teach people about consent and sex. We tell them stupid things like "don't have sex, it's evil" and then send them off. And then stupid things ensue.
I mean, it's a sovereign state. The government can legislate for the sky to be purple if it wants to (though obviously that won't affect actual reality).
I don't care for the framing: users evading the law.
First, this is a law limiting the actions of service providers not users.
But by using a VPN, I'm making my own safety choices. I wish there was an easier opt-out (like an ISP account-level flag), but it I want to present to service providers as (eg) Swedish, so what? I'm an adult, the "safety" laws do nothing for my safety.
The truth is service providers and ISPs have done next to nothing to stop children signing up for (eg) Snapchat, despite a plethora of laws. Of course the parents are to blame, but fixing shitty parenting is hard.
The "VPN use surges in UK" articles are bought and paid for by the VPN industry.
I don't believe it is possible to convince me that VPN's as sold and marketed are anything but a massive scam. Yes, that includes the company that you say is honest.
What do you mean by "scam"? That you pay and that they don't work at all? That they don't bypass the geo restrictions? Because they do.
Perhaps you mean that they are bad value(ripoff vs scam)? Then sure, probably they are. But you're basically paying to not get flagged by cloudfare. Back in the day, you bought a cheap server from OVH or some other lowcost provider, stuck openvpn on it (nowdays wireguard) and you were golden. But now that Cloudfare middle-mans half the internet, it doesn't really work anymore.
You pay the VPN providers for "clean"(ish) IPs so you don't get stuck behind Cloudfare captcha-loops.
I use Veepn, free version. It works well and costs nothing. I doubt they are extra honest but I fail to see how they are scamming me. Their monetization seems to consist of nagging me to switch to the paid version approx weekly.
I went on a weekend vacation with three guys. I was asked what I thought a good VPN was. They all have VPNs on their phones apparently. Here I am thinking they are technologically adept, maybe a little bit security conscious. Or maybe misled by advertisements.
It wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.
They listen to podcasts and watch youtube. They know that a good VPN will stop their internet banking details being stolen, protect their family in their home and add 2-4 inches to their manhood.
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Until like a week ago there was no age checking system for porn and no reason to use a VPN really. Although your friends could have been into some very strange stuff.
Malicious actors are now harder to distinguish than legitimate actors, since they both will use VPNs. This is because in essence what VPNs are used for is always to evade the law, regardless of whether it is a law with high approval, like CASM, malware, spamming, drug trade; or laws with high approval for breaking them, like pornography age verification laws, or Intellectual Property laws on movies and music.
This is regardless of who is to blame for this issue, some will argue that it's the fault of those that break the laws with VPNs, some will argue that it's the fault of lawmakers for making stupid laws that deserve to be broken, muddying the waters. Undoubtedly, the third party, strong criminals, will make or amplify propaganda to legitimize breaking small laws, so that they can have legitimate alibies for breaking the law.
The next law will make it illegal to accept traffic from VPNs. They’re letting VPNs exist for now so people think they have a simple bypass. They’ll close that off as soon as the onerous laws pass.
It’s already done a bit voluntarily. Try to use a VPN and pay for something with a prepaid credit card. Try to make a Steam account. Etc.
Get ready for a verified ID that’s required to access anything online because that’s the end goal.
It'd make sense, VPNs are fraudulent in that they lie about the origin of a connection.
There's precedent in financial regulation, is it legal to send and receive wires to and from a swiss bank to conceal their russian or chinese or congolese or iraki origin?
Similarly in intl. trade it is illegal to hide the origin of imports, it is even illegal to reroute imports for the purpose of evading tariffs or compliance.
If y'all want to keep VPNs legal, I suggest you find better excuses than downloading porn and evading netflix restrictions, because the other side argues about infinitely higher stakes.
Doesn't seem to be paywalled here. It is behind a consent box with multiple “legitimate interest” lies (or “we see your preferences not to be commercially stalked, but fuck you and you poxy preference we want to anyway”), which archive.today works around nicely: https://archive.is/4QlDl
As is the next step: a slow but steady expansion of what's considered "unsafe" or "harmful" used to justify ever-increasing restrictions and censorship.
As a student of 1930s and 1940s history, I can say for sure that the most terrifying aspect of what took place wasn't the "Gestapo" and all the open terror, it was the propaganda that fooled so many people and the censorship that kept the lies alive. Humanity still has not fully come to terms with the layers upon layers of lies that took place before and during WWII.
I've posted this before: We shouldn't need Age Verification checks for adults in the first place.
Create a better, standardized, open-source parental control tool that is installed by default on all types of device that can connect to the web.
The internet aspect of the parental control should be a "Per Whitelist" system rather than Blacklisting. The parents should be the ones to decide which domains are Whitelisted for their kids, and government bodies could contribute with curated lists to help establish a base.
Yes, there would be some gray area sites like search engine image search, or social media sites like Twitter that can allow you to stumble into pornography, and that is why these devices that have the software turned ON, should send a token through the browser saying "Parental Control". It would be easier for websites to implement a blanket block of certain aspects of their site than expect them to implement whole ID checks systems and security to make sure that no leaks occur (look at the TEA app) like the UK is expecting everyone to do.
Also, I'm for teenagers (not little children) having access to pornography. I was once a teenager, every adult was, and we know that it's a natural thing to masturbate which includes the consumption of pornography for most in some way. Repressing their desires, their sexuality, and making this private aspect of their life difficult isn't the way. Yes, yes, there is nuance to it, (very hardcore/addiction/etc) but it should be up to the parents to decide with given tools if they trust their kid to consume such a thing.
As for the tool itself. Of course we have parental tools, but they can be pretty garbage, their all different, they're out of the way, and I understand that many people simply don't know how to operate them. That's why I believe that creating a standardized open-source project that multiple governments can directly contribute to and advertise for parents is the way, because at the end of the day, it should be up to the parents to decide these things, and for the government to facility that choice.
Obviously, besides the internet aspect, the tool should have all the bells and whistles that you'd expect from one, but that's not the topic.
And yes, some children would find a way, just like they're doing now for the currently implemented ID checks. It's not lost of me that VPNs with free plans suddenly exploded in 4 digits % worth of downloads. A lot of those are tiny people who are smart enough. Or using an app like a game to trick Facial Recognition software.
Also, I'd be remiss to not point out a very obvious fact. This, and I'm not just referring to the UK, isn't about children, it's not about terrorism, it's not about public safety. It's about control, it's about tracking, it's about documenting, it's about power over the masses. I know some people will hand wave this away, but we have been seeing a very obvious, very fast, rise of authoritarianism since COVID and later the war in Ukraine. It's not a new trend, but it is one that got accelerated at those stages and has been progressively getting worse world wide.
> Also, I'm for teenagers (not little children) having access to pornography.
I'm against: pornography, as found in search results, is generally quite bad. Sexism, racial stereotyping, misrepresentations of queer issues: and that's just the titles. Page 3 has nothing on porn sites.
Maybe I'm judging a book by its SEO spammers here, but I've not read anything that'd disabuse me of this notion: indeed, people raise concerns about unreasonable body image expectations, normalising extreme sex acts like choking without normalising enthusiastic consent practices, the sites allowing CSAM and "revenge porn" that they've already taken down to be re-uploaded…
That said, I routinely come across nudes / sexualised imagery on the Fediverse, and that's… not an issue? Sometimes I find it a bit squicky (which teaches me not to play lift-the-flap with clearly-marked content warnings – I don't know what I expected), but the only times I've seen something viscerally offensive has been people re-posting from porn aggregation sites. (I've blocked three or four accounts for that, and I don't see it any more.)
If porn sites had the kind of stuff that queer / disabled techies post on main on niche social media sites, then I'd be absolutely fine with teenagers accessing porn. As you say, a safe environment for adolescents to explore their sexuality is unequivocably a good thing. I just don't think commercial porn sites provide that.
This is what concerns me the most about the Online Safety Act. It's shutting down the aforementioned queer / disabled techies on their social media sites, and surely plenty of other pro-social sex communities I don't even know about, but it's not going to do a thing about the large aggregators that are the real problem. It in fact makes the whole problem worse.
There is certainly good and bad porn - in terms of quality, messaging, and ethics of production. The most successful and widespread porn falls on the bad side of all of these - partly because the industry is just historically broken, partly because good porn is more expensive to produce, but subject to all the same restrictions and costs as bad porn.
Your post reads like a parody of itself. If you're being genuine, I encourage you to step out of your attachment to your own views and meditate on what you said here, and what it looks like to an outside observer who does not share your views.
Perhaps you should try doing the same, instead of treating it as a parody why not step out of your attachment to your own voews and try to engage with it as a genuine statement?
There's never really a time I'm not attempting that, but sure.
I don't think children should have access to porn, because they should have access to decent sex education, and (most?) porn is extremely misrepresentative of reality. According to https://xkcd.com/598/, exposure to porn can affect people's sexual fetishes. I think it is bad for people to develop an interest in violent, dangerous, or asymmetrically-pleasurable sexual activities before they have have had a chance to… uh, however it is people would otherwise figure out what they're into.
It is better for people to learn about BDSM from actual practitioners (including the background context, such as… uh, safe words? and whatever a "scene" is) than from fictional characters. If the average person (or, heck, the average 16-year-old) attempts to act out a rape fantasy, without proper access to information about SSC / RACK / etc, how's that going to go?
This isn't really the sort of thing you can teach in schools. For one, children mature at different rates: some 15-year-olds are too young to even be thinking about that sort of thing, while others are having sex in secret while their parents pretend to be oblivious. (And some of us never start being interested in that sort of thing.) Teaching anything more than the basics (how reproductive biology works, contraceptives, STIs, respecting consent, enforcing consent, the risk profiles of various popular sex acts, "if you skip foreplay, you might need additional lubricant to avoid injury", "don't use condom solvent as a lubricant", "seriously, don't rape people") in compulsory education fails to respect children's autonomy and is wrong. (Schools don't teach those basics properly, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
I also do not trust schools to provide decent sex education, because there are even "good schools" that cover up peer-on-peer rape, and place the onus of "getting along" afterwards on the victim. How's an institution that does that supposed to teach a holistic notion of consent? (No environment with such a high child-to-adult ratio where the children aren't allowed to leave is ever going to be safe, but the reputational incentives lead to particularly bad outcomes when these things happen; we don't have strong enough cultural norms requiring that adults act responsibly when what "shouldn't happen" happens.)
For similar reasons, I think any policy based on the assumption that children are innocent little angels we must avoid corrupting, is dead on arrival and bound to fail. Children are young people, with all the autonomy that entails.
There's no particular difference, apart from power dynamics, between exposing a 17-year-old to sexual material they don't want to see, and exposing a 30-year-old to sexual material they don't want to see. Of course, we cannot generally ignore power dynamics, which is why age-based rules are useful; but age is a proxy for things like autonomy, capacity for choice, informedness of choice, and tendency for choice to be respected by others. A 17-year-old at risk of exploitation does not magically become less vulnerable on their 18th birthday. If the rules to protect teenagers from harm don't protect all teenagers, there's probably something fundamentally wrong with them. (Yes, yes, you can move the threshold to 20. Very clever. Way to miss the point.) Furthermore, if the rules don't protect all teenagers, they probably don't even protect all teenagers below the age of 18, because they're not addressing the problem close enough to its source / to the harm.
As should be apparent from my earlier post, I have very little personal experience with pornography. But I have spent a while thinking about this topic, and I'm not sure how this position is parodic. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
Maybe the social ills caused by porn will disappear with proper sex education; in that case, I might be inclined to support the prospect of children who choose to seek it out having the authority to access pornography. But my current understanding of the world suggests that a restriction is more beneficial than access. (It's only, what, four years to wait? During which time children can learn to deal with randiness in ways other than "fire up ye olde web browser" or "shag a friend".)
Computer-mediated ID verification, and the Online Safety Act in general, is obviously bad, and should be opposed. But, being obvious, that goes without saying. (Was that your objection: that I didn't clearly pick a side?)
“Queer/Disabled techies post porn that I think is good for kids, which is great because otherwise children would have to just use PornHub” is a GREAT ideology to viscerally radicalize the majority of people against you AND the people you’re speaking about.
I've changed my mind: this isn't very good feedback, because you had to misrepresent what I wrote in order to criticise it.
I said "if porn sites had the kind of stuff": your paraphrase adds an implication I vehemently disagree with. The impersonal nature of a website (or magazine, or whatever) is important. Children shouldn't be looking at porn on social media sites, because they should have neither social nor parasocial relationships with sex workers qua sex workers (lumping amateurs in with professionals, here): this is a (non-central) special case of "adults should not have sexual relationships with children". We can't ignore the power dynamics.
That's one of the things I think the OSA got right: if you read between the lines, each measure does seem to be motivated by an actual problem, some of which aren't obvious to non-experts like me. I'd love to get access to the NSPCC's recommendations for the OSA, before it got translated to this awful implementation: that'd make it much easier to try to design alternative, more effectual implementations.
Note also, the queer/disabled techies I mentioned? They take pains to ensure that minors do not interact with them in a sexual context: some of them explain why, and others make blanket prohibitions without explanation. It is generally understood that consent and boundaries are respected. And, from what I can tell looking at public social graphs, this works: nobody I know to be a child is interacting with nudes, risqué posts, erotica, or accounts dedicated to that purpose, even if they're otherwise quite close in the social graph. (Maybe I should do a study? But analysing people's social graphs without their consent doesn't feel ethical. Perhaps interviews would be a better approach.)
There is the occasional post from a child (youngest I've observed was 16) complaining about these policies, because they think they don't need protection. That they're complaining, rather than just bypassing the technical barriers (as everybody in my school knew how to do), is perhaps another indication that this approach works.
(I'm a degree separated from the communities that post sexy stuff online, so my observations may not be representative of what actually happens. I'm also seeing the situation after moderation, a few minutes delayed due to federation latency: I know that "remove the consequences of a child's foolishness from the public sphere as quickly as possible" is a priority in online moderation, so this selection bias might be quite heavy. Further research is needed.)
There's a difference between "good" and "not harmful". I would not encourage children to watch porn (if it came up in conversation, I'd dissuade them or change the subject); however, it's a fact that they do – to the point my peers did not believe me when I told them I didn't. There is such a thing as harm reduction, and there's a point past which "teaching children that their feelings are not harmful nor wrong" is more important than the veneer of propriety.
But, noted. That's excellent feedback.
To steal your wording from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44728577: if some children are going to seek out porn no matter what we do, better for the first thing they find not to be "content that demeans women and distorts their worldview on sex and relationships". If the Online Safety Act effectively prevented children from being exposed to that, then I would be ambivalent about it – but the law clearly won't achieve any of its stated goals. (I suspect bad porn is clearly-defined enough to prohibit directly, with cigarette-style prohibitions on making attractive to children sufficient for the respectful stuff, but I expect many people to call any ban "draconian".)
By the definition of every major nation in the world, which is that anyone under 18 is a minor, which is a child who should not be intentionally exposed to pornography. Kids shouldn’t grow up viewing content that demeans women and distorts their worldview on sex and relationships, much less having the trusted adults in their lives advocate for them to watch it!!
Very bold choice to argue the nuance of “But how do we define ‘child’?” in a discussion about showing pornography to kids, though!
I don’t think censorship of nearly any kind has any place on the internet, but neither do kids.
It’s a parent’s responsibility to keep their children away from that type of content, not to hand them access to it so they can develop maligned, destructive ideas about sex, intimacy, and women.
I see many are focusing on the aspect of VPN itself and not enough as to why this is occurring in UK in particular and we should expect it in countries like Canada, and other EU countries as well in the near future.
The fact of the matter is conservative movements are surging not only in UK, EU, US but in Asia as well (ex. Recent surprise seat gains by moderate right parties).
The reason there is a common reaction across borders is the decoupling from globalism which pushed the overton window so far left that its brought a yo-yo effect to the right.
Globalism isn't a conspiracy theory its real established and demonstrable political movement to dilute all cultures by attacking their national identity, heritage through mass immigration which ultimately leads to a low trust social dynamic via crime (proven by statistics) or incompatibility (belligerence against their host counry and refusal to integrate and pushing imported foreign culture and values).
It's no wonder that such reckless push to gaslight its own ethnic/religious incumbents have swung polls in the opposite direction, and in a desperate attempt to hold on to the power that globalism has given to those that preach it, ironically turn to fascist tactics such as censorship, criminalization of speech and increased surveillance that only emboldens more overton window shift to the right.
You kept calling people "far right" yesterday for slightest disagreements to progressive policies in order to censor and intimidate them and today you have huge number of people who no longer care for that label as they find safety in size and number.
At this rate, given the way things are going in UK and EU and many other countries, its going to manifest in extremely far right wing policies being normalized and coming to power as majority of the population becomes "far right" and the new normal center, and those that called themselves "liberal progressive left" will find themselves outside the Overton window.
We've probably seen these ebbs and flows in politics countless times throughout human history and I understand better as to why things like Bolsheviks, Nazis, Communists came to rise.
The demand to bypass political censorship and surveillance increasing in the West, the so called bastion of democracy and freedom, will backfire into wide scale civil unrest. We've already seen a preview of it in Spain recently, where a group of Moroccan migrant gangs have attacked locals and in turn locals fought back and burned down a large mosque.
I've been to UK, France and Ireland recently and there is deep deep resentment from the locals towards the Muslim and North African population, and it reminded me of my childhood growing up in Lebanon, witnessing the arrival of Muslim refugees, neighborhood demographics changing, ppl being jailed and labeled racist for complaining, then came civil war between the new majority group and the incumbents, political concession by virtue signaling equity and harmony which lead to even more corruption within those demographics that did not respect agreements and its ultimate demise today.
I cannot see a future without the same events unfolding in Lebanon playing out in UK. All it takes is one major event (for us in Lebanon, it was Muslim militant group attacking a church) to ignite the flame, and as you saw Torres, Spain it finally took an elderly Spain man being victim of attack by 3rd gen Moroccan youth to explode into violence.
Remigration unfortunately is the only way that can peacefully diffuse smoe of the tensions and to avoid the same fate as Lebanon but I can see this will be a difficult path especially innocent individuals of that demographic caught in the middle during this rapid Overton Window shift accelerated by an increasingly sophisticated users and dystopian surveillance apparatus....
I really think the whole human race's ability to exchange information freely is bigger than "porn addiction" bs. We do this over and over and it always ends the same stupid way--millions upon millions of deaths that were avoidable.
The application of that law has nothing to do with online safety. Soviet-style politics are very good at taking a law ("we need to protect children from suicide websites") to turn it into something completely different ("... so we need to censor footage of protesters outside of the Britannia hotel").
That is an incredibly neive view which has been proven wrong many times over.
Exposure to pornography early on in life dramatically increases the chance that person will be affected by things like sexual addiction, or gravitate towards extreme views in the same vein like incels.
Testosterone is a very powerful drug, and young brains need protecting from explicit content if we want to bring up mentally healthy males in our societies.
I must be honest with you, as far as I am pro net-neutrality, I can observe people using internet irresponsibly. As the internet stood up to allow sharing of science publications, now mostly shared is the pornographic type of content. When Tim Berners-Lee was thinking about people sending themselves a book he probably (we still may ask him) haven't predicted people sending boob/dick pics. As the content technical level lowers, amount of people sharing their stupidity increases. Meanwhile other irresponsible people give phones to their children (I am amongst them) hoping the children won't go into the bad places and trusting in freedom.
Currently my kids got already out of my hand, and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them. Internet became something else, so maybe I won't install a VPN to their phones and they won't be able to see the most horrible things anymore.
> now mostly shared is the pornographic type of content
What is your source? I believe you are incredibly biased. Netflix is one of the biggest user of bandwidth worldwide, and if we're talking about the percentage of "pornographic" IP packets, I think it's even less than the former.
> and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them
Parental control on device and DNS-level blocker (think AdGuard, PiHole, ...). Hosts file could also work as long as they're not admin on their PC. If they're skilled enough to circumvent all of that, then I think your kids will be fine.
I must admit the amount of pornography in different forms is now apparently everywhere on social media. Including social media I thought was "safe":
I see videos that I think are overtly sexual in nature on YouTube, even if the video is something supposedly "innocent". If you click through to their profiles there is an inevitable link to 18+ content most of the time. I am subscribed to only tech/film/gaming channels on youtube and this content is now always put into my feed. I probably have cursed myself by checking these people's profiles after the fact.
You are right though that by bandwidth, streaming services including Netflix make up the majority of data over the Internet and it is not pornographic/dangerous for children at all.
> I probably have cursed myself by checking these people's profiles after the fact
I think you really did. I don't watch much YouTube and don't use social media beside Instagram—which I mostly use for messaging friends and not exchanging photos—but I don't see a lot of erotic content on the mainstream platforms.
I wouldn't call it Erotic. It's hard to describe but you just know that it's somehow sexualised. I would think that somehow maybe I am a crazy prude but these profiles then do link to adult content (from their youtube via link aggregators, which is definitely not an 'adult content' platform). I think it's some form of cross platform advertising while skirting around the 'no adult content' rules of youtube.
You obviously have no experience with trying to block a modern teenager from the web. That will stop them for seconds, maybe minutes.
Im not for this bill at all, but I agree with what the government are saying about parents being unable to protect their children because the children know more about the systems than the parents do.
>When Tim Berners-Lee was thinking about people sending themselves a book he probably (we still may ask him) haven't predicted people sending boob/dick pics.
You are asking tech to solve people problems. That is a recipe for disaster.
We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's up to us to make sure it isn't. I think that's why people don't like it, it requires diligence and effort to keep things sane. Much easier to just allow children to view content they absolutely shouldn't then be politically active and make sure our laws are sensible and our representatives are held accountable.
I understand this could be abused, but it's up to us to make sure it isn't
Exactly, by protesting and fighting laws like this.
What exactly do you want people to "make sure of" with the law in place? If someone is concerned about this law, what specific action should they be taking in the name of "diligence"?
Having a law saying children shouldn't view pornography isn't abuse. It's common sense. Just like saying a 12 year old can't legally buy weed. Is that a slippery slope? Should 12 year olds be able to buy weed? If not, why is that not a slippery slope and this is?
What needs to be kept in check is the scope. Let's say they try to age restrict sites that are subversive, but not obscene. That's what I'm talking about.
Having a law saying children shouldn't view pornography isn't abuse.
"Children shouldn't view pornography" is fine as an overall goal. A law that suggest the content providers track the faces and passport details of all users is a ridiculous way to fail to prevent that however.
It is however a great way to have an readily accessible log of exactly which citizens are viewing content the government finds questionable.
With ISP data, the government already knows all the porn we're watching in great detail. Which brings up a better point, if you're worried about tracking, chop down the tree, don't pick off a leaf.
It's up to the people who WANT age verification to ensure that it can't be abused rather than up to US to prevent it from being abused after the fact.
Invoking the "slippery slope" fallacy when the country with the greatest military in the world is abusing public records to grab people off the street and out of court rooms is an interesting choice.
"We're passing a law that gives the porn provider industry a bunch of PII that could be abused, it's up to YOU to make sure porn provider's don't do anything unethical with that data."
How do you not follow the argument that there are problems with this?
1. Verify the ID without storing it in your system. Someone just looks at it.
2. Visually confirm that the photo on the ID matches the person entering the building.
Neither of these apply online.
Has everyone forgotten how kids operate? They’re not clueless. They’re going to realize that they don’t need to submit their ID. They just need to submit someone’s ID.
At first they’ll just use fake ID generators and submit those photos.
If that loophole gets closed somehow, a market will appear for buying ID verified accounts for trivial prices. People will create ID verified accounts and sell them cheap for side money. The only way around this is to start storing ID information for every account to make sure IDs aren’t used multiple times.
It’s one giant slippery slope of consequences for the adults forced to submit IDs, while the people who want to work around it do so trivially.
Right. Just like kids would hang out outside a 7-11 and ask someone older to buy them a Playboy. Or pay a homeless person to buy them beer. Should we remove the age limit on alcohol purchases because kids aren't clueless? That's not a rhetorical question. Should we remove all laws that can be abused? Your argument falls apart very quickly.
The Internet itself is the loophole in this analogy.
Minors shouldn't have unfettered + unsupervised access to the Internet, that's the solution.
The open Internet isn't a kid friendly place, isn't meant to be, and won't be no matter how many laws you pass.
Children grow up to become adults, and spend most of their lives as adults. It's important to weigh the lifetime cost of safety laws.
A child with unfettered access to the Internet at say 8 years (IMO, way too young should be 15+) is only protected for 10 years. Then goes on to spend ~60 years negatively impacted, fighting ever growing censorship and risking extortion/blackmail when data leaks. It just doesn't seem worth it in this case.
I'd much rather laws mandate special child-safe phones/laptops that could only access a subset of the Internet, rather than forcing every website/app to collect PII and inconsistently enforce age verification for all visitors for all time.
And all of this is besides the point anyway. Social media and cyberbullying are the real threats to minors online. Porn access isn't good, but it's not causing suicides and mental health crises left and right.
Your analogy needs modifying. If we remove the laws, a child could walk into the store and buy beer with their pocket money, no questions asked. This isn't the same as them browsing the internet no questions asked.
The child is not paying for their devices or internet access. Their parents are paying and providing the needed equipment. In a way, it's like giving keys to after hours access to the local mall, where all kinds of stores can be browsed including adult magazine stores, without any shopkeeper to apply the laws.
So one solution is don't give kids the keys. Or, since their online activity leaves a digital trail, even if they did have keys, there's a chance to moderate their activity via seeing what they have done rather than police where they might go.
So because a kid could go stand outside a store and ask someone to get them porn, we should not allow kids outside. We should not give them the "keys" to go to the outside world.
That's not an equivalent analogy. Freedom of movement, to stand outside a store, is a human right. It is not the same as "freedom to lurk around online spaces on Mummy's laptop and Daddy's internet account."
We should make spaces that are suitable for children (most of which should not be age-segregated spaces), we should tell them to stay in those spaces, and we should treat their en-masse disobedience as a policy failure.
Children are getting into debt on online gambling sites? Investigate. Suppose we find that half of children saw a betting ad and wanted to play, and a third just really like online poker: banning gambling ads and providing no-money online poker would be good interventions. "Remove computers from the public library" and "require ID verification to participate in pub bets" are not sensible interventions.
These laws aren't just about porn sites though. They affect sites like Wikipedia. [1]
You don't need to verify your age to enter a bookstore or a library.
And if you really want to control who can access porn then the only way to do that is with a whitelist filter on the device being used.
These laws are onerous without being effective.
I do think a standardized requirement for commercial websites to have content rating meta tags (like the existing content=adult and content=RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA) would be a good thing though, just to make more lenient filtering easier.
Read the actual guidance. They in no way require "send pictures of your official identity documents to every site".
There are a bunch of ways (some advisable, some not) where an existing entity that knows you are an adult can extend just that -- we know they are an adult.
Credit card providers know all their customers are adults, for example -- because you have to be an adult to enter into a credit agreement. And credit cards are insured.
Mobile phone companies in the UK block adult content by default and have done for some time; you have to unblock it by telling them you are an adult. But once you've done that, adult content can be verified quite trivially with an SMS.
And there are other methods still. For example a site with longstanding members is allowed to estimate the age of members based on how long they have used the same email address!
It's not a porn filter. It's a set of rules for companies to follow to identify adult users.
Is it the best law? No. But it's not the Texas law, that's for sure, and that law has survived a US Supreme Court challenge.
Sure, but if they don't already know they have to ask to see ID or try the video estimation stuff, right?
That's a lot more data leakage than some central authentication for it, and PII going to more places. And it's very optimistic to assume implementations will be good faith and secure.
I'm not sure I would call the USC a mark of quality right now anyway.
Maybe by the authorities, furthering policies already in place to deal with people who don't toe a certain line of thought.
Probably by people outside the law, who now have a fantastic system to relentlessly attack. A place to source identity information that can be used for almost any part of a criminal enterprise, from buying credit cards to selling new names to carry.
And when security of government systems fail, in a way where damage is irreversible like this case, it is... Rare... To see fair outcomes.
I know all the other comments are massively disagreeing, but I'm relieved to find I'm not completely alone.
It's not even that I think this is a good idea, but it does seem a fairly standard extension of existing laws. Potentially I'm missing something? Everyone else seems to be enraged by this.
Hmm, assuming you're not just being imflamatory, I definitely wouldn't identify as supporting authoritatianism. Perhaps that's not for me to say, we live in a world where environmental protesters are often labelleed authoritarian, and people who I'd have thought would identify as facists call themselves libertarian.
I think the bit that I don't understand yet, is:
- Most people are not arguing that all pornography should be accessible to all ages
- Most people seem horrified that online pornography isn't accessible to all ages
I think that the second point is a miscategorisation from me. Reading the rest of the comments, people seem more up in arms about the introduction of government tracking into a space where it previously wasn't (obviously commercial tracking already happens a lot in that space, but I don't think that justifies having even more).
I think I need to read some more on the implications of these kind of laws, I suppose I don't really understand too well what the relationship between government tracking and age checking is.
Not just being inflammatory, but most people who have a "if the government says they need to protect the children, I'm happy to give up a bunch of rights and privacy" reaction tend to be in the "ok with authoritarianism" group.
Also, we are up in arms about the introduction of government tracking is 1) it's not JUST government tracking, the age restricted sites will also get your PII and 2) most people get concerned when governments start getting involved in things regarded as private, like sex, porn, etc. 3) What will require verification is unclear "age restricted content" is pretty open.
I think the biggest difference compared to in-person ID checks is that I've never had to take a picture of my ID or face for an in-person check. Some bouncer or other person takes a quick look at my face and my ID, and that's the end of it. I don't have to wonder if there's a picture floating around forever of my face and ID, because none got taken. For such physical interactions, I'm thus less worried that all that information is getting stored in some database that's inevitably going up be leaked.
Honestly, if the way this worked was that you could head over to the Pornhub office and get unlocked access from the bouncer at the door, that would probably be preferable.
Yes, I think you're right. Some of these other comments seem to imply that age-verification would involve taking a photo of your face, giving your full name and having that stored permanently in a database.
I have no idea if that's true, but if it was, I'd be massively concerned about that (compared to non-phased about the general idea of age-verification)
Why don't we just require kids to price they're an adult before accessing the Internet then? The issue with these laws isn't the goal, but the implementation is fatally flawed. Do you think websites like Worldstar are going to implement age verification? Of course not, no foreign site will. Then the next step for a law like this must be censuring all of those sites across the country.
Who defines what should be censored? The law certainly doesn't; it's purposefully vague to give the most latitude possible to the implementers. There's already been cases with the new UK law where peaceful arrests were censored by the law due to "violence."
VPNs exist, proxy websites are easy to setup, and frankly parents need to take some ownership.
Two alternative laws that'd have been much better: a) Require ISPs to provide a child friendly Internet gateway that would blacklist large weather if the Internet without a login. And b) legally require websites to accurately describe the content on their page and it's age appropriateness in headers sent back to the user, so the ISP or end device can decide whether to age gate a website.
These are much better solutions, the burden on websites isn't so onerous (many small sites have already had to shutdown due to the burden of the UK law). Implementation is distributed, preventing a single state actor from having full control of a censorship machine. Parents are empowered to decide what content is okay for their children. And you don't have to upload your fucking ID to use the Internet.
People who support this crap need to stop believing politicians every time they say "think of the children!"
> and frankly parents need to take some ownership.
This. None of this is the state's job, it's 100% on the parents to educate themselves, their children, and be the responsible party for determining and controlling what their kids can or can't do with technology and the internet.
If the state feels like they need to do something, they would be better served providing education and tools to parents. Hell, for the really tech illiterate the state could just offer a managed MDM service that they could enroll their kids devices into if they really can't figure out parental controls themselves.
One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The more troubling thing about these laws is enforcement. The threat of fines only works against websites that map to a business entity. For anything else there will surely see a ramp up in the size of The Great British Firewall Ruleset, edited by the courts, and distributed to the Big N (5?) ISPs.
What will become of the smaller ISPs that refuse to block illegal sites?
They can, it’s just a lot more expensive than a $10 a month VPN. They’re typically metered and you pay by the byte.
Which sounds like a silly question ("of course the marketing is BS") but why even bother marketing if the core value proposition of your billed-monthly service doesn't work? Seems like a waste of money since you'll at most get people for one month when they cancel after realizing they can't watch Canadian Netflix from Florida, or whatever.
Yep, they are all lying to you, but with a wiggle room for a workaround or to point the blame at Netflix. Once you get in, you'll notice that Netflix, Prime Video, Steam, some of YouTube, and pretty much any legitimate service with geo-fencing not working. You then email support complaining that this is not working for you. The answer varies depending on the company. For example:
- Private Internet Access will try to up sell you for your own static IP. That hopefully remains undiscovered by Netflix et al for a bit. (Obviously you're trading anonymity and privacy aspects of a VPN if it's a static ip attached to you, but I don't think people trying to stream Netflix from Italy or where ever care about that)
- Mullvad will tell you: yeah that doesn't work. We never advertised that. Don't renew next month.
- Proton will keep asking you to try endpoints manually (each country has hundreds of endpoints and their app picks a random one. Just keep trying different ones manually. They might give your account access to some "new endpoints" (if they have them) that are not blocked yet. Hopefully once the refund period has passed, they will tell you "sorry we're having trouble with Netflix currently. we're working on it"
Some of them will suggest using "another streaming service??" because "Netflix is having issues in [INSERT_COUNTRY]"
There are alternatives like Hola VPN, a "free" peer to peer VPN except non-paying users have traffic routed through them. But performance of peer to peer VPNs are not as good.
The 1 month period is also usually priced much higher anways. E.g. PIA is currently $11.95/m for 1 month, $39.96 for 1 year, and $79.17 for 3.25 years (instead of half a year @ monthly). With a curve that steep it's obvious they have severe retention issues at short intervals.
Literally - in most of the world terms of service have no legal effect and violating them is not a crime - they are merely a declaration that the service provider feels bad if you do certain things, and if they feel bad they might decide to terminate your account.
Most of them prohibit running servers at home and using p2p apps. Has anyone here ever gotten their connection shut off for either of these?
And is_vpn(ip_address) is a service that's offered by a variety of vendors already.
Bot nets.
I mean, it’s more of a bot network really, but there is a massive amount of bandwidth there.
The UK instructs ISPs to block access to deliberately non-compliant sites, however users want to make connections to the sites and those sites want to receive connections to those users. VPNs will be effective in allowing access to non-compliant sites as long as ISPs can't identify the VPN traffic.
Of course, the British ISPs can initiate the tactics used by China to identify and block illegal traffic. However there are limits to this. Unlike Chinese users, British internet users regularly make connections to international servers so various bridging techniques are possible. Like VPNs, proxies or even Remote Desktop.
The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents.
Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of them using VPNs. But if there are no practical way to do this, I think the UK will have diplomatic issues enforcing anything to non UK companies breaking that laws - as they would need, eg. Germany, to help them enforcing the law on certain providers.
I don't think many people object to blacklisting known sources of child pornography etc.
The fact is you now have to verify your identity (name and photo id) in the UK to access an adult subreddit.
This is a red herring for authoritarian tyrants in the UK to get more control over their population, which is all they're ever looking for.
It's a stupid equilibrium.
The situation is the opposite for age verification laws. In this case, both porn sites and their customers have aligned interests. Both sides want to allow VPNs. Both sides want to abolish age verification laws, and if that is not possible, to circumvent them.
I would add that from my experience with the Gulf, at least, the ME has created one of the gayest places on Earth. The separation between genders has led to a disproportionate number of women and men semi-openly sleeping with their own gender in a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" way.
It feels like the "punish them for being gay" is used, like the poster below you mentions, as a way to turn the screws on you when they need something to use against you for another reason.
This is a ubiquitous tactic at the highest level of law enforcement.
If the vpn endpoint is in Rome or New York City, how will the UK government force that non-British vpn service and that non-British porn site to verify the age of anyone using it?
It's easy enough to get a list of IP addresses from those vpn services and just block them if you're Netflix, but to force compliance on anyone traversing the tunnel is another thing entirely. The UK government would have an easier time banning vpns outright.
These can be wildly effective at such matters. I'm sure most countries can come to some understanding with the UK on the matter; be that foreign aid, trade concessions, assistance with their own law enforcement, or perhaps acknowledgement/support on the international stage.
It's conceivable that a VPN provider could change the V6 IP on their server every hour for the rest of time and still get unique addresses.
If the VPN server only has an IPV6 address and no V4 address, can they connect to the target website?
The number of these systems scales in a reasonably tractable way — on the order of the number of ISPs and physical Internet infrastructure around which traffic needs to be routed.
As well as making aggregate routing possible you can use the ISP’s registration details see what location (or legal jurisdiction) a whole chunk of address space has. Hopping around IP addresses will give you unique ones every five minutes but they’ll all still be inside 2001:123::/32 from AS1234 aka Apathetic Onion’s Finest Habidashery and Internet Connections LLC, Delaware, USA.
The UK can't tell a company in Cyprus or Switzerland to do anything unless they're ready to tell the SAS to put their boots on.
It's up to service provider to implement such involved checks. Not sure about e.g. Netflix allocating resources to implementing this, clearly resulting in customer loss.
I expect service providers to cut corners to both comply with local laws and not frighten customers away.
I've found Tor is mostly useful for reading, not participating. Exit nodes get blocked from registering on most sites. One workaround is to register at a café or library then use the account over Tor, but sometimes even if you're being civil (see my comment history for a a pretty good picture of the style of discussions I have anonymously) sometimes you'll wake up to find the account nuked.
I mean, it's probably the case that traditional VPNs are also dragnets to some degree, but TOR is a confirmed NSA dragnet.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/onli...
All 3 like to crack down on free speech and monitor internet traffic for identical reasons though.
You can watch Youtube videos of citizens refusing to answer contentious questions quite easily. I believe William Spaniel has produced videos (relating to the Russian General Election) where he points this out, too.
UK government approval has surpassed 50% in a handful of polls in over 10 years, and approval peaks are typically immediately after elections before the government starts to implement its policies. The approval is currently 14%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-app...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...
Bear in mind that the person answering the poll still lives in an oppressive regime where wrongthink can get you killed. You spend your whole life training yourself to never say anything bad about the government in public. Would you be able to turn it off?
Also, there’s literally no free press in these countries. The government will get primarily positive coverage whatever they do! The current Labour government could only dream of such coverage!
So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform.
This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.
Which "free press" runs stories against Xi?
Where is the other half of the bell curve of public opinion that's critical of the CCP?
Yeah they have elections alright, you can vote for any Xi Jingping you want to.
(Also I agree with you, Russia is a capitalist dictatorship)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
There is democracy in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Just say, "I'm a tankie and I support Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
I personally see nothing wrong with this. The word "authoritarian" is virtually meaningless. And those local elections are paramount; Locally elected representatives end up electing MPs on the provincial level, then they chose MPs of the National People's Congress. The rest is common sense: just because we are used to "elect" pedophiles, racists and parasites doesn't mean all other countries should do the same.
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies.
However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party.
China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.
Regarding China, their leading party hasn't switched in 80 years, but their policies have and have plenty actually. Changing parties matters only a little bit in the grand scheme of things. I'd argue, for example, that Japan, that has been ruled by a single party for all of his modern existence, is still considered by many in the west as a functioning democracy.
Ah yes, I recall that famous incident where Keir Starmer had his political opponents thrown out of a window. Oh, wait: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_Russia-related_deat...
> Changing parties matters only a little bit in the grand scheme of things.
It's part of the package but clearly not all, as many organisations focused on improving democracy and governance will clearly point out.
> Japan, that has been ruled by a single party for all of his modern existence
Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Japan#Result_in_h...
---
In any case, I think all the replies have made my point for me that your dismissal of our rhetoric as based on "western arrogance" are simply nonsense. It's in fact you who's displayed a lack of understanding of those you argue against.
The only ones with a realistic view of what's happening are the sons of the CCP hierarchs, who are emigrating to Canada or Australia.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52187-political-favou...
"Keir Starmer falls to lowest net favourability rating on record"
"Labour’s popularity hit isn’t merely limited to Keir Starmer, with worst-ever net favourability scores also recorded this month by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner (-31) and home secretary Yvette Cooper (-25), while Rachel Reeves has equalled her -48 net favourability rating recorded in mid-April."
"65% of Britons dislike the Labour Party, the most in the eight years YouGov has been asking the question"
Seriously? You can't make this up: she represents the town that did nothing about a massive (and completely offline) child grooming and molestation network for years and she has the gall to say, "think of the children on the Internet"?
My current guess is that if things really went to hell with censorship and disjointedness, that we'd re-establish an ancient pattern - magazines. I recall as a child, my uncle would leave his "Big Blue Disks" around for perusing, and it was a magazine in the form of floppy disks, of various media - essays, games, primitive computer music.
The curation of these always struck me as a great favor. Perhaps not compatible with the current attention span, such a provision, in the absence of access, would, I believe, quickly become a surrogate for what we lost.
Of course, these magazines are editorialized, and so we're at the mercy of the editor's perspectives to discern the truth. I appreciate our current access to information, even in its weakening form.
But I suppose I'd prefer if we could not tinker more with censorship. I think I may be looking for a digital magazine in the next decade, or whatever else we can invent to replace our losses.
I've decided to deal with it by reevaluating the role of tech and Internet in my life. I certainly don't care about improvements to my residental Internet speed any more, or what the next wireless tech after 5G will be, or what protocols the IETF is working on, or net neutrality, because none of it matters to me any more. It's exciting what's going on with AI but it's all going to behemoths who will be able to tell the rest of us what we can and can't do with it. So... I don't care anymore. I can see myself honestly just not having a wired home Internet connection anymore in a few years and I would get rid of my cell phone if it wasn't necessary for day-to-day life. I don't need symmetric 1gbps fiber to stream the occasional show, text, and do normal-life things on apps.
But when you brought up magazines - it reminded me of that brief period of time of the late 80's/early 90's during the "multimedia" and "interactive" crazes; when BBSes were a thing--there were a lot of interesting CD-ROMs on diverse subjects.
I'm glad optical media hasn't completely died yet. Most new PCs don't come with one installed, but USB ones cheap and easy to find. PCs have come a long way since the early 90's. Fun fact, if your Android phone supports USB OTG I do believe a USB optical drive will totally work with it.
This genie is not going back in the bottle unless future generations will get fed up with all the safetyism propaganda at the core of internet censorship and unanimously vote against this.
I'm glad I was young enough to see and experience the uncensored and unrestricted version of the internet. God speed for the future generation being subject to this nonsense.
https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-onlin...
I’m not involved with X or with its chatbot. Is its chatbot ordinarily an authoritative source for facts about assumptions like this one, that the law “was used to take down” politically sensitive video?
It’s a bad look either way, but I feel like there are important differences between the law leading to overly conservative automated filtering, vs political actors using it deliberately in specific cases. Bad symptom either way, but different medicines, right?
You've misquoted the chatbot, which is a new one.
The video wasn't "taken down" and Grok never said that. It was blocked for some users in the UK due to the new authoritarian age verification laws which everyone should be concerned about if access to newsworthy content requires "papers please".
The initial government response can be read as “lol, no”.
[0] https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
Even wilder, they're lowering voting age to 16 [0]. So there would be a demographic group who can vote but cannot watch porn...?
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628ep4j5kno
If people want change, they'll need to find alternative avenues. (Like civil disobedience.)
Maybe this is the "Westminster Bubble" the journo's keep talking about. Whatever it is, MP's seem very reluctant to interact with their constituents unless they're campaigning for re-election. At that point they'll turn up on your door step in the middle of the day, expecting a half hour conversation.
How is a citizen meant to adovcate and voice their opinions when their representivies, and every candidate looking to replace them, refuses to engage?
This isn't really a specific question, or a critism on your point. It's just venting on my experience in recent years. Maybe someone else has had a more positive experience they'd be interested in sharing?
In any case, my sister used to work in an MP's office and even when you get auto replies they tally it, and weight it quite heavily as a representation of constituents' views (unless it's a template letter in which case it goes straight in the bin).
It definitely has more effect than signing a petition - most of them are super dumb (lower taxes!) and as far as I know not a single one has actually changed the government's position. It's just too easy to sign them and too many dumb people do it.
"I would like to thank all those who signed the petition."
Who "I" ?
I rent servers in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Tokyo, and many other places, and route tunnels among them all, and this is just mundane aboveboard stuff, many of the providers happily accept PayPal and crypto as well as CC and wire. I haven't even tried to design a system for evading this sort of thing, I can only imagine the ceiling is pretty high: QUIC and shit are increasingly the default.
I oppose this on principle, very much oppose it. I'm merely noting that until they're willing to start licensing the right to spend money abroad, they're going to have a tough time outlawing VPNs with any effect.
Maybe this pushes everyone to switch to Tor all at once: fucking with people's porno is a pretty quick way to move things around in the App Store ranking.
It would serve em right if this backfired massively by getting everyone to go cypherpunk by default.
My point is that it will cost them a lot of money in lost economic activity to make it happen: we should seek to make that cost as high as possible and make sure that powerful people understand how high it is.
This is terrible legislation, there is a petition that has reached 350k already to repeal it. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
Remember, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas already have similar laws in place in the US, so even a nation with better speech and gun laws is still not immune from the slow descent into technocracy.
They are already suppressing left-leaning speech by defunding CPB, and ahve openly said their reasons for doing so for are politically motivated.
There's a 0% chance this move gets struct down by SCOTUS.
If the 'political speech' is not adult in nature, which is true 99.9% of the time, then it can't/won't be blocked under this rule.
Unless of course this political speech is happening on a porn site, or a subreddit that has been deemed 18+. Which I can't see a legitimate reason for.
Yes, that sounds harsh and crude, but it's true. I've noticed it for decades. It's weird, it's not right, but it's how people react.
That's why a children's book with Mommy and Daddy is so mundane, so boring, so... nothing, that we don't even blink an eye. But Daddy and Daddy is different. Because of the implication.
Of course, only adults make the implication because they're nasty perverts. And they then project that perversion onto the innocent.
I mean, it's so fucked it's almost comical. We put babies in "ladies man" onesies and nobody cares. Do we not see how fucking weird that is? But suddenly we so much as acknowledge the existence of homosexuals and it's so risque.
Maybe they should stop doing that?
Maybe they should stop shoving it (their "business") down your throat?
I do not have a problem with homosexual people. I have a problem with them only if they invite me to their bedroom. It is none of my business, and please do not try to make it my business by force.
A lot of LGBT content is aimed at adults. I think we should always be clear when we are making statements like this because it causes great stress, a worked example:
People will claim that LGBT is under attack because this law potentially affects some LGBT spaces. These spaces will clearly be meant for 18+ audiences and so fall correctly under the law. Then other people see the first group of people, and from their point of view that group is complaining that their 18+ spaces are blocked from children. "Think of the children" drama ensues.
It is similar to Steam taking down incest/rape games and people claiming it was an action against LGBT creators. I don't think that's an argument that should ever be made for obvious reasons.
I don't think the government, even if it were under the Conservatives, have banning gay spaces on their current agenda.
I simply don't want to be forced to provide my ID / face to be able to read or access politically important news on social media. Some people would be happier if the bill was limited to only pornography: they likely don't think it has a major effect on UK politics.
Interesting, since when? I'm curious about how it's turned out in practise. For web services I mean. An for anyone hosting a message board or comment section.
The UK law is actually a good implementation if you put child 'safety' as your number one priority, with any other considerations as, in practise, moot.
Unfortunately I think free civil discourse between adults, privacy, etc. are just as important as child safety which makes the current law a bit crap.
This is similar to the video game and MasterCard/VISA issue - you can buy games that promote sexual violence and incest. Nothing stops children downloading them for free, or using their under-18s debit card from purchasing the non-free versions. In this instance it was private companies leveraging their freedom of association rather than an all encompassing law from a sovereign state, but the intent is the same.
As a collective society we do really need to come to grips with what it is that we want. Allowing kids to freely access gang torture/execution videos and playing pro-rape entertainment should probably be tackled. I'm not sure I agree with the implementations though.
I’m not sure what gun laws have to do with anything but guns are not unreasonably difficult to legally purchase in the UK or EU if you have a specific need for one. It’s a tool and treated as such
Also in an overpopulated world it's not a given that children should be protected if it comes at the expense of basic freedoms. We need to move away from this narrative that "think of the children" is a persuasive argument. Little Timmy needs to avoid danger or the ghost of Darwin will work his magic.
Interesting that decades of government leaves half the country to rot, and their solution is to try to stop that half from rioting about it, rather than - perhaps - making society fairer?
ID verification is such an invasive measure and prone to the exact same failures as the simplest solutions.
That would empower parents to keep their kids from accidentally or casually accessing porn. Of course, an intelligent and determined teenager will probably find a way around it, which is also good; then they've learned a bit about computers.
Grandma isn't likely to have an account on one of these sites (unless one of your cousins beat you to it).
Also, because desktops/different browsers are a thing?
I mean, i'd think primarily this. They may hold a significant marketshare, but they dont hold all of it.
I am old enough to remember when Apple proposed client side filtering and everyone absolutely lost their shit.
Sometimes I feel like both sides are actually just one side playing the long game. IMO the goal is to get verified digital IDs in use everywhere they can so they can lock down the internet to have absolute control. We'll end up paying inflated subscriptions for everything and watching all the ads.
These are the kinds of regulations that are deigned for incumbents because it becomes impossible for new market entrants to satisfy the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if big tech companies are silently lobbying for this kind of stuff behind closed doors.
With this solution, kids are far safer than under recent UK/EU age verification laws, while adults and their free, open & private internet remain unaffected.
On the NHS, I tried for years to push for improvements to switch to digital cancer screening invitations after they missed my mother (offering to build the software for free), which is now happening, but suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here. My sister who works in NHS DEI hasn't spoken to me since publishing a book on it.
Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it. Anecdotally, many of my friends have already left, some of the older generation want to leave but feel tied in. My flight out is in 6 weeks. Good riddance, no doubt.
> just mentioning increased immigration
One of these seems like the solution to the other.
> as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income
Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.
I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.
The UK has always been an empire in decline, but the wheels didn't come off until everyone became glued to feeds. It's Garbage In, Garbage Out. If your view of reality is driven by stuff that you see online, it's a distorted lens which then leads to distorted decision making that then leads to authoritarian creep.
Just my 2¢.
The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and Churchill(!) putting the UK military into austerity to save money, which is how it came to be that evacuating from Dunkirk involved a lot of civilian ships, amongst other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule
WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory. Not that Westminster collectively realised the nation's weakness until the Suez Crisis and the Wind of Change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_(speech)
I'm not sure the people of the UK have yet fully internalised this decline, given the things said and written during the Brexit process. Perhaps social media really did make it all worse, but it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson may or may not have taken an arrow to the eyeball.
This. The UK was a band of feudal kingdoms that somehow managed to create an overseas empire. The empire is now gone, and the feudal kingdom is struggling to transform itself into a modern nation.
I appreciate the proximity of the two sentences made it unclear, but the general population isn't what I'm critical of in this case. I briefly had an Iranian project manager, that nation is almost as high as you can get on the theocracy scale (IIRC it would be beaten by Afghanistan), but he absolutely was not and had tattoos of video game characters.
Also, I should say that the use of "theocracy" in the modern sense is somewhat looser than the historical, and therefore ask if we're actually disagreeing? Certainly I don't mean in the sense of the deification of the Pharaohs.
Re the rest:
Given my focus is the rulers and not the people, I think the Lords Spiritual remain relevant (the attempt to replace the HoL with an elected one being promised by the HoC in 1911, still waiting).
Likewise that the head of state is also the head of the national church and there being a religious requirement for being crowned monarch, and that there is no desire to reform away the monarchy as an institution, likewise the Establishment nature of the CoE, making this the only non-meta conversation I've ever had where I can legitimately use the longest (recognised, non-systematic) word in the English language by saying that the UK political system is one of antidisestablishmentarianism.
I don't think I'd count the coins, even though this is about the ruling classes who are much more likely than anyone else to speak Latin and thus recognise the abbreviation printed on them. "FID DEF" has an ironic history, but so does the much easier to read "In God We Trust" and I'm not (yet) going to describe the USA in this way.
Aside from all of that, there's also the requirement of schools that:
… - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worshi...Thatcher reversed the feeling by selling off the nation to rentiers and foreigners in the 80s, we rode that money in the 90s, and the wheels came off in 2008.
I don't know where you're getting this information, but it's in stark contrast to all of the statistics I've ever seen on the matter.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-...
Even Nigel Farage has called it a disaster.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-...
Here's some Farage quotes, so you can see that there is no contradiction between the comment you were replying to (him saying it was a disaster is compatible with all this) and him still being a leaver:
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-...The same thing is true in Sweden. People vote for the party that blames the immigrants and then goes on to rule with the liberal conservative part. They all know that during the time they claim is the downfall of Sweden, we have more than one third of state tax income and had the worst privatisation of schools worldwide, . Yet the problems with schools and healthcare is immigration.
Demagogues are what they are.
All of the currently-rich nations had a multi-generational baby boom*, long enough for their systems to assume and become dependent on that population growth.
* babies being the most extreme example of "influx of illiterate people, totally dependent on government handouts", though people only objected to them in the UK when I was a kid when it was single mothers producing them
Families started to have fewer kids, but the systems still presumed and needed more people to avoid stagnation. Japan chose stagnation instead of welcoming as many immigrants as it needed, and "the lost decade" became a plural: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades
> Healthcare and insurance, literally everything is pricing the middle class out of existence.
I assume from this that you're American? That's basically just America that has this problem. Healthcare and health insurance is fine in most other developed (and developing) nations, even e.g. here in Germany in those few years where it took on around a million asylum seekers.
• https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low
• https://ourworldindata.org/financing-healthcare
The school results are worse. Even here the claim is that it is the immigrants' fault. The privatisation of the school system in sweden has led to increased segregation of the school system. Private schools can be found in areas where they get "easy students". Yet they fail to deliver any better results than public schools. Which is amazingly dumb. The state pays private schools (they are open for anyone and have no tuition fees). The schools can then let less money go to tuition and more to the share holders/owners, while being able to claim that they are just as good as schools with all the tough students. By all measurements they should be much better. It is such an enormous failure.
And who do we blame? Immigrants.
And social mobility is going downwards. Not nearly as low in the US, but I want to think that we at least still believe in the value of hard work.
IMO, many of the UK politicians themselves don't realise how out of touch they are, both with the people and with the systematic reality of the world in which they exist. (Thinking back to David Davis on Brexit, saying they had a good idea what Czechoslovakia wanted from negotiations, despite it having ceased to exist in 1992).
Are you sure you replied to the right comment? Where have they claimed that?
my original comment
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-afte...
I see your point.
Every inch of our economy is now owned by some faceless fund. All serious capital generated in the country is extracted out into the pockets of fund managers and Californian pensioners.
We're screwed until we can stem the outflow. I always thought taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
> taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.
This would end very poorly because what the U.K. sorely needs is investment (to create new productive capacity). For example, Americans invested huge sums in North Sea oil and created an entire industry (before we destroyed it). Conversely, if you force people to keep wealth in the country then you just make things more expensive: they will bid up the price of property and the like. Nothing is added to the UK’s real economy by increasing the number of pounds flowing around in it - it’s only helpful if it’s invested. So what you actually want is tax breaks for foreign investment, but with some kind of ownership cap.
There's been enough in the way of tax breaks and "derisking". A huge part of the problem with our public finances is being on the hook for some very ill-advised "investments".
The money going out exceeds the money going in, because that's what an investment is. An opportunity to make money.
What the UK desperately needs is actual shareholder capital actually being invested into British companies, so that they can create new wealth. They are welcome to take a share of the wealth they create! Everybody wins!
What I see is every national asset, every successful company, and increasingly land and housing sold to (typically overseas) capital, with the proceeds sucked offshore.
Whether it's new housing in London, ARM, the water, the electricity, most products and most supermarkets: the beneficial owner is outside the country, being largely taxed outside the country, and spending their money outside the country.
We're discussing this in the context of a deeply dysfunctional Britain. If the "wealth creation" route were in any way effective, we'd be in a very different place right now. There's been concensus among pretty much every party in my lifetime around supporting "growth", "investment", number go up. It's clearly not working for most of us. Everyone but a select few in this country is living on the edge.
I personally see a major component of our malaise as the rentierism practiced by largely foreign interests throughout our economy. Alternative explanations are welcome, but it's hard to see how we'd be worse off without the vampire squid up each and every orifice.
> There's been consensus among pretty much every party in my lifetime around supporting "growth", "investment", number go up.
Yes most U.K. governments have talked about fine talk but other than Thatcher, failed to actually deliver on securing enough investment. It’s not that the investments are bad, it’s that they have been decreasing for 25 years:
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/boosting-productivity-w...
It’s funny that you mention ARM because it was created under Thatcher back when the U.K. was willing to start businesses. Yes it should never have been sold.
Capital controls. By the time they are applied it's always too little, too late, and they only ever apply to the plebs -- the wealthy always have ways to move money out (and back in, later -much later-, if it becomes necessary or advantageous). Always too little too late because -I suspect- capital controls don't really work -- not against the wealthy.
Even China with extreme capital controls and pervasive surveillance can't stop money leaving the country. Unless the UK was willing to go fully authoritarian and ban its citizens from spending money overseas, and ban crypto (and build all the internet firewall/DPI infrastructure that doing so would require), it wouldn't stand a chance. And attempting to do so would destroy the value of the pound, because nobody with any options would want to hold a currency that could only be spent in the UK.
In the 90s, it brought us some of the best economic times we will ever see.
So sure, lets rewrite history.
You should care about the economy. More money means jobs and prosperity. Less people dying in the streets and more tax revenue to help the helpless.
"in my country and the UK."
The UK has universal healthcare and it's been touted for years as the best answer to healthcare. What happened?
"libertarian fantasy of you being and island and accountable to nothing and no one but your own piddly, small notion of what moves you forwards."
I see. You are still bitter about Brexit.
America is a precise model for what the UK will look like if it shirks liberalization. Here in the US, we've lost almost all of our postwar industrial capacity. We can't ship cost-competitive smartphones or electric vehicles without importing parts from China. We can't mass-produce the things we consume or even export enough to keep out of a trade deficit. Our biggest exports are software services reviled the world over for being surveillance systems installed and moderated by America's government. Our businesses are no longer seen as stable blue-chip stocks, but moonshots and gambling opportunities.
If you actually knew the consequences of a financier economy then you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy.
Without money society is just doomed.
Could you elaborate? From over here the Netherlands seems almost a paradise of modern society.
We do suffer from many political parties not willing to cause short term pain to improve long term outcomes. There are a few urgent issues going on in politics at the moment. Stuff where a decision needs to be made now and action should be taken. But the political parties do not want to make those decisions because they would inflict short term pain to some voters but would also improve the long term quality of life and economics of the Netherlands.
The worst part is that those issues have been known for a long time, but decisions were postponed over and over again because politicians didn't want to make the decision. Making the issues worse and more urgent over time.
At the same time populism is clearly on the rise in the Netherlands. A famous thing happening in a debate before the previous elections was a populist saying "But this woman cannot wait for the costs to be decreased, she needs it now." about decreasing a specific part of healthcare costs for citizens. Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs.
So politicians LIED?! Color me shocked.
On average as a tourist, the Netherlands is straight up just a better version of Germany. However a friend of mine recently moved. She’s from India, moved to Germany and then fell in love with a Durch man she ultimately married. In the process of moving she of course also switched into the Dutch health care system and that I think is legit worse than the German one but I don’t know how much that might be a symptom of a greater issue in the Netherlands.
The difference is essentially that the Dutch health care system tries to be profitable which is nice but then results in procedures not being covered by health insurance that a German doctor would find essential. Specifically preventative care and child birth related stuff where very problematic for her.
But otherwise I think the Netherlands takes a very practical approach to society. Is it annoying for cars to navigate Dutch cities? Yes but also it’s the only country where you can basically always take a bicycle anywhere and be safe. Is 100km/h on the highway annoying? Yes but it’s also the most relaxing drive in heavy traffic I can imagine. I think in a quite literal sense, i think the Dutch are less conservative than we are. The way things were done matters less which results in people seeing the benefits of change much more. Like everything car related. Youd start a riot in germany just doing parking like the Dutch do.
There's a strong focus on streamlining and reducing "unnecessary" care (including a lot of preventative care that is accessible in other countries) but without doing that now the whole system will not be affordable in 20 - 30 years.
Is that the optimal approach? I'm not sure, taking a patient wishes into account and doing (some) preventative care does probably have a positive ROI. Having said that I can see both sides of the coin but as a younger person I'm glad they're taken future demands into account.
I only have to look as far as my own wallet to see the effects. I'm being taxed to the eyeballs while there is a glass ceiling preventing me taking any more pay home without a major jump which just isn't coming due to stupid tax rules keeping the working class from bumping into the middle class.
I see mine and my family's living standards drop only to be told by the news that I'm a likely target for more tax hikes, and there's just no room to tax me more while my bills have also gone up significantly, and something will have to give. If it gets to the point where I can't pay my bills despite being a "high earner" I'll have to start considering whether I leave with my family, and where to.
I'm not exactly the milky bar kid, but I imagine beyond my friends and family, I imagine the consensus would be very much the same, yet there goes two "successful" professionals and the children we were raising probably to be high earning professionals too.
I don't do social media, but I do keep on top of the news from all outlets, I try to look beyond the biases and form an opinion on a combination of sources.
I’m no longer eligible to have an opinion UK or local conversations. “how would you know”, “the city’s changed a lot since you left”, “why are people who chose to leave so interested in X”, statements specific to ex-pats.
For those from outside the UK, ex-pat (expatriate) as a singular term is almost always derogatory regardless of context or publisher.
If you don't like it you must be foreign; I'm not, I was born and raised in England to British parents. Nowhere did I say I was even planning to leave, I merely suggested that if things got worse I might have to consider it, and I was jumped on for that.
Things ARE getting worse, but I'm not at that point yet, maybe we'll have a miraculous turn around and our public services will improve and our economy will grow, I'm not even asking for it to be sunny for 3 months of the year, but if they don't, am I just supposed to sit here on a sinking ship with my children next to me?
And let's be real, it's not even about me at this point, it's about what is and what will be for my children, I've worked hard to give them a better life than I had as a kid, and I'll be damned if I don't do it.
That is not how marginal tax rates work. Each income band is taxed at the rate for that band. It’s why it’s called “marginal” - because the rate change happens at the margin between brackets.
You are taxed 0% on your first £12571. You are taxed 20% on your next £37669, or, £7359.80 on £50270 of income. If you then earned one more pound, or £50271, you would owe £0.40 (40%) on that one additional pound only, for a total of £7361.20. There is no income stage where earning more money has you taking home less.
If you go from £99,999 to £100,000 and have pre-school aged children, you lose £2000 in tax-free childcare per child. If you have 2 children, that extra penny cost you £4000, 3 children, £6000, you take home less, fact.
Combined with the 60% marginal rate, you now have to get to £110,000 just earn the same you did at £99,999 and then there's the side point that a couple can earn £99,999 each, or £198,999.98 and still benefit from it while any single parent who hits £100,000 loses it completely, so a single parent high earner loses out vs a couple. I'm not a single parent but that doesn't seem reasonable to me.
EDIT: and that person who hit £100,000 has the extra burden of having to file a tax return from now on simply because they hit an arbitrary number, and despite being on PAYE, though perhaps some people love doing tax returns, so not necessarily a negative point.
https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare
That's not where I would say the line between working class and middle class should be drawn.
there are several
there's one at around 50k (where child benefit is removed) and another at 100k (where childcare vouchers are removed)
Here’s an explanation of the figures:
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/money/article/high-i...
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/10/17/reform-income-tax-end-th...
Also, if you’re paying a decent amount in to your pension your effective salary is lowered and won’t hit that child benefit threshold until your salary exceeds £60k or more, and you still get to keep all of that money.
The real kicker is the 99,999->100,000 trap where you lose all tax free childcare care allowance, £2000 per year per child, it's assessed quarterly, and if you exceed it by a single penny, not only do you lose it, they also demand immediate repayment of all childcare allowance so far that year.
So this might or might not be in line with official guidance but I was exactly in this situation and I expected to earn around £99k last tax year then I was given an unexpected £4k bonus in my march salary, and I wasn't told about it until it was in my account already so it was too late to put it into pension. I asked HMRC about it and they said as long as I was being truthful at every quarterly questionnaire where they ask if you expect to make over £100k and I told them the situation changed as soon as I became aware of it I don't have to pay anything back for the free childcare hours. I asked my accountant and she said since I have it in writing it should be fine(but HMRC can always change their mind so who the hell knows).
Compare that to the insane situation of the benefit for carers where people are being asked to repay benefits going back years if they went over the threshold by a single pound - I imagine HMRC is being incentivieed to go after benefit takers more than other areas like childcare hours, for various more or less political reasons.
I take it you lost your allowance for the rest of the year due to the bonus?
Luckily for me the childcare tax people contacted me about it the first time it could have become an issue because I received a bonus at the start of a tax year, so I adjusted my pension contributions for the rest of the year lowering my take home. By this point though I'd already been taxed that marginal 60% thanks to the bonus being paid to me, like yourself without being notified.
knowing HMRC it's because they can't figure out how to work it out
at least without giving infosys/fujitsu a couple of hundred million quid
For example, if you pollute 99 ppm, then you're good. If you pollute 100 ppm, you're bad.
Because if they knew about the welfare policy before they started typing, they would've actually mentioned it then - it's a specific problem, with several obvious solutions (i.e. don't means test at all or taper off more gently) unrelated to the concept of tax brackets (and potentially not related to the actual bracket index values themselves.
Emotional phrases aside, what is your total NI + income tax deduction percentage, and what percentage do you think you should be paying?
They're well known an documented, but I'm sure you know that already.
Edit: Ah, there's a baseline personal deduction (12.5k) that disappears between 100-125k, meaning, for that narrow band, every dollar earned in that range has a higher effective tax rate due to that deduction slowly disappearing. It's still progressive, so you don't suddenly start paying 60% tax on everything.
https://www.brewin.co.uk/insights/earn-over-100k-beware-the-...
EDIT: it's interesting that anyone genuinely asking and trying to understand is getting downvoted as opposed to anyone who just disagrees with me.
I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.
Having it go away is less of a problem than having it go away all at once. If it was phased out over a range of incomes such that every marginal dollar of gross is still a marginal increase in net, that'd solve the problem mentioned in this thread. Key property of a tax system: the function from gross income to net income should always be monotonically increasing.
Nobody is expected not to use it if they earn below the point it is taken away, it's just an arbitrary tax on parents who earn 100,000, while at the same time a few other paper cuts are piled on.
I know Americans always do tax returns, sounds like a pita for you guys, and I believe until recently you had no choice but to use some sort of service and couldn't DIY it?
Here if you're PAYE (salaries), it's dealt with on your behalf, the tax is deducted before you're paid and you don't have to deal with it, unless you're self employed. It's not necessarily a huge issue, but it's a time cost and that has to have a price, and if you get it wrong, HMRC are notoriously hard and will demand full payment immediately, if you're lucky and they accept your "excuse" (their word), they might let you split it over 3 months.
At this point it's best to make sure you have £10,000+ in savings aside just in case.
I've not had to do a tax return yet, but I've frequently seen tax bills in the tens of thousands from family and friends because their accountant got it wrong, and holds no liability.
I don't think it's as big an issue for me people have taken from my original wording, that's fine, poor choice of words on my part perhaps, but it has certainly been blown out of proportion including some minor jabs at me and (incorrectly) at my political leanings etc. Despite this really all having nothing to do with politics or news and quite clearly as I pointed out at it's direct effect on my family finances.
As the saying goes here in England, "I'm sorry I mentioned it".
This seems to be me to be a weird framing. It's a tax benefit for parents that's taken away when you hit £100k. When you hit £100k you don't face an arbitrary tax, instead you're now playing by the same rules everyone else is. You're in parity with your child-less coworker. Not disadvantaged, just no longer advantaged.
The government has been clear they want you to work harder and earn more, they also want you to have children and raise future tax payers, if you do have children either your career and earnings take a hit or you need to put them in childcare, in that case I think all child care should be tax free, they're only in there so you can work and earn and pay tax. It's typical that your wages should increase with experience but you can't un-have children, perhaps you didn't even know you'd hit that threshold when you had them, or more likey that such a threshold even exists.
If we don't think of it like that, but simply that you're no longer advantaged as you put it, the issue is that it's sudden and affects unevenly, two parents can earn £99,999.99 EACH and still receive it, but a single parent or one person in a couple earns that extra penny they're now £2000/child worse off and still have to put their children in childcare.
Of course there's an option to have or not to have children, but I'd argue that the global consensus in countries with ageing populations, like the UK, is that the government want you to work more, and for longer and have more children, so it should be fair to say that from the government perspective, having children is the expected norm.
The income numbers are already there and if I want to check it's easy: my employer gives me a form with the same numbers in the same numbered boxes. I just need to specify how much income I had from bank interest.
The tax witholding system usually works as well - the main exception being straight after starting work for the first time or changing jobs, when you can have a temporary code. In these cases I just called HMRC and told them what was going on. The employer gives my pay numbers to HMRC and HMRC give my employer a tax code that determines how much to withhold each month.
Obviously very different if you're self employed or have income mostly from investments or properties, but the you have an accountant to do it for you.
We could imagine fixing the problem by making the childcare voucher phase out between 80k and 100k, and at 100.2k you'd get exactly the same amount as you get under the current system.
In this hypothetical would you still say taxed to the eyeballs? If so, what would your justification be?
With a progressive tax band, the burden is different, you're aware of it ahead of time and you set your living standards accordingly, you won't see a big sudden drop and can adjust accordingly. You can't suddenly sell your home or find a much higher paying job in the same space of time a small pay increase took you over the cliff.
For my generation, a professional that's having a family has probably focused on their career to get there, having there kids once they break some income threshold at a certain age, let's say it's 80k to fit with your numbers. You bought your home somewhere where those higher salaries are, paid a premium, higher SDLT on a small new build flat, you upsize when you have kids, buy a(n) (old) house, now overpriced due to property price jumps in the last few years, another chunk of SDLT, bills much higher, then you hit 100k as your costs have gone up significantly, that might be manageable, but you've just lost 2k per child to the tax credit trap, then the next 10k breaks even, after that you're taxed at 60% while your salary can't/won't be able to increase enough to offset that additional tax burden and your living standards have materially dropped because you got a pay rise.
I suppose the nuance I'm trying to convey is one of timing compounded by cliffs in the tax system that wouldn't become the sudden problem they are if the tax system wasn't set up the way it is.
One could argue that you could have known this, but I don't believe anyone would be seriously aware of the pitfalls until they have kids or hit a salary where you're going to be hit with a big step in tax burden.
Sure it won't affect everyone the same, but if you happen to meet those specific criteria with that specific timing, it can certainly feel like being "taxed to the eyeballs" even if that isn't the best way to put it. I'm far from the only person in that position, it's just the natural progression for some.
I hope that explains my position a bit better. I wasn't trying to say "I pay too much tax as a percentage of my income", in fact I DON'T think that, but I and others I've spoken to in this situation believe it's a tax-based ceiling on our progression and is a tax-based contribution to the growing wealth devide pushing anyone down that attempts to break into the middle class, which as a whole just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer; no I'm not putting myself in those brackets before someone jumps on me, but pushing the middle down makes the rich richer and the poor poorer (sorry slight tangent at the end there).
https://thesalarysphere.com/blog/average-salary-uk/
Owning a home, having significant savings, holidays abroad at least once a year, sending your children to private school, etc are probably some things I'd consider markers of being in the lower middle class.
On that basis, homes are becoming harder to own, savings are being eaten up by higher cost of living, the pound is weakening and taxes are making it untenable to send your children to private school.
Maybe my idea of what being middle class is is wrong, but it can't be far off, and that's exactly the group of people who aren't going to go much further beyond that to whatever comes at the next stage, I don't know what living standards look like for people above that; multiple properties, significant portfolios, not working for a living?
If my perspective if off, I'm willing to hear it.
You come across as out of touch and entitled. You live in the future - enjoy it!
I suspect it's nowhere near the 95th percentile of earned wealth.
If the income of everybody above the 80th percentile dropped to be equal to the 81st percentile, the 80th percentile income wouldn't change the ones above would just be very closely bunched.
(Last time I checked the opposite was true and they got more spread out)
Perhaps it was a problem with my wording but your statement about the daily mail suggests you've entirely misunderstood me, but to be specific I'm generally left leaning and prefer broadsheets, though I currently mostly use aggregators to combine sources to find where the facts are as opposed to "cliche talking points".
I thought I was clear when I said that the effect on my wallet is where my opinion is formed, but it seems you might have missed that.
I have no problem with paying more tax as a higher earner, but I don't agree with a tax system that literally prevents me from earning a penny more and would even have me earn less unless I can find a significant jump.
You clearly have a different view on this but the facts of what I see right in front of me have little to do with talking points and consensus and everything, right now, to do with tax or the tax system.
I'm taxed too much on every penny I've earned over over £99,999 and way too much because of the privilege of having pre-school aged children, that's my opinion, agree or not.
Look at salary sacrifice. This give you the option of buying childcare vouchers before tax. So taking you below the 100,000. Otherwise pay more into pension and drop below the 100,000 threshold.
Not tax advice, not financial advice...
I wasn't aware of this, I'll take a look and see if it applies thanks.
The pension route is the way I've gone to deal with it, but it doesn't fix the issue of "my bills are going up while my income can't". I'm sure retired me will be glad for it if it makes it that far, and we don't somehow end up being taxed to the hilt on _that_ too when we eventually get there.
EDIT: does > doesn't
He keeps on top of the news from all outlets, and tries to look beyond the biases and form an opinion on a combination of sources.
It is funny you say these are well known and documented, yet provide no links or sources.
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare
For other readers who don't want to go through that:
Say you earn £99,999 and get a pay rise to £100,000 and have two pre-school aged children, you lose £4000 (£2000 per child) per year, so you now earn less.
Now for the next ~£25,140 you earn you'll pay an effective tax rate of 60%, so from £99,999 you first have to hit ~£110,000 to break even, then it's ~60% tax up to £125,140, then beyond that it's 45%.
That said, I agree that is pretty stupid.
The only connection to marginal tax rates is that the pay bands line up though?
And you wouldn't be receiving it at all if you didn't have children.
Like I would choose to not means test such a policy were in charge, but it's also got nothing to do with marginal tax rates - it's why liberals like me generally oppose means tested welfare policies (because it costs more to deliver and tends to deliver less).
You also don't have childcare costs once they go to school, so the loss of that outgoing makes up for the loss of the tax credit.
I'm also liberal, and I think that everyone should be given the child tax credit, if the government wants you to work, and earn, and have children (it does), the tax credit is an effective way to help everyone work harder and earn more.
The issue I've been trying to describe, is that after you've already had children, and you then hit 100k, you lose it entirely, making you 2k per child worse off, so let's say you get to 100k, and you already have two children in childcare, you lose 4k, then you get a pay rise to 110k, with the loss of the 4k and at the same time you also hit a marginal tax rate of 60%, you now earn exactly the same as you did at 100k.
If you got a with-inflation pay rise every year from 100k onward, you'd be earning less for almost all of that time until those children go to school.
Lowering the higher band threshold to 100k from 125k and not tapering the personal allowance would actually leave you better off.
EDIT: Typo in my numbers (100k > 110k).
On the part from 0 to 1000, no taxes
1001 to 10000, ten percent
10001 to 20000, twenty percent
20000 to 30000, thirty percent
30001 and more, forty percent
So if you were earning 29000 and get a raise to 31000 those 29000 are still taxed as they used to and the extra 2000 are split among the two bands around 30k.
The truth is I don't know the exact numbers but it's not relevant to my point, as I've tried to point out elsewhere.
Now despite your previous admission, you are here telling me that you did answer it and I just didn't like the answer. The question has revealed more about you and your motives than we could have ever imagined.
If the per capita spending is exceeding per capita taxation, increased immigration does not solve the problem. More people requires more spending.
> The UK has always been an empire in decline
I find this fatalistic attitude to be very unhelpful in determining good policy decisions. If you start with the assumption that the empire is in decline then it doesn’t seem as bad to add policies that contribute to decline, as long as you get some short-term win out of it.
There have been a number of public scandals regarding immigrant crimes, along with subsequent anti-immigrant riots started via social media and people being sent to jail for internet posts. Social media seems to be more of accelerant for social unrest than than the cause. For me (an outsider) observing the situation, it seems to be mainly caused by immigration.
News coverage of child grooming convictions in the month of their conviction was dominated by a different group of scumbags who were convicted of similar crimes up to a decade earlier though, which underlines my point about obsessions quite neatly
With no intention of downplaying the particular scandal that you're referencing, I don't think this is correct. Victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church are also usually estimated to range in the thousands, particularly e.g. in Germany
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse...
Implying that the recently -convicted gang who spent several years hosting "rape nights" targeting minors in Glasgow I've linked to was somehow less depraved than people of Pakistani descent doing the same thing in Rochdale years earlier because they weren't members of an ethnic minority does kind of underline my point.
Your second point is a hallucination on your part. Nobody is saying it's bad because they're minorities. We're saying it's especially bad because the government was implicated - they very people charged with keeping children safe sacrificed them for political reasons, by the thousands, for years, and still are. That, combined with the scale of crimes by the Pakistani and other rapists and the acceptance these crimes received in their community, form a different type of crime - a massive crime committed by authorities and a whole community over years. That's what's so especially horrifying.
You're literally doing what you're accusing me of "hallucinating" yourself, bracketing a group of crimes by the ethnicity of the perpetrators, and ignoring white British people doing exactly the same thing and also getting away with it for years, and pinning the blame on the crimes committed by ethnic minorities specifically on the "entire community"; Somehow the Glaswegian associates and neighbours of the "Beastie House" aren't tarred with the same brush, and according to the person I was replying to even the perpetrators aren't as depraved. Police and social services (not generally considered part of "the government") failed to put a stop to grooming gangs for a wide variety of reasons; yes, in the case of Rochdale specifically where there were a number of warnings that shouldn't have been ignored that made it warrant a public enquiry and elevated news coverage. Needless to say social media coverage driven by agendas tended to skip the more robustly established findings that police repeatedly didn't take victim reports seriously out of assumptions about the behaviour of working class girls staying out late at night and often failed in fulfilling basic child protection protocols in favour of the "politicians covered it up and still are" angle. Back in reality, we've had a lot of convictions, multiple public inquires and people from all political parties talk more about them than most other sex crimes put together (even including Jimmy Savile)
In any case, the wider discussion was whether the UK's current ailments and political schisms are "mainly caused by immigration", and its quite hard to logically connect even the immigration-driven controversies like Brexit, "caps on migrant numbers" and fixation on small boat crossings to crimes committed by gangs of mostly second generation British Pakistanis, mostly in the early 2000s.
>Somehow the Glaswegian associates and neighbours of the "Beastie House" aren't tarred with the same brush
Because this is an isolated incident, not something happening at a mass scale in that community.
You are helping mass rape continue by trying to minimize it; you are part of the problem here, right here, right now. Your kinds of thoughts and words are the support that those ongoing mass gang rape of children requires to continue. Hope you're proud of yourself; at least nobody can call you racist.
>crimes committed by gangs of mostly second generation British Pakistanis
It's hard to connect immigration to crimes by committed by ethnic immigrant gangs? Dear lord.
Look up the stats on sex crime convictions per capita by immigrant origin in various European countries.
Although at police level, it came out yesterday that multiple officers in Rotherham were under investigation for sexually exploiting the victims themselves. Which would sound a much more likely reason why victims were ignored until they became part of wider investigations than some high-level conspiracy to empower taxi drivers to rape. I'm quite comfortable in being able to declare this is a major scandal without having to wait for the ethnicity of the police officers to be identified to decide whether it was an isolated incident or the fault of the entire community.
Only one of us is implying that some gang rape perpetrators and groomers are less of a big deal than others; it isn't me. Whether that is your intention or not, it certainly isn't helping victims get the support they needed or crimes get solved.
> It's hard to connect immigration to crimes by committed by ethnic immigrant gangs? Dear lord.
I mean, yeah, it's super hard to connect immigration routes that British Pakistanis and their ancestors didn't use at any point to crimes some of them committed.
> Look up the stats on sex crime convictions per capita by immigrant origin in various European countries.
We've got stats for sex crimes per capita for the actual UK, for convictions and for reports and for those targeting minors specifically. They certainly don't support your argument that white Britons' sex crimes against kids are "isolated incidents". Statistically, they're actually slightly overrepresented on a per capita basis, and that's after decades of large investigations into specific crimes committed in specific communities.
Yeah they were: https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/operation-stovewood-seven-me...
You're pointing to another rape case(ironic there's so many of them) but the other one was the OG that exposed the British government being involved in the cover up of migrant crimes to not seem racist, where the British citizens talking about the Muslim rape gangs were the ones being persecuted instead of the gangs themselves.
You can't make this shit up. It was a betrayal of the British people of epic proportions, whose trust in their leader was lost forever, because if they're willing to sweep that under the rug to protect their image, what else have they been covering up. Then the post office workers comes up.
The other factor is that everyone now knows how powerful social media can be. Remember when we had positive movements like Occupy Wallstreet, the Arab Spring and Anonymous Hacktivism all facilitated by social media? That doesn't happen anymore. Small things like getting traction for a petition still work, but anything that questions existing structures has no chance of succeeding anymore. Instead social media is overrun by bots that simulate broad consensus on many issues
And that’s without putting things like dating apps, advertisements and privacy violations in the mix.
A common thread is that when people complain about too much media consumption, they’re always talking about other people consuming other media. Few people believe their own consumption to be a societal level problem. Almost nobody believes that their sources of media are the bad ones. It’s always about other sources that other people are consuming.
This is why age verification has the most support of these topics: Adults see it as targeted specifically at a group that isn’t them (young people) whose media they dislike the most.
Technology is advancing much faster than humans can biologically evolve and very few people seem ready to seriously tinker with the human genome to keep pace.
Perhaps "the feeds" are just the inflection point where the information overload becomes obvious and baseline humans actually need a majority baseline human experience with all of the associated problems in order to prosper?
People also complained about literacy rates and the printing press, but how would we have been better off without any of these things so far?
Maybe whatever X newest way to communicate is bad, but when the only evidence against it is the same old arguments that failed to hold up to scrutiny over and over again, I see no reason to give it any more prudence than someone claiming carbonated beverages have caused all out problems. There needs to be compelling evidence beyond people complaining about the collective woes of society that have a cacophony of sources and contributing factors.
To me, different and new communication methods only bring a spot light on issues that we already had. Having a town crier instead of a newspaper, radio, or TV isn't going to make me better informed or less likely to have my information manipulated against me. Sure, it limits the number of sources of information, but that doesn't curate the sources of that information any better when I have no control over them.
But social media is different. For most forms of media, TV, movies, books, radio etc. You had some degree of agency and choice over what you consumed. You couldn't set what a channel or station was playing, but you could change the channel.
You don't choose what you see on social media. You see what an algorithm thinks is most likely to keep you hooked / going.
Our brains only know what's real based on what's in front of it. You can acknowledge something is rage bait, but as you process it, you will still feel some degree of anger / discomfort. You can acknowledge that something is a cherry picked example, designed to tug the sensibilities of users, but it will still tug on your sensitivities.
And so sure enough, as you keep getting rage baited, concern trolled into algorithmic oblivion, it changes your gestalt. Your worldview shifts to one where those are data points, and it starts distorting your perception of reality.
Garbage In. Garbage Out.
Other people have said that it's like electricity consumption. No. This is very much like tobacco. I don't use social media. Even though I get paid to post to it.
However the uncomfortable truth is that many people enjoy what they see in social media, just like they enjoyed the manufactured bait of Jerry Springer and Jeremy Kyle on TV.
I wish this were the case so badly... it seems to be more the opposite with many companies doing RTO now.
The only successful professional white men I know and have known for the last 10 years are self employed...and even that is under attack. If you want a permanent job as a white man in the UK, your hope of career progress is minimal at best. You will only be promoted if there is no other option.
There is so much home grown talent in the UK going to waste in the name of modern ideology.
Its creating a kind of apathy towards work for a lot of people. Especially those now reaching their 40s. There are loads and loads of professionals with 20 years under their belts that have seen nothing but stagnant wages and slow / non-existant career progression.
The sad thing is, all of this hard line "white and male is stale" rubbish hasn't changed the balance in terms of wealth distribution...you can still he financially successful as a white man in the UK, just not through permanent work and definitely not working for British businesses.
Ive seen it first hand, I spent ages pitching a business idea and prototype to raise some funding. Not a sausage. As soon as I had a couple of black ladies involved (great lovely women, but far from the top of their game) money fell put of the sky. They didn't even have to deliver high quality pitches.
What is equally as sad is these two ladies don't want to be given hand outs based on their race. They struggle to work out whether what they're trying to do actually has value or whether they're just being given money because they're black and female. It messes with their heads as well.
Humans are not fungible cogs
Sorry to say, gizajob, you would make a terrible dictator.
Social media is a forum for people to complain about the problems they face, if you don’t like that the solution is not to censor the messenger but to fix the problems.
As someone who grew up in the UK I can tell you that the elitist mindset of the UK is a huge part of their problem: only the elite are capable sophisticated right-think, all others are wrong-thinking simpletons and must be silenced for their own safety. The BBC is a huge part of the problem as it is inevitably pro-government but trades off a strong image of neutrality, to the extent that it regularly misleads the public and they lap it up.
IMHO, there's nothing authoritarian about either editors or social media. It only becomes authoritarian when they intentionally align with a central political authority.
I don't support censorship. But increasing the accuracy of the information most people are getting is a difficult problem to solve.
Absolutely. It's not the only problem, but it is a serious and deep problem.
Contrary to your statement, the UK is a center of education, innovation, and still a major player in finance. The current malaise infects the West and is much more than “brexit” or “colonial hangovers”.
I don't know anyone that doesn't complain about the state of the NHS. The only time I've heard anyone defending it would be when compared to countries without national healthcare (e.g. America).
Granted I'm in tech so that's steady employment with benefits, but there you go.
The irony of you replying like this to a comment that replied to an American is stark, as unlike in the US, in the UK the care you get if you opt to go without private care is very viable, and private insurance costs far less than in the US.
If anyone should be upset over paying twice, it should be Americans.
I imagine medicaid funding is directly tied to the enrollment count so they are very aggressive about getting people on it. Granted it was trash insurance and most specialists wouldn't take it, but it covered basic care fully.
Yes, after paying approximately $70,000 per year in premiums, I still have to pay a couple thousand dollars for routine, non-emergency, common healthcare procedures.
Technology wise, I think we have the greatest healthcare system in the world. Finance wise, it feels like the worst parts of Cyberpunk 2077.
There are policies that are wildly popular. Free public healthcare is one of such policies in many countries, and perhaps for a good reason.
In real terms the budget is the largest it's ever been, it's a relic of the time when people worked and died shortly (a decade) after retiring, not when they live for 30+ years longer.
Which it needs to be given the demographic changes you note. It's about 15% smaller per capita than comparable countries spend. That would suggest that we need to increase the budget if we want comparable service.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?locat... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?end=2...
To bring it to a comparable level to similarly wealthy countries would take an increase in funding of 20%-30%.
A lot of that money has gone on stealth privatisation through inefficient outsourcing of contract staff and PFI of infrastructure.
So the actual standard of care is far lower than the funding suggests. And it has been deliberately run down so a US-style system can be implemented.
So yes, the organisation should be improved, but in the exact opposite direction to the one you're suggesting.
The UK's real problem is that it's run by an out-of-touch inbred aristocracy with vast inherited wealth, working through a political system which prioritises stealth corruption over public service.
They don't see why they should contribute anything to the welfare of the peasants. The obligation is all one way - from the peasants to the gentry.
And there's a layer of middle class professionals who have convinced themselves they're the gentry, even though they can't afford to pay their school fees, never mind maintain a huge estate.
So - private ownership good, public spending bad. More sensible countries don't have this attitude problem, and are proud their public services actually benefit the public.
So public/NHS vs private/US system is a false dichotomy, and "free at the point of use" is a red herring.
Looking at the reactions, this whole threads does exemplifies what the OP said about the NHS being a "religion".
In addition, I'd say most of this thread is a bunch of people debating what issues there are with the NHS (I don't see anyone claiming there aren't any) with some people for it, and some against it.
A fair few people believe that it is the duty of the state to care for individuals, and that one right that people have is free access to healthcare.
If someone expresses that viewpoint I don't think it's fair to say that they're being religious or dogmatic about it, just like it wouldn't be fair for people to argue that your view (which I assume is for a more privatised healthcare system) is religious or dogmatic, it's a simple disagreement.
One nice perk though is that [private, corporate] jobs offer cushy health insurance as part of the deal as standard really so you can go and see one of the many private doctors in their offices at your choice and leisure.
These ca. 200 trusts operate with a great degree of operational independence, though they are public entties.
The distinction is important because they are what makes the scale manageable, and it also provides resilience.
Though it also leads to inconsistency and the "postcode lottery" problem where the quality of treatment a patient receives for a specific condition can be extremely variable depending on where they live.
But it's better to have management failings contained to individual trusts, that are monitored, than to have these failing affect the system as a whole. Not least because it does allow patients going elsewhere as a last resorts.
> because if you're employed there is additionnal and mandatory healthcare
Yes, if you are employed in the private sector there is now mandatory additional private health insurance to cover what public healthcare does not.
Healthcare isn't free at the point of use in any case. Things may be automatically paid/reimbursed as the case may be. Private sector is much more involved than in the UK, too, starting from GPs who are all private practices.
The point is that it's not because you have to pay at point of use or because things are more private that you end up like in the US. This is an FUD argument against change.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads...
That's quite different from a private practice (like a solicitor here) that you pay directly and/or that seeks payment from health insurance.
There is also a lack of a respected teaching class. With the changes to universities and schools, there is no longer any respect for those with an education and able to teach.
Costa Rica has an affordable all inclusive public health care system (Caja). But you can also pay for extra for private healthcare. Is it the same in the UK?
In canada we’re in a phase where this is just starting. Private clinics (e.g. telus health) have started to pull doctors out of the public system and put them behind subscription paywalls. We’re still paying the majority of their salary, but they can only be accessed if you pay their private overlords a monthly fee.
Yes
That I could have multiple negative NHS experiences relating to missed cancer diagnoses of friends in that relatively short span of time is suggestive of a real problem. The institution seemed to have less of an issue with elder care (in the US, the phantom menace posed by Obamacare or any governmental involvement in healthcare was meant to be "death panels" deciding the fate of grandparents) than with avoiding at all costs detecting potential long-term problems in the young. It's a 'rational' fear in the sense, as you note, that such cases put tremendous pressure on services, but there's no world where the best health outcome is refusing to screen your working age population.
That's really not my experience. In fact, almost everyone is surprised when I suggest that despite its many problems, the NHS does better for the people than most modern countries' health systems.
No one I know who has lived in France or Germany or any developed country other than the US thinks the NHS is better than the systems in those countries.
There are times I opt for private services for speed, because I can afford to, but I could also afford private health insurance (which is cheap in the UK), and haven't felt the need to.
That said, dental is a weak spot of the NHS, with too few dentists offering NHS services, and there's a perceived quality difference in that the NHS treatments have fee caps that mean they will often not include the best aesthetic options. For dental I do tend to go private (but dental for adults is also excluded in quite a few other "universal" healthcare systems - like Norway; don't know about Spain)
> There are times I opt for private services for speed
I'm guessing the NHS, being public, comes with long waiting lists. So it's more about speed than quality of service? I'd assume most doctors with 20–30 years of experience are working in the private sector, right?
New Years Eve, my son was referred to an out-of-hours GP service within an hour of a phone consultation.
But while the shortest wait I've had for a video consultation for myself (via the NHS) was literally 10 minutes, the longest was two weeks.
If you have an emergency, you will be triaged and given a faster appointment if you use the right channels (111 - the non-emergency alterantive to 999/911, or urgent care walkin centres, or A&E as the last resort), but of course many things that are not an emergency will seem intolerable to wait for, and then it absolutely sucks if you can't afford to pay your way to be seen faster.
This is a political/cost issue - the NHS is bargain basement in terms of amount spent per patient compared to many other countries.
A large proportion of doctors in the private sector also works for the NHS, so quality of clinical experience has never been a concern to me.
E.g. when my ex looked for a doctor when she considered having a c-section done private, the top expert she could find was an NHS consultant that worked privately on the side. This is the widespread, and often the private clinics are operated by NHS trusts, as a means to supplement their budgets, and/or the operating rooms etc. are rented from NHS trusts.
If anything, my only negative experiene with lack of experience here has been with private providers (the only nurse that has ever struggled to draw blood from me in my entire life failed to get any blood from me after 3 agonisingly slow attempts where she rooted around in my arm for a vein. Every NHS nurse that has drawn blood from me or my son have been so fast at drawing blood you hardly notice before they're done even when they're filling multiple containers)
But if you want to be pampered, then private providers will be nicer. They're also nicer if you e.g. want more time - GP's are expected to allocate an average of something like 7 minutes per appointment for the NHS patients, for example, and how flexible they will be varies, while with a private GP you can pay for however long appointments you want.
So what they get out of it is at least to some extent that it is expected many places as a means to getting job offers from private providers.
I'm not entirely sure if the UK has a public-private health system. What I do know is that companies offer private health insurance, even though everyone has access to the NHS. That suggests there's a private system in place, one that probably attracts the most experienced and competent doctors and GPs?
E.g. my old GP used to provide both private and NHS services (they were precluded by their NHS contracts from providing private services to people registered with them with the NHS).
Many NHS trusts also provide private services, as they are allowed to do so to improve utilisation and supplement their budgets, so in practice this is part of the reason the NHS is so cheap compared to universal systems in similarly rich countries.
Most private hospitals in the UK also e.g. rely on NHS for intensive care, and this, along with relying on the NHS for first-line care (A&E, GP's unless there's a wait, etc.) is also why private health insurance in the UK is unusually cheap, and why private hospitals in the UK are unusually cheap (if you're in the US, and planning elective treatments, it can be cheaper to fly to London and do it here, even factoring in hotels - and some Central London hospitals have hotel suites, and at least one have or had a previously Michelin starred chef because they cater - literally - to high-end international healthcare tourism).
Speaking personally, the biggest issue isn't the waiting, but the chaos and uncertainty. Every part of the NHS is in a constant state of crisis management. I don't terribly mind that I usually have to wait about two weeks to see my GP (family doctor), but I do object to the fact that I'll invariably be seen by a locum (temporary) doctor who doesn't know how the local systems work and won't be there if I need a follow-up appointment. I could live with waiting lists if they were always 14 weeks, but it's incredibly disruptive to not know if it might be 14 or 40 weeks, to not know if your long-awaited appointment will be cancelled with no notice due to staff shortages or industrial action. I've almost got used to the fact that the corridors of my local hospital are permanently full of "temporary" overflow beds, primarily occupied by frail elderly people, often in considerable distress, sometimes obviously neglected.
I'm fairly high-agency and I feel that the system is hostile and difficult to navigate; I have no doubt that many patients who are less able to advocate for themselves suffer preventable deaths because they fell through the cracks.
Have they though about joining some sort of economic union, maybe one with like minded countries that share the same continent?
There are so many charitable and earnest ways to make the point you're getting at, why reach for such intellectually low hanging fruit?
Is this the same comment where they said good riddance to the entire country?
I really prefer that sort of earnest, thoughtful comment compared to short-form little quips.
The EU might be better on digital privacy right now, however the emotional winds of the political mob change often and many people in EU government feel differently. The EU is also an aging population of technologically illiterate and immigrant-afraid retirees. I wouldn’t expect much different coming from them in the future.
Most of the OP's assessment that I quoted is about the UKs failing economics
Both have collapsing demographics, collapsing social welfare systems (turns out forced government pension payments thrown into low yielding bonds for people in their 20-30s who should be 100% equities is a bad idea), non-competitive taxation policy, and decades of underinvestment in risk assets that have starved their business community of capital needed to innovate or grow.
Any stats showing uniquely high propensity for violence?
> uneducated
Any stats here?
> incompatible with your culture
Any data here? My MP is not white and was granted asylum, what incompatibility are you talking about precisely?
> illegal immigrants
People seeking asylum aren't yet illegal, the legality of their stay is decided when their case is heard.
The reality is that travelling over multiple countries and crossing the channel just to claim asylum in a country someone wants to be in requires a ton of determination, bravery, and desire to improve one's life. Way more bravery than anonymously spreading xenophobia online.
The one that is also working on a digital age verification system?
The one that created an AI regulation that stopped all innovation, and a data protection innovation who's single result is billions of people having to spend 3 seconds before visiting every website clicking a button that doesn't actually do anything (in 80% of cases)?
Yeah, great.
I left for greener pastures a long time ago and subsequently all of my friends and anyone I knew of any talent has also left, it feels weird visiting a place I once called home and not being able to see friends.
This is the issue.
For me, it'll be the UAE. Instinctively, some people will probably attack that choice, which is fine. I've lived in the Middle East previously, it's not perfect to say the least and I have some personal history with that, but I understand the choice I'm making. One thing people won't like is the headline tax rate, but I probably won't come out ahead there initially as cost of living is quite high - it'll cost me about USD 70k just to put three kids in school. Accommodation is also quite expensive, private healthcare also needs paying for, but at least you get what you pay for then.
Where the tax situation is appealing though is that then I'll be incentivised to earn more beyond those high living costs, where I just don't feel I am in the UK. Sun and swimming works for me too. Job adverts there are absolutely rammed with literally thousands of applicants and I'm hearing from recruiters that a lot of people from the UK and wider Europe are trying to head in the same direction. I'll be working for myself though.
I likely won't see out my days there. I'd imagine we'll retire to somewhere on the Med, my wife would prefer NZ but I don't think that works for me. The US is perhaps desirable, but it seems quite hard for a Brit to get into unless they happen to have a job with a company there. We'll have to see.
Just a note to you or anyone else reading this, USD 70k is on the high side; average yearly schooling cost in Dubai is around 40k for 3 kids. And the accommodation cost depends heavily on location; it's more than 50% cheaper if willing to live at least half an hour's drive from the city centre.
I can't speak for OP but I can report on what I'm seeing... I know a lot of British, Canadian, and Australian expats that have moved to California in the past 5-15 years.
Why? Healthcare is probably everyone's first concern, but expats tend to be well educated successful people who can afford excellent healthcare... I'm an expat from a different country and seeing the top end of the healthcare facilities in the States is a luxury experience compared to national healthcare where I'm from. I wish everyone here had access to that, but at least poor people in California do have access to state healthcare.
Politics is a shit show, and has gotten worse recently of course, but that's true in a lot of places now and everyone I know came in before the most recent decline. I know a couple of families who have gone back to their countries, but all of them went back because they wanted to be close to family again, but none of them left because they didn't like it here.
Across everyone I know, the main appeals for coming to California seem to be weather and lower taxes than their home country. Cost of living is similar to many of the big cities in the countries I mentioned above. I'm not suggesting America is a better place, that's a different calculation for everyone, just reporting on what I'm seeing.
- this kind of authoritarian nonsense is just what Home Secretaries do. David Blunkett brought in RIP (then, to his very slight credit, changed his mind). Jack 'boot' Straw was famous for his I-AM-THE-LAWing. I don't think the Tories are any better.
- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly.
- And with that in mind, having lived in three countries (four if you accept that the NHS in England and Scotland are different) I personally think the NHS is fucking fantastic. Someone close to me was diagnosed with a serious illness and immediately swept up in a production line of modern, effective treatment. Sure, it was somewhat impersonal, the biscuits are rubbish, and they were a widget on the production line, but they're also still alive ten years later, and we still have a house and savings.
- kudos to your sister. The UK is an ethnically diverse place, one of the least racist and divided that I've seen, but - like everywhere else - imperfect. The NHS always seemed to me to be a reflection of what things could be elsewhere with doctors, nurses and cleaners hired from all over the world. [which reminds me that while the right-wing press hates the NHS for being free, the left wing press occasionally hates the NHS for bringing in medical staff from poorer parts of the world. They just can't win]
This is exactly what I'm saying. The NHS are seen as perfect by some. All criticism is digs that are wrong.
I'm pro-NHS. But this perspective that it's infallible is beyond all reality.
Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation. Consider all the political difficulties the NHS has had in the past few years. As such, negative remarks can be read or misread as dogwhistles for other views, so they're something that have to be phrased carefully and within context.
I was unclear: did you publish a book, or did your sister?
In general, for something both as key and as endangered as the NHS is, criticism isn't always useful -- support is. Problems can be recognised and addressed through support.
I'm not anti-NHS, I've no agenda to see it privatised, I just want it to be better. I tried many, many private routes first. I tried NHS England, NHS Digital, the Innovation Service, AHSNs (many sections having since been renamed/reorganised). About 20 different contact points over two or three years, most of which seemed inappropriate but I made sure if anyone told me it was someone else's responsibility I checked with them.
The problems had already been recognised through public inquiries and yet were still ongoing.
I even offered to build the software for free, which, hopefully, for an individual dealing with an organisation with a budget into the hundreds of billions, falls under supportive. But as far as I could see, offering support was getting me nowhere.
I just had people acknowledging the issue and then shrugging their shoulders, pointing fingers at everyone else. So I wrote a book on it, spoke about the issue publicly and within months it was decided to spend tens of millions on sorting it.
I think it's wonderful that you offered to do that but it simply isn't realistic. Who is going to support this software in the long term? How are you handling privacy concerns? What guarantees can you offer about server security? Who is paying for and maintaining the servers in the long term? What happens (to be blunt) if you die the day after the software is delivered?
There's so, so much wrong with the way governments provision software projects from outside parties. But there is good reason to have contracts the length of the Bible. Picking up work from individuals on a whim is courting disaster.
One guy had a brain infection and was told to wait four months for an appointment. Another went in for a root canal, left without a tooth, and fainted outside the clinic. Someone else was refused an X-ray after an accident.
Meanwhile, in my tiny country, we have a dual public-private health system, and the facilities, doctors, and dentists are top notch. It really makes you wonder what's gone wrong in the UK, considering how much taxes British people pay.
And, it's very much a "public-private" health system. E.g. all GP's and most dentists are private businesses, paid for by the NHS to varying degree, but also with many providing private services.
The NHS uses an extensive network of private providers, including (when sufficient funding is provided) to drive down waiting lists. I've personally had a procedure carried out at a private hospital at the NHS's expense.
The NHS has many problems, but at the root of a whole lot of them is that the NHS needs a funding increase of 20%-30% to get to similar levels of funding per capita as similarly wealthy countries.
The UK spends about as much per capita on the NHS, providing universal care, as the US does on just Medicare and Medicaid.
As a percentage of GDP, UK healthcare spending is well above the EU and OECD averages. We spend a greater share of our national income on healthcare than Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Finland or Norway.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?most_...
Unfortunately the main problem is chronic underinvestment by successive governments of all political inclinations. We tend not to fix our roof in the summer because we hope the other guys will be in government by winter when everyone inside is getting wet and they'll get blamed for the consequences of our decision. We've also made some poor choices historically around selling off national assets and questions of privatisation or public ownership.
This isn't unique to the NHS and ironically among the current Labour government the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, is one of the few people suggesting significant changes that actually do make sense for the long term future of our country. Unfortunately a lot of them will probably require more than 5 years to implement and that puts the results over the horizon beyond the next general election. So the price for trying to "do the right thing" might be that he won't get re-elected to see it through. This enables the cycle of short-termism and lack of consistent investment to continue even though its horrible results are increasingly clear for all to see.
Ironically, that's not a problem in China, they have a one-party authoritarian state and can plan 10, 20 years ahead without worrying about elections or political instability.
I've lived in both the UK and the US and there are issues with healthcare in both. Maybe the model your country uses could scale up to populations the size of the UK and the US, maybe it wouldn't. Difficult to know.
Good questions, but the quickest way I can answer them all is to say that my company had delivered software for national security purposes to central government departments. This really was nothing.
It certainly wasn't my preferred option. The offer was mostly a tool to ensure that cost of development could not be used as a reason to reject.
There are persistent and valid claims that the NHS is inefficient in its use of technology. It wastes lots of money, wastes clinicians' time, and sometimes fails to get accurate information to the people who need it in time to be used.
But there is a best being the enemy of the good problem here. The amount of regulation involved in supplying any kind of tech product or IT service to these public sector organisations is becoming prohibitive. Parts of the industry that have been providing these products and services into the NHS are being crippled in productivity or even literally shutting down whole supply chains because it's too onerous to comply with all the red tape. It's not just individuals but the small businesses that employ or engage them and then the medium-sized business that use the small ones.
If you're working with big consultancies with their own legal and compliance teams then sure you can write hundreds of pages of contracts and require compliance with several external standards about managing personal data and IT security and whatever else. But that regulation flows downhill to the smaller suppliers who don't have resources already available to deal with those issues and at some point it becomes overwhelming and everyone has had enough and decides to become a gardener. Now your only options for supply are big consultancies engaging big suppliers who charge big prices and provide big company levels of service and responsiveness (in the most pejorative sense of these terms).
Surely this isn't the best strategy for a system that desperately needs to be more efficient and sometimes more innovative. There is a broad spectrum between "adopt a one-off product with no support from a single well-meaning individual" and "everything requires so much red tape that only the places charging those £x000-per-day consulting rates we're always mocking are actually allowed to provide it".
There are also plenty of rules that exist for dogmatic reasons and impose absolute requirements that don't always make much sense in context instead of stating principles that should be appropriately applied.
I understand that those administering these rules don't want to leave loopholes where people or cost-conscious suppliers will cut corners for convenience and/or to save money. There is obviously a danger of that happening if you don't write everything down in black and white.
But you have to remember that the starting point here is receptionists at medical facilities asking people to email over sensitive health information or casually discuss it on the phone when they don't even know who they're talking to and what information is appropriate to share with them. Doctors are trying to read vital patient information from scrawled handwriting on actual paper in potentially time-sensitive life-and-death situations. Expensive scanning equipment in hospitals relies on software that runs on 20-year-old versions of Windows from a supplier that shut down long ago.
In this context you probably win a lot just by having clear policies and guidelines that really are short and simple enough for rank and file staff working in a wide variety of different jobs to understand. A reasonable set of basic technical measures would be far better than much of what is in widespread use today. Trying to make everything perfect so we have fully computerised health records and integrated diagnostic and treatment systems and everything is 100% secure and privacy-protected and supported is a laudable goal that would obviously be much better for patient outcomes and also for the daily lives of everyone working in healthcare. And in 50 or 100 years maybe we'll be able to do it. But not today and not tomorrow.
It certainly wasn't even my preferred option, I'd have been much happier if they said they had a team that could run with it.
This kind of political insecurity is toxic for rational conversation. Blindly rejecting the criticisms of our political opponents is just as naive as blindly accepting their criticisms. Either way we handover control of the conversation.
I've never met anyone who thinks that the NHS is perfect - least of all anyone who has used it or anyone who works there.
Many years ago now my sister turned down the chance to go to an international conference held in the Netherlands, when I asked why, she said it was because the NHS was the best in the world and had nothing to learn from other healthcare systems. I'm still stunned, and she still doesn't know anything about other healthcare systems.
Very very very few people think the NHS is infallible. What are you even talking about? We all understand the NHS has many many problems, and those of us that have used the NHS understand this even more.
However, we still think it's a lot better than the private healthcare model.
Not sure what you're getting out of this weird strawman argument you're putting forward.
What private healthcare mode? WHat they have in the US? Then definitely yes. What they have on France or Germany or Japan or almost every other developed country.? Then No. What they have in Singapore? Still No.
Yet private healthcare is a strawman, I've never argued for it.
This is why I'm pleased that for the ward I visit, biscuits and snacks are provided by a charity, it is the best of both worlds.
Not only I am not bankrupt from medical care, but I also get to enjoy decent snacks and a good coffee machine.
Isn't the cost of living crisis and rising wealth inequalities a problem that many western countries face?
Cost of living and wealth inequalities aren't key concerns for me personally. It's more quality of life for my family, safety and economic opportunity.
It’s also not entirely up to the UK, the EU has to be convinced about the seriousness of such a decision and how it would benefit them.
This significantly underplays the situation here. The UK state views "anti-migrant" views as extreme: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/26/elite-police...
In the UK attending a protest against putting illegal immigrants from Afghanistan in a hotel by your kids school is likely to have you on a watch list or arrested. This might not sound that bad to our European friends, but you guys in the US might be quite surprised to hear this.
It's not just "right-wing" positions which are dealt like this either, I should note for legal reasons that I strongly disagree with the actions and views of "Palestine Action", but arrests of peaceful protestors who simply wish to voice support of them as a group (without actually being part of the group themselves) is in my mind absurd. It's one thing to make membership of the group illegal, but to also make debating that judgement illegal is highly problematic in my mind. For those interested you'll find videos of the police arresting elderly women for terror charges for simply peacefully voicing their opinions on Palestine Action. It's vile.
The UK government has announced a new "squad" who will check social media for anti-migrant sentiment. Even if you are not "anti-migration" (whatever that means), I think we can agree that opposing migration is still a valid opinion to hold in a democratic society.
Unfortunately, this opinion gets framed as "hate speech" in many countries, with legal consequences. How convenient to criminalize opinions of opponents !
Skilled immigration or the Channel crossing?
Unfortunately due to the Boris Wave, we got mass, unskilled legal migration.
The channel crossings are a rounding error compared to that (but should be stopped as well).
20 years ago it was mostly Poles whose only quality was that they were willing to work for less than native UK citizens in jobs that said UK citizens supposedly did not want to do (which is doublespeak for businesses not wanting to pay a decent wage). This kind of immigration was one of the reasons Brexit happened.
It was more the later additions to the EU a few years later that were actually problematic and got people's backs up.
It didn't help that we were allowed to restrict immigration from those countries but didn't as the government needed mass immigration to disguise the fact there was no growth.
Not really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_alliance
Where are you going?
The grass is always greener I suppose.
This is totally untrue. As long as it's selfish, unpatriotic people leaving, I couldn't care less what their skin color or sexual orientation is.
Selfish? I'll take that. I'm choosing to put the future of my children ahead of those who couldn't care less about them in any respect.
Anecdotally, the loaded people I know are all still here and largely back up polling data that the rich tend to favour higher taxes on themselves.
Errr, what? A lot of people complain about the NHS, whilst conceding there are issues that are difficult to address eg staff, lack of investment etc.
Sounds like you...
Your comment was mostly on point until you decided to put straight presenting white guys as the victims
okay what are you implying tho?
You change it to be a not-finance-centered economy.
They didn't build it up on their own. They saw opportunity in western businesses who wanted lower wages and less strict environmental laws, and lured them in. The western businesses then moved all their manufacturing to China who then spied on these factories to out-compete the western businesses with "home grown" products they copied.
There have been an influx of Londoners who have discovered that they can actually afford a house in the North and enroll their kids in decent schools and maintain a good standard of living, especially those who are able to move while maintaining a London salary.
It doesn't fit together as a strategy to me and I don't see it fixing the economy, but I guess they can talk about it as a success?
They will slowly cycle out this historical group of parties resulting in painful economic results and poor social cohesion nationally.
Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happen any second, be vigilant!".
While at the same time, it was vastly more unsafe than Eastern Europe.. and cities themselves were vastly dirtier.
Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
To be honest and to give some context - they have been under threat of terrorism(due to The Troubles first - the name itself seems to reinforce this view, seems innocent..) roughly since end of WW2. well WW2 was a factor too.
To add a bit more context: this wasn't my first nor last trip to UK, and each time i visit it the worse it feels in every aspect: Cleanliness of cities, safety, and oppressiveness.
The UK is basically an end-of-days advanced state: bureaucracy taken to the extreme, with a heavy dose of nanny-state "mind the gap" messaging.
Bureaucracy kills any kind of infrastructure project (see HS2), so don't expect any improvements any time soon.
We do have some nice cities: Manchester, York, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge. (I've probably missed a few from this list). London feels pretty far from 30 years ago - and not in a good way.
Reminds me the latter three dune novels. Frank Herbert had this idea he was exploring about how the inevitable end-state of society is this sort of stalemate between opposing bureaucratic factions which have become optimized towards preventing their own destruction to the point that they aren't capable of doing anything other than prolonging their own existence.
It reminds me of the Republicans and the democrats in America which have become utterly unresponsive towards their own voterbases because they have already rigged the political system to prevent any viable competitors from displacing them but in general it seems like the whole of western civilization has reached this point over the last 50 years or so, because just about any country which is referred to as 'western' has a set of very obvious problems on the horizon with very obvious solutions being stalled by a ruling class which is concerned with maintaining its own existence at all costs even if it has to bring down the entire nation with it.
This is the best 1 sentence explanation of how it feels like to live in the UK. Every institution feels more catered towards preventing it's end than to a goal.
Those cameras know exactly who you are, and the tracking device your carry around in your pocket serves as a secondary confirmation.
Checking IDs would be a superfluous and costly tertiary method of confirmation.
The facial recognition technology for that already exists. And the UK has a sufficiently dense CCTV coverage.
This is the case if you do anything that opposes the governments desired narrative. For example, by saying something “far right”. Multiple years in jail for a tweet.
But I agree, what you’re describing is I think best called anarcho-tyranny: not some (disturbed) utopian inspired police state, but a police state of gritty hypocrisy.
Over here under communist times it was definitely a police state - there were no ID checks, crime was rampant, but everyone could be observed at any moment and be arrested/dissappeared as needed.
UK evokes identical feeling now as a tourist.
Have you ever been to mainland China? I've lived in both places and honestly, day-to-day life in major Chinese cities often feels more "free" in practical ways - safer, cleaner, more technologically convenient.
What is freedom really? In Shanghai or Shenzhen, I can walk out at 3am to get noodles or take the metro without a second thought. In LA or SF, I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, checking who's behind me, avoiding certain areas. The surveillance cameras in China never made me feel as watched as the constant threat assessment you do in many Western cities.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying China doesn't have serious issues with political freedoms and surveillance. It absolutely does. But the lived experience is way more nuanced than "oppressive dystopia."
I used to have similar assumptions before actually spending time there. Western media coverage (cough propaganda cough) tends to focus exclusively on the authoritarian aspects while ignoring that for many people, daily life feels safe, convenient, and yes - "free" in ways that matter to them.
Instead of imagining what China might be like based on western news coverage, why not visit and see for yourself?
Extremely unpopular opinion on HN, I'm sure. But I have a compulsion to challenge stereotypes when the reality is so much more complex.
Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government.
Mostly a failure of democracy - we have two major parties that are hard to tell apart.
They are both cynical and scared, and have for decades believed the future of Britain is managed decline. They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
As of 2022, the WHO reported on SSB (sugar-sweetened beverages):
> Currently, at least 85 countries implement some type of SBB taxation.
It feels to me like this was a rare step in the opposite direction - recognising that industry is the driving cynical force and pushing back on its over reach where it has failed. Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately to avoid the tax, with what net loss? (The class-targeting comments were a straw man)
https://www.who.int/news/item/13-12-2022-who-calls-on-countr...
However the way this works out in practice is a reduction in consumer choice, one that I'm reminded of every time I walk into a shop.
> Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately
This is the problem, really. Rather than adding new "low sugar" product lines, in most instances they're modifying existing ones to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners. The "original recipe" is often no longer available to consumers at any price.
As someone who struggles to consume enough calories to stay healthy, this sucks! (Mostly unrelated to pricing, just as a matter of practicality)
Cigarette smokers for example can still walk into just about any shop and purchase their favourite cigarettes, they just have to pay more for them - this seems fine.
Overall I'm quite on the fence about the whole thing, but on a purely emotional level it feels like an instance of government overreach.
However, sugar sweatened energy drinks are much more available.
So I share your frustration in the opposite direction.
The said. Taxation is not for the individual but the society.
Whilr I am sorry to hear that you have issue getting enough calories, that is simply a non concern for the society.
So this seems to be a good use of tax for incentivizing.
Even without the price difference I have a hard time imagining how such an outcome would be necessary, maybe you can clarify?
It is a prime example of class targetting because manufacturers of more expensive drinks still put sugar in them, its the cheap drinks that have switched to sugar substitutes.
Is it though? Are other forms of government more successful while remaining respectful of privacy? Or is it more of a reaction to social or societal changes? Why would these social or societal changes be different than previous changes?
A non insulting way to view that is that central goverments understand incentives, and in the same way there are child incentives for people starting families, having incentives for healthier eating is something a central goverment should use its taxation policy for.
More control over education standards is also a common purview of many good educational systems. Decentralisation is not necesirely better, with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted. Centrally dictated standards was the method of the French revolution, believing that a society where everyone roughly understands the world the same way was a society that was more unified. French "equality , fraternity and legality " is a basis for modern liberal democracy almost everywhere, but they didnt get there without authoritarian imposition of their standards, with entire minority cultures getting trampled along the way.
The hyperbole and bad faith explanations of legislation is not a good representation or argument against why britain is more accepting of som legislation many feel intrusive.
A better argument is that this piece of legislation was passed late on the rule of a disastrous administration and the number of problems in day to day society largely are unaffected by it, so it got no time in the spotlight for people to complaint or know it was coming until it was days away from being implemented. Society is also largely technologically illiterate, this is pretty much the case everywhere in the planet, which means the nuances of tech legislation are lost even on the people writting and voting on it.
I don't know where this is coming from; statistically speaking, homeschooled children do better on pretty much every educational outcome. Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.
Home educated kids often teach themselves so the student teacher ratio is infinity so terrible!
Both my kids taught themselves some subjects (had tutors for other, had me for some, so lots of one to one too). They did just as well in the subjects they taught themselves (8 and 9 in GCSE Latin, which as they did not have a tutor and I am terrible at languages is very much self taught).
The most telling stats is that the percentage of homeschooling parents increases, specially in religious communities but the test takers in homeschooled scenarios almost always come from higher educated urban families.
There is a large case of selectin bias, in a public school every kid takes an SAT test. For homeschooled kids, the kid of two doctors who was homeschooled and aces tests for breakfast he takes teh SAT and smokes any underfunded public school near him (although he probably scores average or below prep schools that cost arguably less than his homeschooling, with additional socialisation benefits etc). Meanwhile the hyper religious family wanting their daughter to marry at 16 is not letting that barely literate girl take her SATs.
The two groups in favour of home schooling are hyper capitalistists who think the disruption of public schooling + their advantage will make their kid unstopable, and the niche fringe believes, usually religious who are scared of interacting with mainstream institutions for fear of disrupting their reality. Both are problematic, anti social and harmful groups and their over representation in goverment and media is largely a sympton of the inability of liberal institutions to fight against illiberal threats.
There are many academic studies, across many countries, that confirm the better results. Your evidence is?
> Meanwhile the hyper religious family wanting their daughter to marry at 16 is not letting that barely literate girl take her SATs.
Not really a thing in the UK, or most places. It might have some truth in the US but sounds like a biased view
On the contrary I credit home education with getting my older daughter into a male dominated career (she designed power electronics for EVs).
> The two groups in favour of home schooling are hyper capitalistists who think the disruption of public schooling
Not really a thing in the UK either. Home educators tend to be social liberals and politically left wing
In fact of the many home educators I have come across very few fit your description.
> with additional socialisation benefits
Because meeting the same people of the same age from the same area in the same place every day for many years is a great way to develop social skills and make a variety of friends.
> although he probably scores average or below prep schools
I went to one of the best schools in Britain academically and my kids got a better academic education (as well as in other ways) than I did.
All those studies are either paid for by home schooling groups, or report the same fundamental issue in terms of data collection I have mentioned. Also the ones that break down results by socio economic background all highlight that anywhere from lower middle class to lower class homeschooling results always fall under public education.
> Not really a thing in the UK, or most places. It might have some truth in the US but sounds like a biased view
The UK has had a recent surge in homeschooling, in part because of Covid, also in part because of systemic underfunding of schools. But the religious exception was the most credited answer (some marked it under the philosophical reason) for homeschooling up to 2018. It is also underreported for women in some minority communities like travellers, orthodox jews, and some more extreme versions of islam. those girls are "homeschooled", wanna guess how they would do in their GCSE's?
> On the contrary I credit home education with getting my older daughter into a male dominated career (she designed power electronics for EVs).
This kinda highlights my original assumption of people defending it being because they personally believe in it, but credit to your daughter aside, she probably would go and kick ass regardless of the educational establishment or framework. And while you can't run a double blind study, I am not sure why you would think her being in a regular school she would be denied the chance to go into such a prestigious career?
> Not really a thing in the UK either. Home educators tend to be social liberals and politically left wing
> In fact of the many home educators I have come across very few fit your description.
it is important to point out that the biggest movement for homeschooling is evangelical americans, the same group that managed to get the department of education destroyed under Trump. Their propaganda, think tanks and TV news anchors distribute, enable and control the conversation borderline globally. The UK in comparison has a relatively small home schooling population (despite its recent uptick).
Also home schooling groups tend to be self contained, if you are socially liberal and go find other home schooling parents, you will find your neighbours and people who visit the same in person or online resurces (libraries, websites, forums etc). If you were a hyper religious person who did not believe your daughter should learn to read, you would report that most of the homeschooling parents you have met believe the exact same things you do. It is, by design, not an ideology that promotes everyone being under the same umbrella.
> Because meeting the same people of the same age from the same area in the same place every day for many years is a great way to develop social skills and make a variety of friends.
Almost every study tends to think so, yes. Support networks are important for humans, having people who face the same challenges (puberty, a math test on friday) and that are reliably reachable (same schedule, same place) means kids can learn things like trust, collaboration, loyalty etc organically.
This skills are not impossible to develop elsewhere, in the same way you can learn math elsewhere. But those benefits are not non existant.
> I went to one of the best schools in Britain academically and my kids got a better academic education
Yes, and your grandkids, if you ever have them, will get a better education that your kids regardless of where they study. Because education improves, resources improve, attention to kids increased over the last generation. You and I probably run around all afternoon with our parents not caring were we were, our teachers had not refreshed their knowledge since they got their degrees. Nowadays with things like the internet, Pluto stops being a planet mid school year and the kids get that info asap. Instead of a priest slapping kids like when I was a kid, there is a comprehensive "Religions of the world" curriculum were kids suddenly know tons of greek mythology, buddhisim, islam and plenty of christianity from early sects, to modern catholic, protestant and orthodox divisions. None of that was taught when I was a kid, so of course kids are better off now, as they should be. But that would happen regardless of where your kids learn I think.
The drawbacks of homeschooling for the whole of society I think are too large for any individual benefit. The lowest dregs denying their kids food or basic knowledge, conspiracy theorists denying reality to their children, abusive parents being unchecked, religious fundamentalists not allowing their kids to interact with whats beyond their control... disrupting all that and having kids be together, the same, and learning about different people and following the same curriculum I think is valuable.
I have a very similar career to your daughter, and my first interactin with kids being homeschooled was in an international math olympiad. Some of the kids I met had real hung ups about socialising, and I promise you they would have been just as good as calculus if they had gone to any normal school and just did a lil extra in the afternoon like I did. Growing up and doing some research on think tanks and who was funding what, the people promoting homeschooling had some pretty awful ideas about society and where everyone should fit in it. So while I would never judge any individual parent, there are plenty of good reasons to do it, I am keenly aware that most of the material coming out in support is not always coming from good faith sources.
>I, for one, am glad that porn is being age-restricted online. It gives young people false ideas. You'll never get a plumber to come around to your house that quickly in real life.
Didn't there used to be a explainingthejoke user on here? Whatever happened to them?
Instead of questioning how MPs are entitled to a pay rise while your average person gets made redundant, people are questioning why people fleeing persecution should ‘be paid for with my tax money’.
Brain fatigue and mixed signals combined with destitution and desperation drastically impede the average person’s ability and desire to fact check and extrapolate. We are moving towards a society of down and out people living with no hope serving the elite and those with a bit of money behind them.
My fiancée and I have had enough and are also leaving in October. No idea where to all we know is we have a one way ticket away and will figure the rest out.
You'll probably find how few places let you in as economic migrants.
Except many of them are not, they are economic migrants. And some have even realised that claiming that they're persecuted for lgbt reasons is an instant in - there was a case with a guy (with a wife and a bunch of children) that claimed to have written a pro lgbt article and now he's persecuted.
As a gay man the thought of that sickens me, economic migrants using who I am as a shortcut to entry, I have no problem at all with genuinely lgbt individuals seeking refugee status; we're still persecuted in so many places and there's not enough of us to make change happen in those places.
But the economic migrants...all they're doing is ensuring their home country never improves and that a steady stream of migrants continues into Europe. It'll never end.
Holding the door open for fake asylum seekers costing billions while his fellow countrymen are laid off, and pointing the finger at MPs taking a few million between them.
Assume good faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
So do you think that after you get a couple miles away from something, you're no longer fleeing it when you keep going? An argument like this doesn't make you sound very credible.
> These men claim they are children.
What percent of the migrants are you talking about here?
In my high school drivers ed there was a kid who looked like he was in his 20's with a full thick beard, stocky muscular build, deep voice. I thought he got left back a bunch but turns out he was my age - 16. So "obviously not a kid" doesn't really work and potentially puts people at risk.
But the UK has always to some extent enjoyed a fantasy of being an island under siege from mainland Europe and it something the nationalist press like to drum up.
As for its increasing poverty, the UK went all-in on neoliberalism since the ‘80s, and especially in on austerity since 2008. Entry-level wages barely grew for over 10 years. Blame the EU for that, get Brexit, more expensive goods and damage to the financial sector the country relied on. Then Covid…
Being a free society comes with both good and bad. This type of law, whether it's good or bad, is akin to China's Great Firewall
It makes me sick. It brings to mind that old quote from Mussolini: “The truth is evident to all who are unblinded by dogmatism, that men nowadays are tired of liberty.”
Scary times indeed.
It's making me cynical, and I don't know what to do about it.
[1]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg87yvq529o
Edited for typo.
The incident you mentioned is yet another piece of fallout from Rochdale, but if you look closely the offences mentioned are from 20 years ago. I don't think that should be used to talk about the present. There is a lot more safeguarding these days.
The main negative factor is the press, responsible for both "opinion management", doomerism, and sensationalist demands to Do Something in a way that doesn't help. The Online Safety Act and Brexit are both victories for the Daily Mail that are losses for the rest of the public.
The rape rate has almost quadrupled in the last two decades: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283100/recorded-rape-off...
- George Orwell, 1984
Basically Labour continues taking UK into corporate fascist utopia.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44623091
It's one of the reasons the UK has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world. Public tolerance for this took hold the IRA years and cemented post-9/11 and 7/7. The narrative of ever-present threat made "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" sound reasonable to a large portion of the population.
The press, especially the Mail, Sun, and Express, also thrives on outrage. They set the tone for national conversation, whipping up fear and anger that politicians then "respond" to with legislation. The broad assumption is that people can’t be trusted with unfiltered access to information or autonomy, especially online. You also saw it in lockdown, where Britain had to endure one the harshest COVID lockdowns among Western democracies.
None of this is porn of course, but supposedly a lot of the lone wolf's are radicalised online so it creates a lot of "someone needs to do something!!!!" type attitudes (and no public gun ownership would not work like everyone says it would because the USA had that yet no one lifted a finger when they needed to recently, and now look what's happened), and sadly the older and more little-c conservative population carriers more clout in terms of policies because historically they tend to vote in greater numbers than younger groups. N.b. that 16 and 17 year olds have very recently been given the right to vote so things may change.
That was 20 years ago. Not really recently.
So these are not some dusty forgotten thing from history books that people might read about, it was stuff they saw on TV and is back in the news whenever a round-number anniversary comes up etc.
The point I was trying to make is that quite shocking bad things happened semi-recently, and more shocking bad things continue to happen. It appears in the news over and over and over about people being radicalised online.
I get why people think this is a good idea - you need to prove age to buy knives and cigarettes etc, so they think "why not" for porn and other "adult" things online.
> complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government
I disagree with this sentiment, however it does show how bad "democracy" can be when voting for a complete government change results in absolutely no change whatsoever.
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-prevalence-cctv-cameras-...
Oh wait, Paris, NYC, SF, Tokyo have more cameras per sq. Km. Narrative.
You listed extremely dense cities. Of course they have more cameras per square.
This isn’t a narrative violation, it’s basic math.
UK bad because online safety rules, let's ignore US states that already do this.
> Don't mind what we are doing, the UK is worse.
Not defending the UK, but they aren't the first and you dont get the same inflammatory racist language with other countries.
How so? If I have a car lot, I'll have multiple cameras for a tiny area bumping the average camera per person without meaningful results. Sounds like the worst measurement unless you are trying to push a narrative.
What?
> Large parts if London are just forests
What?
The UK was also one of the first nations to ban indoor smoking and in cars with kids. I think this is very much in that vein (politically).
Historically there is no formal constitution in the UK so Parliament is not limited in their power. IHMO it's the main factor why the UK is an outlier.
Average UKian is, IME, surprisingly technologically unsavvy. This might be the root cause of lack of interest or protest.
If I were to guess how this whole thing came to be, it would be thus: the UK government is increasingly dysfunctional and polarised. The attention of government and opposition goes increasingly into futile, high-stakes but always drawn battles. But that means that motivated and organised groups can push through things that look benign from the outside and don't trigger the Great Polarisation. Protecting children from suicide, what's not to like? The Parliament, where this should be shredded to pieces, is too busy trying to reshuffle deckchairs.
Meanwhile this is printed on vellum, welcome to the new reality.
Visiting the Heineken website in the U.S. requires that you assert you are over the age of 21. Texas has instituted I.D. verification for pornography.
Regardless of how you feel about this law, it is not accurate to say the U.K. is unique in implementing it.
It’s not uniquely U.S. at all
What other countries require ID checks for services like Discord?
The U.K.’s implementation of this law is much more unique than you’re claiming.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959...
Requiring ID verification in one country is not a small difference.
The rest of the world checks a box. People in the U.K. must submit to ID verification.
It’s so strange to see things like this claimed to be small differences.
We have daily reporting about database breaches where people were duped into uploading their picture/ID, and then it gets posted on 4chan. This is true for the latest "Tea" app this past week, but also ID verification services for big companies like TikTok and Uber. I draw a hard line: I will not upload my ID for some private business to review, because they will never delete it.
The current global status quo is “radical” and the U.K. is the only country doing it right?
You were accusing others of being U.S. centric a few posts back, but now you’re pushing the U.K.’s unique laws as the only valid solution.
> We’ve been doing it for decades with credit cards
Age checks for credit cards are required because minors legally couldn’t be forced to pay their debts.
If companies issued credit cards to minors then the minors could spend as much as they want and the bank would have no recourse to collect.
I don’t think you understand these issues if you’re using this as a comparison. Either that or you’re not even trying to have an honest conversation.
I don’t think my view on the law matters, I haven’t shared it. I am speaking specifically about how everyone here is talking as if people in the U.K. care about “draconian” surveillance. People in the U.K. are not people from the U.S. Age verification is not a philosophical issue for U.K. people as it is for people in the U.S. People from the U.K. are not principled free speech absolutists. Ask a person in the U.K. if porn should require age verification and they will not think nor care about the free speech or surveillance implications of voting for such a law.
And people in the U.K. are not unique. People in the U.S. are. Spend any amount of time outside of our U.S. Internet bubble and you’ll discover nobody cares about any of this.
Whether I care and whether you care is not relevant to the British voters. Not the Australian voters. Nor the Swedish voters. Or the Thai voters. Or the Japanese voters…
I am Eastern European, and there is no way in hell I will ever use a service that requires me to verify my age through a photo of my ID.
I would actually argue you've expressed dozens of opinions related to this law and very few facts. Any source on whether Swedish or Japanese voters care for example? What led you to this conclusion?
Furthermore in your last comment you first argue you are only speaking to UK sentiment ('I am speaking specifically about how everyone here is talking as if people in the U.K. care about “draconian” surveillance.') and then double down on your argument that US is the outlier.
That’s not correct. The Discord support explains that it’s required to change automatic content filtering or unblur any content that gets caught by the automatic filters.
Obviously there is not going to be a “nah I really want to see this tho” button, or the age check would be completely pointless.
> Obviously there is not going to be a “nah I really want to see this tho” button, or the age check would be completely pointless.
That is exactly how "ignoring" an user on Discord works. Their messages are still there and you have to click on it to have it uncollapsed, so that is kind of ironic of you to say, lmao. So yeah, there actually is a "nah I really want to see this tho" button.
For what it is worth, it has to do with Discord ToS (per / by country).
In some countries you must be over 13 to use Discord, other countries 14, but if you are below, you MUST verify yourself to be able to access your Discord account after you set it to below 13. This verification process is done through sending Discord an e-mail requesting them to restore your account, with a video of yourself holding your ID card as an attachment.
The list per country can be found on Discord's website.
What I am talking about is separate from the server settings (require phone verification and/or age verification).
Saying that illegal migrants should be sent back home can literally land you at the police station. A hotel worker was arrested for testifying to what he saw in his hotels, ie. migrants being hosted, given a phone, meals, and NHS visit once every two weeks.
This guy was prosecuted in the US for posting a meme on Twitter [0].
I imagine this can happen in almost every country. What ones do you think it can't happen in?
[0] https://www.courthousenews.com/on-trial-for-memes-man-asks-s...
That is what many people, especially those that do live in the UK don't appreciate.
From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation. “Draconian” and “authoritarian” aren’t in the vocabulary of most U.K. citizens. They’re far more concerned about immigration and the economy.
The long-standing “the U.K. has the most cctv cameras per person” meme is further evidence of this. A well-loved fact carted out by freedom-loving anti-surveillance types… that the mainstream of the U.K. could not care less about.
This isn’t true at all. Age verification to use services like Discord in the U.K. is very unusual.
The U.K.’s approach to online speech and freedoms is not shared by many countries.
I don’t understand why you’re trying to reduce this to a normal outcome when it’s not normal at all
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-crime_hate_incident
Please give a few examples. I'm intrigued.
You are allowed to say there is censorship but not allowed to say what is forbidden (and you are not allowed to criticize some laws, without breaking the law). You can really go to jail or have your life ruined, or your business burned because of a TikTok video.
This censorship benefits a lot of bad people, but naming them is a crime by itself.
For example, in France, there is no insecurity in the streets. If you say the opposite and start naming examples, you will get shamed or even physically attacked by some people and be prosecuted for “spreading hate” and other crimes whereas your attackers will have zero issues.
This phenomenon is known as “juges rouges” (the red judges), somewhat similar to USSR
Your take about French censorship is equally ridiculous. I would gather that 90% of French press would not survive a month in the US before being pressured/defunded or worse. What happened to Charlie Hebdo would have happened in the US, by "patriots" instead of islamists.
And let's not even start about the separation of church and state...
Just weeks ago a couple of pop bands got hauled in front of judges or had police investigations aimed at them for voicing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. (Ok, so they used incediary language, but they’re 20-somethings at festivals and the Gaza situation is abhorrent).
Fairly recently, an activist group which uses tactics reminiscent of the anti-nuclear-proliferation movement and animal rights movements of the 70s-90s got proscribed a terrorist organisation. At present, the law around this and recent implementations of its enforcement are such that I can’t tell if I’ll be arrested for writing this paragraph. I’ve tried to stick to the facts, but interpretation can get you locked up.
You can be caged on a whim.
There have been several high profile cases used as examples, like the guy who was convicted for making a video of his girlfriend’s dog pretending to do a Nazi salute: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
Doing anything considered “grossly offensive” online can result in the police knocking on your door and financial penalties. It’s a foreign concept if you’re in a country where making jokes online doesn’t constitute a risk to your freedoms and finances (which is more than just the U.S.)
https://www.womenarehuman.com/man-arrested-for-sharing-meme-...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-teens-who-mocked-ge...
There are also some examples of people being convicted for questionable reasons, but the UK is far from the only country with laws against hate speech. It is really the US that is the outlier in having a fundamental legal guarantee of the right to hate speech.
It’s super easy to find examples if you look for them. In fact, this example from Spain is far worse than any of the examples you’re likely to find in the UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/18/student-cassan...
The thing is, it’s not an important part of a certain unmentionable person’s political strategy to portray Spain as an authoritarian hellhole. So you won’t hear nearly as much about cases like this.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
Honestly, the point of these laws is that they could get rid of anyone they want to. It is not usually enforced (AFAIK). It is there in place to enforce it on people they do not like, at any point.
An Atheist who burnt a Quran in Yookay and got stabbed by a muslim as a result (proving his point?) got a 325£ fine for "religiously motivated public disorder” whatever that means.
Peter Tatchell got arested by the police for holding a sign with "STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!" because of "breach of peace" whatever that means.
During the recent riots in Yookay, a man was jailed for 20 months for "shooting at a dog", and "using racist slur". While it's sure distasteful, it's no different than Putin's technique of protest repression.
I could go on with Germany, where sharing benign memes about politicians lead you to get swatted and your house searched, the Yookay with its "non crime hate incidents" that require no proof, France and its extensive hate speech laws that prevent asking to boycott another state, Finland where burning the Bible is ok, but not the Quran, and so on.
I am English. I was born in England, my parents are English, my Grandparents were English, My Great Grandparents were English etc. etc.
I have lived my majority of my life here. So I am English.
You obviously didn't read what I said. I understand that it is nothing special in isolation. However I am not talking about it in isolation. I was talking about the entirety of how the current laws are constructed as well as how the UK state operates.
Also just because other countries have rubbish laws, doesn't mean we should have adopted similar ones.
> From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
Many people do not like this and are actively seeking work-arounds. These aren't uber nerds like myself BTW.
> The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation.
So you admit there is a problem. But you then pretend that this can't possibly be part of the entire picture because you say so.
Sorry it very much well is part of the problem. You stating it isn't doesn't make it so.
People are talking about these things ironically on places like twitter/X, facebook, whatsapp, discord and in person (shock horror I know). I was at a boys football match this weekend and people were talking about it there.
BTW quite hilariously twitter/X are censoring some footage from the commons as that content has to be age-gated.
I know it might shock you but people on twitter and discord are not representative of voters. Most voters do not engage with any social media.
People on the internet get so caught up in the international perspective we are exposed to that we forget what national voters actually care about.
Go look at polling about this law for a real insight, 80% of people support it: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
If social media wasn't important, politicians, mainstream news publications themselves, and other political activists wouldn't bother with it. So this is patently False.
Pretending this hasn't been a trend now for 15 years is completely asinine and shame on you for attempting to pretend the opposite is true.
> I know it might shock you but people on twitter and discord are not representative of voters. Most voters do not engage with any social media.
False. Almost everyone I know is on social media of some sort. They might not be actively engaging but they do engage regularly in some form or another. Most of them would be called lurkers, or they will check out stuff if some piques their interests.
You conveniently missed out where I said "facebook" and "in person"
> People on the internet get so caught up in the international perspective we are exposed to that we forget what national voters actually care about.
I don't care about the international perspective. I am English (I've already told you this). I care about this issue and I know plenty of other people who are British care about this issue.
> Go look at polling about this law for a real insight, 80% of people support it: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...
The same YouGov polling that had almost every about Brexit issue at 71% vs 29%. Their polling isn't to be trusted.
Even if I took that at face value, that means 1/5 people don't support it. Which isn't an insignificant amount of people. So there are a decent number of people that care about it, even using your own figures. This disproves your statements about it not being cared about and only uber nerds caring about it.
You can take a principled stance, you can have strong views, you can believe in freedom, I’m with you, but it’s patently absurd to suggest that any of what you believe is representative of the people. The people, in the U.K. and beyond, simply do not have a single solitary regard for any of this. Porn bad so porn ban good. That’s the entire thought process.
Could more than 5% of the U.K. voting public even define “draconian”? or “authoritarian”?
False. Most of the people I engage with in real life are not nerds. You keep on stating things that you know nothing about as truisms. How about instead of trying to gaslight people about what is real and what isn't, you actually engage in the points being made by your interlocutor?
> Go out and talk to real people. Go and stand in the street and ask every passer by whether they feel the U.K. is “draconian” or not.
I would imagine if someone thought about it, I would get a statement something about all the cameras everywhere or how buying some with a bank transfer is difficult (if you buy something cash like a vehicle it sets off anti-fraud detection in your bank and transactions can be blocked).
They won't talk about it in terms you are familiar with. They will point to stuff like cameras, unfair charges etc and how difficult some of this makes their lives.
All of this normal people have experienced.
> You’ll be shocked to discover that almost nobody cares about anything that doesn’t directly impact their day to day life. Look at the rise of Reform, Farage’s embrace of trumpism. That’s authoritarianism, and the people love it. You’re completely out of touch with the common person if you think any of this matters.
You mentioned all of those. I didn't mention them. You are projecting onto me what your experience is. The irony here is astounding.
You may not like it and I may not like it but the view of the U.K. voting public is that age verification to look at porn is reasonable and that “protecting” children justifies limiting freedoms.
My exercise for you: decide what evidence is needed to convince you that most British people are happy with this law.
You said it "wasn't part of the conversation" originally. Not what the majority agreed with. You've subtly tried to change what the discussion was about. That is known as moving the goalposts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts
Then you asked me to provide evidence of something I can't possibly provide. That quite frankly bullshit.
> You may not like it and I may not like it but the view of the U.K. voting public is that age verification to look at porn is reasonable and that “protecting” children justifies limiting freedoms.
I don't doubt that the majority are OK with it. I am taking issue with the fact that you are pretending only libertarian nerds online care about this. I know that isn't true.
> My exercise for you: decide what evidence is needed to convince you that most British people are happy with this law.
Don't talk to me like a child.
I don't have you provide you with anything. You made the claim that only a few people care about this. When even your own evidence disputes. 20% of a large group of people is still a lot. That isn't "nobody cares" like you pretend is the case.
Anyway I am done with you. Go away!
(I don’t want to talk to you like a child, but a little lesson: mainstream news is mostly a cynical cash grab by harnessing outrage. Mainstream news loves things that outrage people. If there was any real outrage about this law, it would be harnessed by the dailymail and the Sun and Reach PLC to make money hand over fist. They would milk it so hard they would have to implement age verification.)
No it is not. I've asked other politicos I know and they didn't know what you were talking about. I ended up asking the perplexity. Which disagrees with your definition and says that social media and in person is also important.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/the-conversation-when-refer...
You cannot judge public sentiment accurately from mainstream media or polling. Mainstream media typically act as stenographers for either the state, their corporate masters or both. Polling has a multitude of issues that are well known.
> I’ve showed surveying that backs that up. The absence of any mainstream articles about this should be evidence enough it isn’t part of the conversation. Maybe that’ll change in future, but at least for now, nobody cares. Maybe you’re right and there’s a conspiracy amongst the mainstream to suppress the real views of the people, we will see.
I've told you why I don't believe them to be convincing. "The conversation" isn't happening on mainstream media. It is happening on social media, in person, on YouTube etc.
You re-iterating the same tired old talking points and showing me a YouGov poll (which are known to be BS) and saying you are right isn't evidence.
BTW. A lot of these polls aren't there to find out what the public actually thinks. They are there to manufacturer consent by making it look like it is supported by the majority.
> I don’t want to talk to you like a child, but a little lesson: mainstream news is mostly a cynical cash grab by harnessing outrage. Mainstream news loves things that outrage people.
You are literally still talking down to me in a condescending manner. Do you think I don't know that msm doesn't engage outrage?
BTW, you are presenting this like this is a revelation. When in fact it is a trite observation about how the media operates.
There are actually much more interesting ones if you look at how sometimes the exact same headlines are pushed by newspapers that are supposed to be opposing one another.
Earlier on in my career, I used to integrate news feeds for news sites (sports news, but still news). Most of the news you see is literally bought from several source providers and copy-righter/editors (or AI now) literally rewrite the article in the style of the site. That is why many news sites literally just repeat the same thing and then put their own spin on it based on their audience.
God forbid we start talking about subjects like how the media manufacturers consent, how the British State (MI6) has engaged in psyops against it own citizens.
I really suggest you spend some time reading some books about these subjects because you are way out of your depth.
> If there was any real outrage about this law, it would be harnessed by the dailymail and the Sun and Reach PLC to make money hand over fist. They would milk it so hard they would have to implement age verification.
Firstly, everyone who has two brain cells to rub together know that these are rags.
Secondly. Your argument is that if there was real outrage about this law it would be covered by outrage mongers. Why would they need to create outrage if there was already real outrage? Doesn't make any sense.
Thirdly. There has been coverage by MSM. I was visiting my parents house at the weekend, and as I walked into the living room, ITV news had two so-called experts talking about the issue. So somehow I stumbled on the mainstream coverage by accident (I don't ever watch TV these days), but you can't find it! Strange that.
You're commenting on a story about VPN use surging in the country after the law came into effect. Clearly folks noticed.
This is a very dangerous measure of how worryingly authoritarian or not a particular place is becoming. People's perceptions are notoriously subject to all kinds of blindness and unknowns. The perceptions of most average Germans living in the first years of the Nazi state were also of minimal concern for authoritarianism, and little more than a series of modest blimps on the radar, and where did that take them?
This is not to compare the underlying savagery of something like the Nazi state with the soft bureaucratic smarminess of the modern UK, but the underlying risks of any creeping authoritarianism are the same: a steady normalization of deviance.
Just, no.
5-eyes is the most heinous human-rights-destroying apparatus under the sun, and it wouldn't be happening if it weren't for the British desire to undermine cultures they have deemed inferior.
When it comes to pedos in specific, the UK got absolutely shaken by the scandals of the last few years - Jimmy Savile, Epstein being involved right into the Royal Family, just to state the obvious ones.
As for terrorism, the problem dates back a bit deeper, the UK has had the IRA conflict for decades, and to this day the conflict isn't resolved, the only thing that did happen was the IRA got formally disbanded in 2005.
Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find workarounds. They can ask an older friend to buy it for them, just like they can use a VPN to access porn.
The difference is, regulation shifts accountability. It moves the responsibility from a greedy, insensitive business owner to the kids. And at least with the kids we can guide them, and help them spend their time and money where it actually matters.
Note: I know people who love guns or porn are probably going to downvote this, but someone has to say it.
This isn't about protecting people.
The state doesn’t regulate these things to protect people, it does so to manage risk to itself. Porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are tolerated so long as they are contained, taxable, and politically useful.
Regulating porn is this system likely trying to move the needle on declining birth rates. You can look to a host of pro-natalist efforts in China as the likely inspiration.
And without a doubt, overreach by governments will continue.
What’s less clear is the claim that pornography is inherently harmful to children’s development or wellbeing, the research is mixed at best. And the justification that age-gating websites and apps is purely about safety remains deeply unconvincing.
So then either this effort is misguided, a hollow gesture for optics, or a small piece of a broader agenda that hasn’t been made explicit. It just seems to me that this is creating a lot of chaos for a hollow gesture.
Plus really shit media that loves negative clickbait and low effort outrage stoking.
Empires take a very long time to die, but when they finally do, it is never pretty.
Historical example are abundant.
Take this law: it's not new, it was passed in 2023 by the previous government. The law had a two year deadline attached to it, and companies didn't introduce any restriction before the deadline. The new government has a lot on its plate, so it's hardly surprising that repealing a law that was already passed with little attention to it was not high on the list of priorities compared to things like not defaulting or unblocking planning permissions. And yet, twitter and other places are full of very loud voices describing the law as new and designed to oppress them now, even though the deadline was set two years ago.
On a more general note, we have our problems, but the UK is in a pretty good place. Sam Freedman covered some bases in his recent post [1] (crime is down, the economy is struggling but improving, etc), but I'll add some more:
* We're probably the least racist, most integrated society in the world. The leader of the opposition is a black woman and first generation immigrant [2]. When Rishi Sunak became a PM, his race wasn't brought up once in any media, including very right wing; compare and contrast with all the bullshit about Obama and his birth certificate dog whistles.
* First time in years we're reducing the backlog of asylum applications. People applying for asylum can't work because they haven't proved their status yet, so naturally they need to be looked after. All the noise you hear is caused entirely by the conservative party defunding and then outright pausing application processing. This means that people looking for asylum had to live in limbo for years, which caused multiple problems. No backlog, no problems.
* We punch WAY above our weight in arts and theatre, and the industry is flourishing. Ever noticed how overrepresented British actors are in Hollywood?
* Compared to our main ally overseas, we have a very effective parliament. The executive is kept in check even with the very large majority Labour has now, and the Lords proved their worth during Brexit, putting brakes at the worst impulses of the previous government.
* We largely preserved our core military capabilities and alliances over the decade of austerity, slowly repairing, recovering, and expanding now. We're a major partner on nuclear programs, tier-1 partner on F-35, AUCUS is happening, we do a lot in Ukraine, and we're one of the only two nuclear countries in Europe and just signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France.
* We are helping people in Hong-Kong, Ukraine, and Afghanistan with targeted immigration programs.
* We're rolling back anti-nuclear nonsense, building two large NPPs, and deployed wind generation at a massive scale.
* A bunch of important reforms are going through the parliament [3], from enhancing renters right to a YIMBY reform.
But very little of that filters into online environments. The most unhinged, xenophobic, paranoid voices get amplified, creating the impression that you cited, even though it can't be further from truth.
Britain is a beautiful country, open to the world, with a globe-spanning network of alliances and relationships, and an incredibly resilient democracy. We should do SO MUCH MORE, yes! But it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate where we are now, too.
[1]: https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3luwmp2vpd62...
[2]: she was technically born in Britain, but she and her mother returned to Nigeria very soon after her birth
[3]: https://labourreforms.uk
It's not just emergent disconnection, there are many documented cases ([1][2][3] etc) of nation states trying to sow division and fear. The impression that you got is a good example of them succeeding.
[1]: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-...
[2]: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/new-whitepaper-telling-c...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades
I feel like this is 100% true of the US as well, the only difference is there are multiple factions (the blue EAs, the blue EAccs, the red pro-Trump, the red anti-Trump, the red EAccs, ...) scared and cynical of different things.
What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.
If you read any history about any daring military action during WW2, a lot of it was done by men thinking up of stuff in dark rooms while smoking cigars. Why is this so unbelievable now?
BTW, The UK ran the world's largest empire and until recently this was in living memory.
> What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.
Hanlon's razor IMO is nonsense. It is honestly believe it was invented so people could explain away their malice.
Anyone who is relatively intelligent will work at out some point, that if they don't want to do something they can passively aggressively work against the authority while working withing the rules. My father (who builds luxury yachts and is near retirement) was telling me how he maliciously complies with various companies rules to make his superior's life more difficult, this is a way to get back at them for their poor planning.
Even if you accept that Hanlon's razor is mostly true. It cannot be applied when you are dealing with political actors. Political actors, the media and anything related are literally trying to manipulate you. In fact it is a good rule that whatever they tell you that it is, assume the opposite and that is typically true.
No dark rooms, armchairs or cigars are needed. Did you guys even read Wikileaks?
e.g. corporate lobbying clearly exists and operates, and may be nefarious, but is broadly directed towards the corporate entity's gain, rather than dividing and conquering the masses.
Conspiracies are a very common part of business law, people just do not accept that it can happen in the political realm.
So sure, that's probably blackmail and subversion (via kompromat on prominent politicians or business people) in favour of that country's interests, but again that's insolated and self-interested (i.e. in the interests of the particlar country in question). But it's not centralised 'divide and conquer the proletariat' in favour of the (ultra-)bourgeois, which was my original point.
I'm not saying that such things don't exist; I'm just arguing they're not as centralised and targeted at creating divides and unrest amongst the people as the original post suggests, as usually that's not a tactic that results in a beneficial outcome for the group involved. Epstein's putative handlers weren't going "nah, forget infiltrating the mil-tech sector in your country; what we're really interested in is a few headlines about immigration in the UK".
I don't understand how you don't see this as textbook conspiracy or centralised?
No need to imagine it. Read the Wikileaks. Names are named. The class division is real, and it is fomented by those who seek to profit from the subterfuge - and they DO profit, at massive scale.
https://historicalarchives.europarl.europa.eu/files/live/sit...
https://wikileaks.org/nsa-germany/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...
We have a history of trying banning bad stuff. Magna Carta in the 1200s against the right of kings, slavery abolition in the 1800s, now porn being pushed to kids.
I don't think child grooming or hate is particularly bad here but we tend to try to stop that kind of thing. We also had the first modern police force in 1829 and other innovations which have caught on in some other countries.
Some of the US alt right media pushes broken Britain stories because we have some muslim immigrants or something. The majority of the public support the bill https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-poll-finds-7-in-10-ad... I wonder if it's more the US is afraid of the their government that if they say they are promoting online saftey they are really going 1984 on the populace? Here people tend to assume they are in fact promoting what it says on the tin.
Seems like the pendulum has swung back now, doesn't it? Increasing authority/rights of the government instead of a king.
It's more the protect kids from sites 'that carry pornography as well as other “harmful” material that relates to self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.'
I guess other counties are like screw the kids, I'm terrified of being IDd in case my government does bad things?
Most of the time these dystopian descriptions of the UK turn out to be completely overblown nonsense when you look into them properly.
[1]https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/berliner-polizeip...
It isn't about outright banning the discussion, because that will cause considerable push-back by the public. So you dress up a policy as doing one thing knowing that the effect will be another. I don't take anything the British State says at face value. If you do, you are simply being naive.
This seems like a non issues isolated to the initial period of being introduced.
They're arrested for supporting a group that's been banned for causing around £30 million's worth of damage to our national defences at a time of hightened national security.
There's the implication that Palastinian Action are going to continue attacking us.
If they just stuck to protesting they would have been fine.
What gets classed as "support for" and "terrorism" is not evenly enforced.
These riots are spontaneous and "organised" via people getting riled up online. There isn't a central organisation that people see as leading these anti-migrant riots/attacks. They seem to be an emergent property of the protests. If there is a named group organising criminal action and it includes things that threaten/damage national security then that group should be banned.
Palestine Action was conducting organised criminal raids with the specific intent to cause damage to anything it felt was Israeli, Israel related, or somehow benefited Israel. A lot of the time the link was tenuous at best. They also attacked national security assets. Honestly this group's actions has done more harm than good for the Palestinian cause.
Tons of people are arrested and charged every day for thought crimes in Britain.
It sounds like there was harrasment involved, but it is scant on details.
Europeans like to joke about the Americans being fine with gratouitious violence in kids movies as long as there's no blood, but a single female nipple immediately makes it R rated. Now consider that even France and England have different nuances on what is considered acceptable. If you extend beyond Western culture it becomes even more diverse. In some of the more religious Muslim countries a women shaking her full head of hair might be seen as erotic content. A lot of Japanese anime skirts very close to sexualizing children (from a Western perspective).
If every country became serious about enforcing age verification for their value system you could post barely any image or video content without marking it as age restricted for some jurisdiction. And the lines wouldn't neatly follow communities but you really would need a judgement for each piece of content. That's obviously not going to happen, so you will always have people from one place visiting communities in places that are more lax on one specific measure they are interested in.
And that's assuming all software and platform operators want to follow the restrictions, despite the obvious profit motive of not doing so. Restricting the supply isn't completely useless, but also provides huge incentives for those able to meet demand
I daydream about some kind of overlay network, without censorship and surveillance, where only people 'in the know' participate.
Mesh network powered by walking nerd nodes and shoe leather? Everything TOR-ed and encrypted and super-asynchronous? Radio?
These have been getting build for years now, and the rate is increasing. The open, public web is on its last legs and is being replaced by a multitude of private networks.
It's a shame, the previous seasons were kind of timeless, but it feels like they jumped onto a buzzword that backfired before it was well understood. Although I may have dropped it early and it would have backfired on them after their cryptochain is used by criminals or whatever, but IIRC it was very early Bitcoin era and the themes were something like a 51% attack by china, it was way too early to make a comment on Blockchain, they were able to do good satire on the dot com era precisely because it was already dead.
But age verification as a concept is a completely separate issue from the implementation of the verification system itself.
The biggest hope I see is that the EU also wants to implement age restrictions, but with a lot more effort to get it right and make it compatible with a strong desire for privacy. Maybe that will make "proper" implementations easy and common enough that many of the downsides will be mitigated
Anyway, there are two questions here:
1. Do we need to verify the age of internet users?
2. How can we do it without sacrificing privacy of everyone involved?
You can't monetise the data you don't store
However, no systems are fault free. Whether we are talking about computing systems, mechanical systems, or societal ones.
Sometimes police can arrest an innocent person before they realize the mistake and release them.
Should we stop policing completely? Or maybe the right question to ask is “how do we minimize the chance for police to make mistakes?”. Note, these are two separate issues:
1. Do we need the police at all?
2. How do we make police to not arrest innocent people all the time?
"When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’"
The same reasoning you use for extortion applies to many other systems we have today. Should we abolish them because they have failures?
Then reread it with only the explicit meanings in my and root comment: we are talking about the consequences of the law without making any comment on the morals, probably because we are network admins that see this news as input and we are not lawmakers that see it as output.
I hope that by rereading the comments in this light, communication might be improved.
Yes. Any law has consequences. Like the one that gave the police powers to arrest people.
Note: Forgot to add, this is going to give some low level data or software engineer access to all of your darkest secrets and what is to stop them from using that to blackmail you? Some guy is going to ring up their local millionaire and say "I see you are into X, give me a 100k or everyone else will know as well" There is no end to how bad of an idea this is.
They are normalising people being asked by potentially shady sites to subject to identification procedures, after all.
If I was inclined to sell such information illegally, I'd set up a bunch of honeypots and "verify" users and just hoard the data to sell.
The words that come to mind are malicious and incompetent. The only 'achievement' is to increase contempt towards the government. And the times aren't exactly stable to begin with.
But that's not what laws like these are about. In the US at least these laws are driven by Christian Nationalists are setting up a situation where PII of porn users is able to be leaked. That's what they're counting on. They also want to have political control of platforms by continually holding a Sword of Damocles above any publisher's head.
https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/07/29/nigel-farage-taki...
>"Nigel Farage ‘on the side of predators’ with Online Safety Act criticism, says Labour"
Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist?
The end goal here is digital ID and censorship. Compare this to the perennial efforts for encryption backdoors. If there is a characterization that accurately encompasses this, it is the illiberal, statist, authoritarian impulse. Sure, they used a sex-panic to advance their agenda. However, this is merely symptomatic of the larger illiberal trend towards authoritarianism and the expansion of the state.
First we hear that the people behind the push for online identity verification are Christian nationalists. Then, after being informed that the British Labour party is also pushing for the same measure, we hear that the common denominator between those factions is their crypto-fascism.
To call the Labour party fascist, you must be some sort of extreme Thatcherite. To call Christian nationalist fascists is somehow even less defensible, as fascism is strongly collectivist[1] and the American political Christian extremely individualistic.
This entire discussion points to a horrific crisis in civics education, which I believe can explain the increasingly authoritarian policies of modern western governments far better than some crypto-fascist plot.
[1] "Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State", The doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini
So... national socialists and National Christians have a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram... to deny or miss those parallels seems disingenuous or ill informed.
I'm not informed of the British political landscape, so I can't speak to that.
And no, not every Christian is a NACHRIST, and it also isn't a coincidence that NAZI's co-oped and used Christianity opportunistically when it suited them.
And it's near universal because fascism is the major exception as it really doesn't desire any conformity from the designated inferior. That's what distinguishes the policies of NSDAP from prior cases of anti-Jewish oppression - the Nazi party wasn't interested in conversions at all.
As such, you really shouldn't call anyone ill informed on political topics.
In the US however, this campaign came from the same think tanks and strategists associated with Project 2025 (taking cues from folks like Enough Is Enough), who are pretty upfront with their Christian Nationalist views. In Project 2025 they include a bizarre connection of porn with transgenderism that tips their hand on the religious bent to all this, but elsewhere in the plan outright state their Christian Nationalist ideals.
I expect the make-porn-illegal crusade is more common in the US than elsewhere.
Of course this just shows the English Dissenters ended up being quite influential on both the left and right over the course of Anglophone history.
The law could mandate that retail device OSs ship with a turnkey child safe mode complete with app and extensive site whitelists and run an educational campaign on the subject. But instead they've gone the needlessly invasive route which is telling about the true motives.
The law was passed in 2023 by the tories, and Ofcom has concluded what the tories asked them to do -- write the statutory instruments that implement the law.
The Labour government would have to repeal the law (really unlikely; governments don't usually rip down their predecessors' laws because if they did no progress would occur) or set the statutory instruments aside.
I think the "true motives" are what the law says. I don't think they will ban VPNs (which would support an alternative reading of motive).
I also, again, encourage US readers to understand that your own supreme court has rubber-stamped a law that requires US porn firms to do all this and more for the benefit of Texas, and there are 24 more state laws that have similar impacts.
Pretending this is just something crazy we Brits are doing out there on our own is disingenuous at best and often hypocritical and whiny at worst.
As it happens I am from the UK and have no particular love for the way the US handles things either. In fact one of my biggest problems is that it encourages us to send extra PII to some of the most odiously associated US companies out there.
But in general I don't think doggedly pursuing this route where children get access to the full internet sans some self-selecting sites with ID checks is the way to go. There's too much out there which is outside the realms of accountability. If everyone installs VPNs (which appears to be what's going on, especially given that far more than just pornography is being blocked this way) then guess what happens when the child borrows the shared family device?
People want a magical solution which exonerates caregivers from having to worry about this and shifts the burden elsewhere but unfortunately one doesn't exist and the online safety act certainly isn't it. Education and turnkey child proofing of devices are the only thing that will really help.
Strongly agree. It kills me that nobody is seriously discussing robust, industry-standard childproofing.
Even if you require a driver's license, how hard is it really to swipe your mom's ID from her purse and write down the serial number? There is no solution to this problem that doesn't require parents to actually parent their children a bit and lock down their devices.
Another factor is that a lot of sites won’t work well with a VPN these days. So you really need to keep switching back and forth, which is a pain (especially on mobile).
Preventing children from accessing porn has broad public support (as we might hope). That is very different to saying the OSA has broad public support though.
The YouGov survey results that have been much discussed in the past week came from three questions - one about age restrictions for porn, one about whether the new measures would be effective, and one about whether the person had heard of the new measures before the survey. The answers were essentially that the majority hadn't heard of the measures, almost everyone supported preventing kids from accessing porn, but the majority didn't think these measures would be effective in achieving that. Probably none of those results is very surprising for HN readers.
What is notably missing from the debate so far is any evidence about whether the public support the (probably) unintended consequences of the actual implementation of the OSA - which are what almost all of the criticism I am seeing is about. As with any political survey the answers probably depend very much on how you ask the questions and it's easy to get people to say they support "good" measures if you gloss over all the "bad" parts that necessarily go along with them.
Oh yeah? How's that anti-terrorist legislation working out?
Mobile phone subscriptions in the UK go the other way: By default they filter some content. If you tell the phone company to turn it off, they do. It's less invasive than this law because you don't need to tell them why you want it turned off, but still more draconian than if we could turn on a child safe mode that e.g. then required a pin or something to disable.
I can't imagine that it would pass as-is since on its face it seems to apply to all computers and all software including things like nginx or nftables that the entire modern economy relies on, but who knows?
[0] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
It doesn't need e.g. code signing or anything else of the sort.
To be clear, I think all of this is a massive overreach - my point is only that you can achieve the claimed aim with far less invasive means.
That, if anything, makes the chosen idiocy even more troubling to me, as either they're incompetent, don't care at all about the implications, or there are unstated aims.
There is a conspiracy and it's being rolled out. There was already some country that declared anyone running non-standard OSes on their phones are highly suspect.
Honestly? Yeah, pretty much. It's a little hard to think of them that way since they're the leftmost establishment party in the UK, the same as the Democrats in the US, but historically speaking they're pretty right-wing. And theocracy has pretty deep roots in Anglosphere politics, so it's not necessarily that visible from the inside.
Labor during the Corbyn years made Bernie Sanders look like a fascist and the current labor is back to being milquetoast and embracing its social authoritarian roots.
Similarly, Americans cannot understand that the Canadians have an "NDP" and "Liberal" and they don't understand their differences - though these days I don't think the NDP knows their differences either!!!
I mean arguably, Labour could have repealed it or could have decided to disown it and discourage implementation, but the terrible design of the legislation is pretty much entirely the responsibility of the last government.
All of our platforms are inundated by an overwhelming amount of well crafted, targeted (specific per person) campaigns of disinformation by foreign actors.
China, Russia, Iran, and others cannot even remotely hope to stand against the West. Yet if you cannot stand against your adversary, you must weaken them.
You promote infighting. You take minor issues which can be cooperatively resolved with compromise, and seek to turn them into issues of great division. You spread falsehoods, creating useful idiots in great numbers.
You find the most radicalized, most loony of citizens that you can, and then secretly fund them.
Understand, any concept of "we do that to ourselves" is like a gnat in comparison. This is a real threat, it's been getting worse, and the common person is not capable of even understanding the concept. The common person, even when told repeatedly, thinks there is no downside to having their Pii stolen, or hacked. They simply read click bait titles, youtube or tiktok videos and 100% believe every word without any skepticism.
You may disagree with any or all of the above.
However! The above is what is actually behind the move for KYC to this extent. It's not about age verification, it's about identity. And it's not even about one westerner talking to another, it's about a foreign adversary seeking to pretend to be a domestic.
Of course, this is all rife for abuse. Of course, there are immense downsides. Yet the downsides of leaving an endless stream of propaganda, disinformation spewed at everyone including our youth, unchecked, is far far greater.
And I say this as someone that has fought for an open internet. It's already dead. It's dead because foreign interests use it as a tool to destroy our societies. It's dead because soon AI will replace most generated information.
Age verification laws are really identity laws, and any work to provide anonymous verification will fail, sadly, unfortunately, because the perceived threat is so large.
(I do not even necessarily agree with this, but if we don't understand the logic and the why of this, of why it is happening, then we're complaining about the wrong thing...)
The issue is no one in government would buy into this. You'd prevent them from catching bozo criminals who can't use a VPN.
*For example, you get up to N anon tokens a day you can use for anoning online. Only a count is stored daily to limit generations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXqTMwN4MtY
At the time she was the Neocon Presidential candidate.
I've always found it difficult to believe that voters are capable of critically consuming information and voting for wars, regulations or confiscatory taxes, and simultaneously are incapable of thinking critically about propaganda. Under this model, the fact that some deceptive sources may be foreign is largely a red herring. The entire premise of Democracy rests upon the presumption that voters are capable of making informed decisions in an adversarial information landscape.
I don't see the desire to control Internet speech as a novel phenomenon. The rationalizations have evolved over the years. The proliferation of AI, Russian sponsored podcasters and Wumaos are iterations of an appeal to special circumstances.
If the West truly believes that authoritarians like the CCP are immoral and should be opposed, it stands to reason that they shouldn't be seeking to emulate the CCP's methods. That's the surface level, ideologically consistent view.
Beneath that, there is a rabbit hole of fringe theory. Like the above poster, I provide this information to better explain possible motives, without endorsement. In the conspiracy sphere, the PRC is regarded as a trial lab for social engineering schemes. The allegation is that concepts are ironed out there first. Examples would include: social credit scores, digital ID, Internet censorship and the confluence of all three. Whether these theories are true or false, it wouldn't be unreasonable to be wary of these outcomes.
All of which is the fault of the establishment parties and not of foreign actors.
Even Trump now continues or, in the Middle East, exceeds the existing long term neocon policies. So the foreign online propaganda, which does exist, is completely overrated.
I don't need China to tell me via Tiktok that my life is getting demonstrably worse. I know that. The fact that China gets to tell me and be completely honest whilst doing so isn't something they've "engineered," they're just pointing at reality.
Or we could, you know, trust people to exercise their critical faculties without the intervention of overbearing Civil Servants, Cabinet Office officials or the guiding hand of the BBC. Radical idea, I know.
Mass alienation didn’t begin in a troll farm in St. Petersburg, it began in think tanks, boardrooms, and editorial meetings that decided ordinary people were an obstacle to be nudged, not a public to be served.
The propaganda in Britain isn’t loud or foreign (largely). It’s quiet, domestic, and politely credentialed. It's Otto English, it's James O Brien, it's the BBC. It doesn’t scream at you, it nudges, omits, and reframes until systemic rot looks like unfortunate happenstance.
The message from the BBC and the like is overwhelmingly don't think too hard about why things are the way they are, don't ever question the root causes, and if someone from the credentialed classes says something, they're probably right about it.
It's why the article is never "Wait why have your living standards fallen through the floor?" or "Is lockdown actually working?" but "Here's how to make a meal for £1" or "How to make a really good sourdough loaf".
By setting up a world where people can only access "pre approved" bits of information, you're not lessening access to propaganda, you're just picking winners.
That's not working so well in the US at least. That gave us Trump.
I worked on the latter problem space precisely for the US State Department. Its challenging, esp at scale, and esp if the folks trying to fight back are not given a free enough of a hand to do whats needed.
Several examples: government employees are being vetted for loyalty instead of qualification; public corps like CBS are not only self censoring political speech but they also have a "bias monitor" to appease the government; normal people are being denied entry to the country for various wrongspeak on socials.
It's possible to do truly anonymous ZKP's of being a member of a set (eg. over 18s) but in practice it would be very cumbersome. It would involve having a setup with a central authority (government) to build a Merkle tree where users would submit hashes of randomness and then a user would generate a token through a ZKP that would decouple them from their real identity with the anonymity dependent on the set size. New participants can be brought in but the anonymity set sizes would fluctuate.
Even with this method it will link together all services utilizing the token. And if you attempt to solve this by allowing to generate multiple tokens the entire scheme becomes somewhat meaningless as durable bypass services would emerge.
The only thing to do is denounce every bit of bullshit and not try and "find a way to make it work". Just stand for freedom for once instead of bending the knee or pushing for authoritarianism like most people do with every invasion for oil, during covid, when there's an accusation of some -ism or whatever the next label is.
I ask this in all seriousness: have you been paying attention to what's happening recently in the US?
Hilarious, you literally have a president shutting down free speech by getting a talkshow taken off the air so that the owning media company can pass its merger regulations; he’s also threatening to sue or actually suing other media organisations, universities, newspapers,... And on top of all that has built a private militia to grab people off the street and deport them.
All while major corporations have so much money and control over the government and its representatives that individuals have little to no say in how things are done.
And let’s not even start on the electoral system that encourages only the issues of a few states to ever be ‘heard’.
The whole country is indoctrinated to pledge allegiance to the flag and is taught that the constitution is of equivalent standing as the stone tablets brought down from Mount Sinai, leaving you all more vulnerable in a world where anybody can say anything and have it broadcast to billions of people at once. Or, you know, to being shot. You're indoctrinated to believe that the founding fathers were infallible geniuses, when they were just men, with opinions.
Often in these discussions we get quotes like:
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
That was said by a man, a regular man. He said a thing. It is entirely devoid of nuance, but you will all recite like it's the word of god. It's a form of self-oppression in its own right.
The vast majority of so-called oppressive laws introduced in the UK were well meaning, not done for power (like with your current president). The anti-hate speech laws were brought about because preachers were openly indoctrinating people who went on to commit atrocities like 7/7. I have never fallen fowl of those laws because I don't preach hate and foment violence. But to Ben Franklin that's the thin end of the wedge.
This latest law is for sure misguided, but it came from a desire to reduce online harm for children -- more opposition was needed when it was going through parliament. I get it, they messed up, it's bad law, but we also have a parliamentary system that functions, so it will almost certainly be refined over time.
The goals are right, the implementation is wrong, but that doesn't mean the UK is falling into authoritarianism. We're not trying to overturn elections, or you know, stop them altogether.
The idea that the US is some paragon of freedom and liberty is utter, utter nonsense. It’s more fucked than the UK will ever be.
You wrote: "The UK is an increasingly authoritarian nightmare." - it just isn't. For those of us who live here, nothing is really different. Not being able to access porn without a VPN is not the definition of "authoritarian nightmare".
The UK, for sure, has its problems. Some related to our democracy. But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
Linking your real identity to the ability to load text on a computer you own absolutely is. Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is. "Knife control" absolutely is.
> But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
Good god come on. I hope I remember to come back here after the next election and accept your apology.
Not to defend the UK too vociferously (it _is_ going in a weirdly authoritarian direction and I certainly wouldn't want to live there), but this is also a thing in many US states: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/11/politics/invs-porn-age-verifi...
> Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is.
This is a _bit_ of a myth; very few CCTVs in the UK are run by the government. It does have a very large number of CCTVs but they're generally privately owned and operated; they're largely a product of insurance company requirements.
As someone who lives in neither, the US seems considerably scarier at the moment, in general, and a lot further down the road to Hungary-style authoritarianism. The British government hasn't, as yet, made a serious effort to take over the media, say.
Nor has the US.
Also, as sibling says, you’re simply misinformed about CCTV. There is no centralized government-operated network of CCTV cameras. In fact, all figures you read about total numbers of CCTV cameras are basically just guesses, as there is no accurate way to track numbers of privately operated cameras.
> Linking your real identity to the ability to load text on a computer you own absolutely is.
You're responding to something I didn't say.
> Not being able to step out onto the street without having 50 government-operated cameras take your picture absolutely is.
That's not true either. You're just lying. There are police CCTV cameras in trouble areas, sure, but the idea that there are 50 pointing at you at any one time is a lie. Most CCTV cameras are privately owned and they can only be sequestered by the police with a warrant.
But just to be clear, you call that an "authoritarian nightmare". It's an exchange of some freedoms (privacy on a public street) for some safety (freedom from criminal assault/theft/etc.). Because we haven't been constitutionally indoctrinated we can see the nuance in that exchange. Some may think it's gone too far, others not far enough, most appreciate the drop in crime.
> "Knife control" absolutely is.
The last time I bought a knife the Amazon delivery driver just had to check my ID to make sure I was 18 or over. But again, because we haven't been indoctrinated to believe that the constitution was given from upon high, we understand that if kids or young adults are buying knifes to stab each other, then we'll do something about it.
How many school shootings have there been in the US this year? The fetishisation of guns and violence is literally insane. The rest of the world looks at the US and its lack of gun control as lunacy.
>> But it isn't on the precipice of losing its democracy altogether (like the US).
> Good god come on. I hope I remember to come back here after the next election and accept your apology.
You first. You've already lied several times about the UK, so whenever you're ready.
This whole debate is utterly pointless. There's a clear divide between how the constitutionally indoctrinated American sees the world and those of us who live in countries without constitutions. Our system will always seem crazy to someone who only believes in one set of laws written down 200 odd years ago.
The difference with the UK to the US is that we have tended toward freedom for the past 1000 years. We are more comfortable with our system and institutions. It's certainly not perfect, but on the whole it doesn't oppress.
The 'First They Came' poem in the UK would go something like this:
* First they came for the Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers, and I did not speak out because I was not a Islamic fundamentalist suicide bomber.
* Then they came for the Nazis, and I did not speak out because I was not a Nazi.
* Then they came for my PornHub access, luckily I didn't need anyone to speak up because I had VPN access
* Then they came for me - and there were plenty of decent people to speak up for me, cos life in the UK ain't as bad as it's said to be on Hacker News.
It kinda doesn't punch quite as hard ;)
Not really. China's great firewall has been doing that a long time before these laws. It was only a matter of time till our leaders ask Big Tech "do for us what you did for China, except add a coat of paint over it so it doesn't look evil".
More pearl-clutching "think of the children" nonsense.
And even if it were somehow feasible to control internet access points 100% of the time, do you think most parents could figure it out? I have friends with teenage children, I assure you, most of them would be easily outsmarted by their kids with anything tech related, and they’re above average intelligence.
I’m not necessarily saying this is the correct solution anyway, I don’t know what is, I’m just saying we don’t need to make up dystopian conspiracy theories to explain the motivation of the people who want to do it.
https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1949181229791592887
or
https://xcancel.com/NoContextBrits/status/194918122979159288...
On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something.
And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult).
With any luck parents might even be forced to gain the skill their kids already live and breathe and don't think twice about.
:)
Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that.
Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere.
Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.
Bollocks (nicely). A shit-load of 'the 1%', just got a free pass. If anything, after that!, 'I'm expecting these laws to be doubled-down on.'
We are building a niche social network and don't want to be in the cross-hairs.
Is anyone in a similar position? How's your company dealing with this?
Edit: apart from cost, storing user IDs etc goes against our goal of building a private social network. We would like to retain least amount info
https://waitlist-tx.pages.dev
The less you know about this stuff the better.
These regulations are meant to serve big corporations and protect their monopoly.
B*I*N*G*O!
(also applies to GDPR, and even though GDPR has wider applicability, devs should focus on the low-hanging fruit first instead of going around in what-ifs and exceptions)
At best, as we're now seeing, they'll go from Tories to Labour to Tories to Labour. With the members of both parties from the same schools, the same social circles, living in the same neighborhoods, and supporting the same policies.
There's no voting their way out of this mess. At this point they need something like the Restoration of the Stuarts. Failing that, they need divine intervention.
I'd be careful if I were you. The police could use that as an excuse to raid you.
Yes it is, well, the shady ones that make you part of a botnet are. Those are the ones people are going to predominantly use.
My experiences in the country using VPN stuff was pretty interesting though... it _really_ felt like depending on where you were physically in the country that you were going through completely different censorship pipes. And things like Apple push notifications would just get through no problem so you could at least receive stuff via push from banned apps.
I wonder what kind of detailed explanations of the mechanics there are, because I don't have a mental model of it that works beyond "censors just tell each regional office of national operaors to do stuff and they all do it slightly differently"
In other words, if you censor enough of the internet that your population knows ways around that, your censorship simply ceases being effective.
Really? I thought it was de facto no care for piracy from the gov side. Maybe that is just how it looks from the outside.
Britain 2025 == Russia 20??
(and not just for those 2)
Maybe pivoting to things like Tor makes more sense.
They will probably pass a law that says you have to be 18+ to purchase a VPN however.
What if I could purchase a unique QR code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to prove my age?
There'd still be problems in the US with 1st amendment issues, but I'd at least remain anonymous.
I don't really understand why every adult should need to jump through hoops because parents won't spend 5 minutes enabling it on their kid's devices.
Hell, modern parental control software with an image classifier is arguably better than these online age verification systems since it works with anything that appears onscreen.
For a digital only solution, I think the best system would be some form of public-private key attestation:
The government advertises their public keys for 18+ verification.
A website generates a unique token - this token is then taken by the user and submitted to the government receiving a signed attestation. This can then be given back to the website to prove the user is 18. It only has to be done once per profile and no information is shared between the Government and the website on who is who.
Unless of course the token is saved by both the website and government in some forever database and then a lookup is done.
Another solution could be a timed/signed token produced by the government that has no input from the website. But this still has the downside that this could just be saved by both parties and in future you could identified if both sides compare data.
There's a bunch of other "digital wallet" development going on in general, effectively providing digital certificate-backed identity documents and similar (driving licenses, passports). The plan for age verification is that these wallets will also be able to provide a cryptographically signed attestation of age (signed by an EU verification authority, i.e. your id-issuing government org) but with no other personal info included. Then you can present this to anybody, and they can independently verify the signature to confirm it's a recent proof-of-age attestation without knowing anything else about you.
It's still fairly early - lots of blueprints and proof-of-concepts, not yet rolled out anywhere AFAICT - but looks like a reasonable solution I think. In practice I suspect most people's experience will be a government-backed mobile app that you authenticate with once, and then it can handle verification requests on-device or show a QR code that other people can scan & verify.
I can already smell a business opportunity to start illegally reselling/dealing age-verification qr codes.
Not a bad system really? Pseudo anonymity and avoids some third party tech firm getting involved?
This is just moving personal data responsibilities from service providers (e.g. porn sites) to the central authority (QR code maker and verifier). Unless there is a semi-anonymous way of purchasing age proofs, e.g. over the counter.
Don't give adtech any ideas.
What many people do have a problem with is requiring disclosure of unmodifiable biometric data and government documents that once "hacked"/sold into the data collection pipeline becomes forever tainted and easily stolen.
You can't "reset my password" with biometric data once a malicious actor has it
People suggest some sort of regulation for something, or some social service, often ones that are similar to those in the UK, and people who oppose it will point to things like this and use them to illustrate the slippery slope fallacy.
The US was literally the people rejecting the UK governance system and starting their own, setting it up in a way so that it would never be the UK governance system. And here you are complaining that people in the US point to government happenings in the UK as something to be wary of, saying that the US has become "governance-averse"? Seriously?
I see the slippery slope fallacy-fallacy more than the base fallacy.
Not even for streaming. But for general "safety while on the Internet" when the devices (Mac, iPhone) are mostly on public or not-so-secure WiFi (at the residence or on the go). Plan is to keep it always ON or almost always ON.
Not necessarily for the UK.
(Other than Mullvad)
It took me all of 10 minutes to set up.
The static IP address, recorded by every site you visit, is directly linked back to you personally, and only you.
And thank you for saying this but I have tried. Both on DigitalOcean and on a VPS bought from a deal on LET - didn't do it for me. It was a pain unless I left it literally untouched, un-updated, un-upgraded forever and ever. I know, I know - I must have done something wrong or I need more patience or both. But sadly it didn't cut it for me. It made it hate the entire thing.
Other self-hosted option could be one of those sites where you can use one service and pay for it like pikapods or so but then if I am doing that then why not just use a VPN because anyway I would have to sign up for different services and then pay for it too while not having the control a droplet or vps will offer (talked about above)
Otherwise it sounds like you’re saying everybody already knows which one is good and which one is bad -- but if everybody knew, you wouldn’t need to say anything, right?
Performance is better due to the in-kernel drivers, UDP design and crypto choices. If you're simply looking for the fastest option wireguard is it.
Openvpn's protocol is somewhat more janky than wireguard. It looks tls-like but then does its own transport thing. It has a lot of flexible options and ciphersuite choices meaning you could very well pick something less than ideal. The complexity of the code makes an undiscovered bug slightly more likely.
The downside of wireguard, mitigated by some VPN providers, is that it is UDP-only. You may find environments where you cannot tunnel out this way, even if you try to impersonate QUIC by running the remote port on 443. Mullvad has a udp-to-tcp proxy as part of their client and server to work around this.
But a VPN would have been more appropriate for this task and if ever I needed to use a different IP from a different country (that would be rare and mostly to access websites for a short period) I could just do it easily.
Mullvad, however, leads to Captcha City and is straight up blocked on a couple of sites, namely McGearHub and, for a time, Runescape. Btw, if you have a friend using it, you can likely mooch off their sub. I share mine with 2 other people since the device limit is 5, and I only have my phone and PC on it.
I'm guessing the captcha city situation might be better with more "casual" VPNs but I doubt it makes much of a difference once you have a bunch of people on the same IP.
But the main reason is — it’s the default recommendation on HN. So I would prefer to know what else good there that people are using. Because it would be really sad if it’s the only one. I kind of refuse to believe that.
That’s all.
Next best option is self hosting. Beyond that, it's a thoroughly enshittified marketplace.
though you may need to be more clear on the safety / privacy benefits you expect to gain
I've found that Mullvad generally has the best privacy reputation, but I've also been blocked by a lot of sites whilst using it.
The mainstream consumer VPNs like Nord, Proton etc aren't as great for privacy but I suspect they're less likely to be blocked. I'd love to have more data to justify this though.
Take from that what you will re: China vs western censorship
It's just that Australia and UK tend to lead the way when it comes to authoritarianism and then it becomes "this has always been like this, you conspiracy theorist".
This morning it was all about "think of the children" in the context of banning AI tools that could potentially be used to make AI generated CSAM. Even adult nudity is in the firing line. Ban the lot was the advice from the expert. Not just banning access, but making it a crime to even possess the tools.
What next? Ban paint brushes because someone might use them to paint offensive images?
Hell, the UK are currently criminally investigating anime artwork websites.
"Flickr will now require all new users to be 18 years of age or older to create an account"
Not just for UK but global.
The depressing thing is this seems the one thing a government that's famous for U-turning won't U-turn on. Even if (let's be honest, when) a list of MPs proclivities emerges from a data breach the most they'll do is exempt MPs from the provisions rather than admit this is a terrible law that makes the UK more dangerous rather than safer.
If it was actually true that 80% of the population opposed this law, MPs would be falling over themselves to run against it and it would be gone immediately after the next election cycle.
I think it's a dumb law, but I also don't think the UK's democracy is that broken. It's pretty clear a majority of UK voters support or are at least ok with this law.
Yes technically it’s possible but I was told my a Swiss accountant “just don’t bother trying unless you can get a European passport - if you can”
This is from personal experience. As odd as it sounds Brexit really affected business ( always thought it was posturing) I can’t imagine what it did to mega corps etc
Just thought I’d share my xp
With all due respect, this was never odd. It was immediately predicted from the day the UK voted for Brexit, along with many of the other very obvious side effects of leaving the EU, like free movement & ability to work, logistical challenges etc.
When Brits go to another Country, they are expats, bringing their wealth and culture with them. When people come to the UK they are immigrants or economic migrants refusing to get jobs, learn the language or integrate while taking all the jobs.
It was predicted long before the vote. The government even posted leaflets in everyone's door explaining that.
It seems like British people got very used to being able to move to the continent but how long was that state of affairs around for, I wonder.
That’s how visas work in most of the world.
I’m curious now, did you vote for it and not expect this? It doesn’t sound odd at all, it is exactly what everyone said would happen other than people promoting Brexit as some form of nationalism/pride movement.
People finding out that voting against free movement means movement will no longer be free remains my favorite Brexit trope.
I was surprised, because I dont follow politics.
I just sort of stumbled upon issues when travelling around Europe.
The point of my comment is not that I was surprised, but that Brexit "happened", from my pov. Im sure many others understood the repercussions like gifted clairvoyant giraffes before it occurred, but I alas did not.
See figure 1.3a - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisor...
Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.
If you were a French or a German doctor or an engineer, would you spend 3 months fighting with the Home Office for the questionable privilege of earning £50K per annum in a country where a half decent flat costs £2500 a month?
Who indeed will pick the cotton.
Aren't those nurses needed back home?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehignett/2023/06/07/uk-...
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/afr/afr...
The sorts of "progressives" who unconditionally support mass immigration are just useful idiots being used as tools by said elites to enforce their narrative. Just have to push the idea that "disagreeing with this is racist" and they'll all support it without question.
I do not distinguish the far-left from far-right as they equally polarizing and extreme, and only seeks to pull people in the center towards them through violence, censorship and intimidation.
People in the center seeks a balance between the extremes. Some industries require immigration of labor force but it can't come with delusional ideologies that seek to manipulate the wages.
Progressives (in the US at least) generally support immigration with protections and fair wages. They also recognize, rightfully, that systems built for decades upon exploitative practices (low wages, no protections) if removed overnight will cause mass disruption of those systems.
Neither of these is in any way supportive of slavery, modern or otherwise. The first - suggesting that immigrants be treated civilly and paid a living wage - has been fought tooth and nail by 'free market' literalists. The second - that there will be disruptions in social and economic systems when an entire workforce is suddenly removed from the systems that it has propped up for decades - is common sense and historically founded.
You're conflating these things to try to justify a talking point that was just created three months ago.
Like, come on now. Give me a break. This type of reasoning is so caked with bullshit I don't think anyone on the right even buys it.
Sure, we can say maybe the left is arguing for exploitation, but certainly the right aren't champions of human rights. I mean, what's the big picture here? "Don't exploit the immigrants! Instead, violate their rights and force them into camps!"
We can solve the immigration problem overnight, if anyone cares. Just say that if you're found hiring undocumented people, you go to prison. I garauntee you, the problem will solve itself with such expedition it will leave you in awe.
But nobody on the right actually proposes this. Because they don't actually care about immigration. They care about populist messaging. They want you to believe there's an enemy within causing all your problems, and they they alone are the solution.
But no - they, too, directly rely on the exploitation. They won't ever patch it. It will always be lip-service, propaganda, and populist messaging.
Immigrants are the populist scapegoat needed to get the authoritarianism. They're an easy to blame demographic that are physically marginalized - you can literally see them with your eyes.
Without immigrants, this populist messaging problem isn't solved. In the US, we just used black people before. Chinese people for a while too. Japanese people. We increased surveillance, built camps, required registries, you name it.
That's just how the right operates and how their populist messaging works. You need to convince poor "incumbents" (usually white people) that there's some other demographic coming for their money and they're dangerous. Don't let them into your neighborhood!
But don't worry, we can clean it up! Just give us unilateral power and a surveillance state, and we promise these pesky brown folk will be gone. And then, somehow that will magically improve the quality of your life!
It's the same story again and again, over and over. If we haven't already done this a bunch, I might be inclined to believe you. But we have. So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
Yeah yeah been there, done that. Just give the authoritarian's what they want at this point, they're not even being slick.
This conflicts with basically everything else you wrote. Not sure if you meant to do that, or meant to say something else, but the immigration issue is definitely driving the messaging from Reform and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives. If suddenly the boats stopped, the Afghans were beamed away back to Afghanistan, and ~30 years of mismanaged immigration policy was reversed overnight I don't see how a) reform exists, b) the election at the end of this 5 year term isn't just about funding NHS and Labour holds a majority with the rest split between the Tories and the Lib Dems.
>So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person and therefore anything else that person said is wrong and "bad", and then they get to sidestep any meaningful discussion about policy.
Honestly that's pretty much how we got to the place where Reform is leading in the polls by 10 points, so bravo for a very meta comment.
Yes, my point is that we've already done this countless times.
The messaging doesn't go away if you get rid of these particular brown people. They just shift to some other demographic, because that's how right-wing populist messaging works.
Nobody would actually be satisfied if the immigrants were beamed away.
> People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person
No, it's not, and I don't think you're racist.
To be clear, I'm from the US, so I'm speaking from the perspective of what we've done and we keep having this same thing happen again. And again. And again. For literally hundreds of years at this point.
That's the meaningful discussion. I yawn not because you are racist, but because you are unoriginal.
All those other right-wing populist dilemmas turned out to be hot bullshit. Looking back, I don't know how people were stupid enough to fall for them, but evidently they were and we implemented a lot of surveillance and authoritarian laws. Luckily, many repealed.
But, I have no reason to believe this particular demographic panic isn't bullshit. They've always been bullshit. Just based off of track record it's not looking good.
The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
It seems to me that, coincidentally, just like every other right-wing panic, mostly brown people are targeted. Hm. Interesting. Look at that. So why is this panic real, and not fake like the other ones?
>To be clear, I'm from the US
I'm also from the US, and am still able to discern that these immigration levels are unprecedented in history, in either country. So ... hand waving it away because it's icky isn't sufficient. Your position amounts to "immigration, in any amount, does not matter" which is a much more extreme claim than that of the "far right", either in the US or the UK.
>The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
I don't know how to parse this sentence, other than for it to mean that as long as the immigration is from countries that are "brown" (your words) it's not legitimate to criticize it.
If the same thing keeps happening and we keep being wrong, I lose faith in the premise. I have no reason to believe the right is faithful on these issues, so I don't care. I'm just going to assume they're making a big deal out of nothing and I'm probably right.
The UK currently has a left leaning government. All governments love surveillance and authoritarianism.
That's what pisses me off about the whole thing. People buy the crap the politicians are feeding them and the immigrants are the ones that pay for it. You'd think people would have realized after decades of this crap that neither party is going to do a damn thing.
Do you really mean to tell me that none of those people can work as cleaners?
For cleaners it's a little less clear which employment visa they'd have been more likely to use. Potentially either depending on the specifics of their job, their income and the precise definition of skilled worker.
Study visas do not have a pathway to settlement. Students paying through the nose for the privilege of staying for a few years to study and then leaving (or getting work visas like everyone else) is hardly a bad thing.
"The use of the UN definition of long-term immigration means that whether someone should be counted as an immigrant or emigrant (and hence contribute to the net migration statistics) only becomes evident after 12 months.... Currently, the ONS publishes provisional estimates with a 5-month lag"
The discussion of international students is less relevant to employment related concerns, but still contributes to other aspects of population growth like rental housing demand or water consumption.
Ultimately you have to balance the incoming immigration with the demands that produces, and that's where a lot of countries fall short. For being as similar as they are, Americans and Canadians have radically different experiences and opinions on immigration from India, for example. Why? Americans mainly think of them as either business owners providing needed services (even if it's just as the stereotypical convenience store owner) or people working in cutting-edge and important industries, because that's who American immigration policy allows in from India. Canadians have far less charitable views, because over the last decade or so, Canadian immigration policy has been far less discriminatory. Whether it should or not, this produces social friction with people who have roots in the society that receives the immigration.
https://niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JC760-NIESR-O...
It's not about productivity, it's about the gross GDP numbers (and initially new labour were 100% OK with a demographic transformation project at the same time)
Gen Z have never experienced economic growth. They don't know what it means to get richer.
In the 90s in the UK, skilled working class tradesmen making huge amounts of money was such a stereotype that there was even a comedy character about it. I can't imagine seeing that happen again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadsamoney
So the law isn't about little Johnny wanking it to PornHub. It's about control. It's a government that has proven time and time again the only thing it cares about is more control over the people it should be serving being able to get a little more control.
If you already have a faltering cultural and national identity, and immigration - both legal and illegal - is skyrocketing[0][1], it's basically a straight line to see a large cohort of people link the two and and vote for the people saying they will end it. It's also not a remotely "far right" opinion to think that people should not be allowed to come into a country illegally, and if you do come into a country illegally, you should be removed. The idea that this is somehow bad is itself the fringe opinion.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...
Looking at the USA: the federal policies are currently as anti-immigrant as possible, and in the US states which support those policies the most, age verification has been passed into law.
I fail to see how being anti-immigration, no matter one's opinion on that matter, resolves the basic issue of a nanny state.
"The purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord. Therefore, the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse, who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes, and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published."
This is an explicit restriction of free speech, in line with what's happening nowadays in the UK.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)
"In Hobbes’ view, the sovereign had a crucial role in overseeing religious matters. This included the power to appoint religious leaders, regulate religious practices, and ensure that religious teachings were in line with the laws of the state. By doing so, the sovereign could maintain control over potential sources of dissent and prevent religious conflicts from arising."
https://polsci.institute/classical-political-philosophy/reli...
Same goes with restriction of free speech by the sovereign. I understand that you could say that it's fine and so on, but is clearly a slippery slope.
Far fetched and not cool.
The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable, particularly when it's proven that the majority are not fleeing persecution but are economic migrants. They're taking advantage of a system designed to help people in trouble, how could you defend that?
And when does it end? Will the UK always accept small boats ad infinitum?
I played by the (harsh) rules and got here legitimately. Why should I have bothered.
not on a thread about vpn useage
> The current situation regarding small boats is not sustainable
the current situation regarding small boats is the inevitable conclusion to a badly implemented brexit policy and a negligent tory party rule over 13 years. Startmer took 5 months in power to talk to France and have them agree to tackle it on their side of the water. Also no brexit, no boats. The anti immigration chest thumpers caused the problem and then scurried like rats. Farage was impossible to be found the year after brexit won, dude aws the face and suddenly wanted to part of the "glory"
This is straight from the guidelines
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. "
Bringing up immigration policy in regards to a new internet identification legislation seems less like a "discourageable tangent" and more of an "overt breaking of one of the few enforceable rules of the site"
The guy below you, whom I replied to, is nowhere as good at dogwhistles as you and straight up brought up the boat conversation, which has 0 to do with vpns and honestly its just "build a wall" but for the sea, a conversation so boringly transplanted from american media is almost not wroth discussing.
You bragging about how you manged to say the things you shouldn't by talking around it and how many people either fell for it/or agree with you and know the dogwhistles is not something I would be proud of.
Just to be perfectly clear, the far right is surging because the demands of the lower and middle class are ignored, in serving both old money aristocrats, landlords, media moguls and foreign oligarchs all of which are economical leeches. We are in a post Tatcher "there is no society" world, not in some kind of left kumbaya "we are the world" reality. The far right is up because they thrive in dog whistles and anger like you are riling up, good at burning down Reichstags more than building any sort of succesful society.
That might be a factor, but the main things I see is that British society is very sharply divided -- dangerously so maybe -- and that these new online safety rules might be an attempt to reduce the ability of one side of the division to influence the public discourse and to engage in collective action. If so, then immigration policy is relevant to this thread in that it is probably the issue most central or essential to the division.
thats the advantage of dogwhistling, is that you can always feign ignorance
> No one claimed that the far-right is the solution (or at least I didn't) but rather the consequence.
the consequence of the far right economic model of hyper individualism? So far right breeds more far right, and calling it out is just "making assumptions"?
> HN demographic is not even generally far-right
It is one of the more susceptible groups to fall for their spell though. HN tends to skew nerdy and libertarian, two groups that think of themselves as intelligent which means if you trick them into thinking something they tend to internalise it because they think they came to the conclusion themselves. It is also a highly targetted demographic by far right groups.
Or do you think its a surprise that the "far left hippie" Sillicon Valley reputation got shredded in a second when half of LA was in Trump's inaguration? We had tech bros in front of elected officials. Crypto, videogames all oriignally very HN areas are all now constantly under threat of "manosphere" influencers, all paid by the same 5 think tanks, and far right billioanires.
> he agreement comes from the fact that people understood the context of the comment
Sure, thats not an assumption, that is you being an all knowing entity that can analyse why 60 people upvoted something. I mean it could be one russian farm pushing for "destroy cultural identity" text recognition as they have been known to do on X and Reddit. Or it can be 60 hyper rational individuals all of which understood the context I clearly seem to miss. But your assumption is right of course.
Just to be clear, I am not accusing you of being far right, you are just repeating their talking points and strategies. If you are doing it on purpose and pretending to be unaware that bad. If you simply are unaware I am explicitely explaining how and why they do and say the things you said and did.
Your flipant attitude is either lack of self reflection or worse, you are aware of what youre doing and downplaying bad faith dogwhistling.
How about:
2018 - Sandhurst Treaty
2022 - Interior Ministers’/ Home Secretaries’ joint declaration of November 14th
2023 - UK-France Joint Leaders' Declaration
Yes, these did nothing. Starmer's/Macron's joint declaration will also do nothing. If you don't understand why, try starting with the past 204 years of anglo/French relations.
because you had the privilege to
If they didn't want this, they could have just restricted it and it would have largely gone away as a topic of discussion, but current levels makes it inevitable it will become the main thing people think about
The reason immigration has cut through is it corresponds with people's own direct lived experience. It's not an abstract concept to people, it's visceral and real
Some politicians and certain parts of the media are blaming immigration for all of those issues. There's a constant barrage of talking points on the news and other forms of media. They cut through complex issues and appeal to 'common sense'.
People are directly feeling the pain. People are being given a reason for the pain. People feel that reason is the direct cause of their real pain.
The refusal to accept these problems is what is creating a surge in far-right popularity. The very people that oppose them have inadvertently become their biggest cheerleaders.
Just because people like yourself happen to think it is uncouth to discuss, doesn't mean that it isn't part of the equation.
And the UK welfare system isn't all that good. I'm a landlord, and at one point a letting agency told me they refuse to deal with anyone on the welfare system because it's simply too difficult to actually get the council, who are supposed to pay, to actually pay. The necessity for food banks is another big hint that the government system isn't covering basics.
And the UK healthcare system has for a while now only been free to UK permanent lawful residents and a handful of others: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/visiting-or-moving-to-englan...
(As in: migrants will be asked to prove entitlement, it won't be assumed).
If you moved to the UK for work, you're paying twice for the NHS, because not only is it supposed to be covered by national insurance contributions, but there's also an NHS immigrant surcharge: https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...
Federally, no, they aren't getting assistance, but it's all a slush fund as money flows back and forth between local and the federal governments anyway.
They pay taxes (in Texas) through gas, property and sales taxes which fund much of the state.
Yes, immigrants are a critical component of several industries like healthcare.
Legal permanent residency/work visas should be easier for skilled workers who want to work in high demand jobs. And all wealthy nations should be more wary of unlimited, unchecked economic migration by poorer populations.
(IOW it's complicated)
I think social media is at least as big a cultural weapon against us, and if I had to choose between deport/imprison a small number of business and political leaders who abuse that weapon or four million undocumented US residents, I would choose the former.
My comment on social media as the #1 catalyst of societal disassembly applies to the UK as well as the US.
My comment was responding to that and to pjc50's reply.
Veen was in reply to pjc50, who also did not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44712105 — "they've seen US ICE snatch squads and internment camps and decide that they want some of that here."
("here" can be read as either being "the UK" or "all places outside the USA", but the one place it can't be read as is "the US" because the US already has that).
-------- Cash-like income
• CA Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) 2,400 ‑ 3 qualifying kids and earned income around $20 k → ~$2 000 CA + $400 YCTC add-on.
• Young Child Tax Credit (YCTC) under age 6 $1,080
• County “Breathe” Guaranteed Income Pilot $1,000
• Child Tax Credit (federal, kids=U.S. citizens) $6,000
• CalWORKs Stage 1 child-care voucher (parent copay $0) $8,500
• Los Angeles County General Relief (“GR”, undocumented adult) $2,348/yr 221 × 12 ≈ $2 650; actual monthly household max 2 adults = $442 (LAC DPSS 2023 schedule). Family with kids rarely gets full GR cash, so book 50 % = $2 348.
-------- Food
• CalFresh for 3 citizen kids $8,940
Max allotment for 3 children household = $780 / mo × 12.
Housing-subsidy value (Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher)
• Local Payment Standard (3-br in Central LA, 2024) 28,640 FMR $2 655 / mo × 12. Actual voucher covers 26 600 after utility allowance; market-value differential is tax-free.
-------- Medical care (only the kids qualify under “Restricted Medi-Cal”):
• Children’s Medi-Cal (MC+) HMO PMPM $3,600 ~ $3 000 capitation + dental + mental health wrapped.
-------- Education / daycare substitutes
• State Preschool slots, 3-4-year-olds (county rate) $8,520 6.5 hrs/day × 180 days × $14.50/hr teacher-cost ≈ $8 520 “value”.
• Title-I supplemental services at public school $1,500
-------- Energy / utility
• LADWP low-income discount (ELECTRIC, $0.11/kWh credit) $720
• SoCalGas CARE discount (≈20 %) $240
-------- Transportation
• LADOT universal student pass (DASH), 3 riders $360
TOTAL ANNUAL BENEFIT VALUE
Cash/benefits truly delivered: $2 400 + 1 080 + 1 000 + 6 000 + 8 500 + 2 348 + 8 940 + 28 640 + 3 600 + 8 520 + 1 500 + 720 + 240 + 360 = $73 848 / year
Market-value package ≈ $74 k rounded.
How does identity verification work for those if you can claim while being undocumented? How do you know the claimants are real at all?
NGOs engage in money laundering ops in the UK to give illegals handouts using a multi-step process to steal taxpayer wealth from Britons.
----
Primary Grantors:
UK government departments (DWP, Home Office, DLUHC)
EU Legacy Funds (2020-2023) via Shared Prosperity Fund
Lottery-funded charities (e.g., National Lottery Community Fund)
--
Key Recipient NGOs: Organizations registered with the Charity Commission targeting "migrant integration," "asylum support," or "poverty alleviation."
NGOs apply for high-value grants (e.g., £500k-£2M). Examples:
"Holistic Integration Project" (Home Office Fund)
"Urban Inclusion Programme" (DWP Social Mobility Grant) Documentation often includes inflated beneficiary counts and ghost project proposals.
----
Fictitious Expenditure Fabrication
--
Shell Vendor Creation:
NGO leadership registers dormant companies (e.g., "Community Outreach Solutions Ltd") as "service providers."
Invoices issued for fake deliverables:
"Cultural Sensitivity Training" (£120/hour)
"Temporary Shelter Management" (£2,500/week)
--
Fund Diversion:
Grants disbursed to shell vendors’ accounts → funds withdrawn as cash via "business expenses" loopholes.
Apparent spending: ~70% declared for "operational costs" despite <15% actual delivery.
Street-Level Handlers: Charitable workers / NGO affiliates directly distribute cash bundles (£50-£200/person).
Cover Mechanisms: Officially declared as "emergency subsistence stipends" (exploiting reporting gaps in small-sum transfers). Physical cash avoids AML scrutiny (<£10,000/transaction).
HMRC estimates £1.2 billion in fraudulent charity fraud annually (2023), with ~25% linked to migration sector schemes.
--
Confirmed Cases:
Refugee Action Leeds (2021): £370k diverted via shell company "Unity Lifeline."
London Sanctuary Network (2022): £890k laundered for cash-in-hand construction workers.
Charity Commission ex post audits detect fraud only after fund exhaustion (~18-month lag).
----
Trusteeship overlaps allow corrupt board members to approve fictitious vendor payments.
Underground Hawala Couriers: Shell vendors remit cash to illicit hawala brokers, who distribute to:
Landlords: Covering rent for illegals in overcrowded slums (£400/month cash).
Employment Fixers: Kickbacks to gangmasters employing illegals.
Direct Cash Distribution Points: Mosques/churches in African neighborhoods (e.g., Peckham, Birmingham) via coded vouchers.
----
AML Evasion:
Cash withdrawals <£10,000/month avoid automated reporting under Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Tax gaps: £500 "<essential expense>" cash allowances weekly to illegals bypasses PAYE.
----
Non-existent grant audits through:
Front projects like "Go Green!" and "Ukraine Crisis Aid" masking London-Nigeria hawala flows.
Donation recycling: Public crowdsourced funds diverted into laundering flows.
Also, elephant in the room: California has the 4th highest GDP in the world. Clearly, what they're doing is working. So well that they provide what, 1.5x more federal dollars than they take?
I mean, Louisiana doesn't provide jack shit to nobody. And how's their economy holding up? Anybody check on them recently? Last I checked, despite providing fuck-all, Louisiana isn't even breaking even with federal dollars, let alone touching California's 1.5x ratio.
Fixed that for you.
this response implies that the country has lost ass sense and thus far-right polling has increased as an attempt to get back to sense.
your politics are none of my business.
In all honesty, I thought I was being clever by swapping the sentences around to reverse the meaning, but I didn't spot the ambiguity.
You can blame the parents for allowing them unfettered access to the internet, but their classmates will show them something while they're hanging out after school or waiting for the bus. This doesn't even include the softer stuff that gets _recommended_ to them every day on tiktok and instagram reels - actively pushing them towards more explicit content.
I don't necessarily agree with the politicians here and I do believe there are ulterior motives at play such as information gathering for blackmail on adults, etc.
What is the solution here? I don't think there is one that satisfies everybody.
Way too many kids are rotting their brains away either becoming gooners or clout-chasers. I thank God every day I was born too early to have access to this stuff as a kid. I can't imagine what this "you must always be online and also sexy" culture is doing to our youngest generations.
"While generalizing about tens of millions of people is always difficult, a series of studies in recent years have reported that teens since the tail end of the millennial generation trend towards being less sexually active; they launch their sex lives later and have fewer sex partners than earlier generations."
This is the first time you're getting dozens, maybe hundreds of hours of watching someone do it arguably "wrong".
Doesn't solve the away problem, which is mainly 5g. I should be able to do that as the account payer.
I agree that children should not have access to sexually explicit material and that it can warp their relationships to sex. I also agree that some people have unhealthy relationships to pornography; there are plenty of psychological and psychiatric factors that lead people to engage in disordered sexual behaviours.
But people NEED to stop bringing medical pseudoscience into these discussions. Statements like "[children] form lifelong addictions that stunt their emotional and developmental growth at the click of one button" are neither true nor useful.
> [T]he last 5 years of pornography research is marked by increased attention to the impact of context and individual differences when assessing pornography use effects. Particularly, researchers have provided compelling evidence that differences in religious and moral values regarding sexual behavior can impact estimates of pornography use and perceptions regarding the problematic or addictive nature of pornography. Considering recent findings, a systematic review of recent research (within the past 5 years) on how religion and morality shape pornography use effects was conducted, with a particular focus on findings regarding pornography problems due to moral incongruence.
> Fifty-one articles were included in the present review. Findings demonstrate religiousness, moral disapproval, and moral incongruence as robust, strong predictors of various problems regarding pornography (e.g., psychological distress, relational problems, perceived addiction).
Like they say above, it's hot-button issue and this sort of result is fairly easy to replicate, so a lot of papers have been published along these lines in recent years.
This is what needs regulated, not pushing “papers, please” Statsi nonsense on the adults.
They could publish their IP addresses so that the traffic can be blackholed at the router by the account holder.
The choice would then be down to the person paying the bill whether to block or not.
It won't apply to shady sites, but those sites won't do age verification anyway.
The problem is nobody wants the account holder to have the power.
Honestly seems more fun if you think about it since you could technically trade the goods around
The fact that people need to install vpn to access porn is also a solution. I doubt children younger than 13 could do it.
[citation needed]
> What is the solution here?
The kids who grew up on violent games and unlimited free internet porn are adults now. We're fine. I don't understand what's all the ruckus about.
Unless the real issue is that people are noticing certain societal changes that are very difficult to combat so the politicians blame porn because otherwise they'd have to admit that they have no solutions to more pressing problems. Please note how suddenly the housing crisis, vote manipulation, inequality, fucked job market, mental health crisis, genocide in Gaza, war in Ukraine, loneliness epidemic, unchecked immigration, phone addiction all became irrelevant side topics because right now we're laser focused on making sure that boys going through puberty won't see a naked titty. Truly a clown world we live in.
I went through puberty in the golden age of internet porn. After widespread high-speed internet became a thing, but before we started algorithmically monetizing every second of people's attention. I'm so happy of that. I still have my collection of porn I downloaded as a horny teenager.
This is what Russia is (semi-successfully) doing.
You either need to firewall the nation (which I imagine would be pretty unpopular) or it's just a waste of resources.
VPNs are incredibly easy to spin up, gambling groups are not. Within a week I could probably spin up a dozen or more semi-legitimate VPN companies. Multiply that by however many hundreds of people are willing to do the same. Add a few thousand more people willing to spin up completely shady 'free' VPNs.
The scale quickly exceeds what you can possibly block, unless you firewall the nation.
The article that our comments are under are about an 18x increase in sign-ups from the UK for one provider, a 2.5x increase for another provider, a 10x increase for yet another provider, etc. in just days.
I'm curious about your stats for China/Russia, though. Where/how do you find out how many internet users in those countries have a subscription to and/or use a VPN? Would those stats continue to hold true if there was not a great firewall in China, and just rudimentary IP-blocking of VPN providers?
Those numbers mean nothing without the baseline. What if before it was 1 person and now it’s 18x more, totaling 19 people?
W.r.t. data about China and Russia, I don’t want to pay for market reports, but occasional discussions about China, for example, show that about 35% of internet users use VPN (https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/i3afnz/how_many_peop..., the thread has some links for more info). However, it is unclear how many of those users are private citizens use VPN to specifically bypass censorship. From my anecdotal experience from work and my PhD, most Chinese I met just don’t care about censorship and lack of access to FB, YouTube, or whatever. Chinese are like western users for the most part, on average they need social media, financial apps, maybe search, etc. they are not actively looking for censored info.
They obviously don't mean nothing. Knowing absolute numbers would be much better, but knowing that the direction of the trend (people previously not caring now care) is informative by itself. It's safe to assume that more than 1 person had a VPN subscription previously.
I appreciate the link and additional insight. The way you phrased it before, I was expecting you to quote sub 10% or less. 35% is not inconsequential, especially considering the environment.
In the end, I'm not convinced you can extrapolate Chinese internet usage patterns to the UK, given the large cultural differences (specifically in regards to internet, history of censorship, etc.). Someone who has grown up their entire lives under the great firewall will react differently to censorship than someone who has grown up their entire lives under a mostly free internet that is now being censored.
Sure. However, without baseline numbers how do you know who are the people signing up for VPNs? This is the whole point: is it the general public en masse, or some of tech people who had no VPN before?
> In the end, I'm not convinced you can extrapolate Chinese internet usage patterns to the UK, given the large cultural differences (specifically in regards to internet, history of censorship, etc.). Someone who has grown up their entire lives under the great firewall will react differently to censorship than someone who has grown up their entire lives under a mostly free internet that is now being censored.
Of course culture makes a huge difference, but you cannot strongly prove the opposite just based on the assumption about cultural differences. I think the the average consumer simply does not care enough. Remember, the expectation on average is that the access to the information is free.
I guess time will tell :)
First they will make it seem like only criminals would use VPNs, then they’ll target some actually shady VPN services to use as a scapegoat, then they’ll apply punitive measures to them specifically; then they will use the fact that they have already used punitive measures as a reason to use them blanketly.
Technically: it’s pretty trivial to block almost all VPNs at an ISP level. I think only anyconnect/openconnect is difficult (not impossible) to block.
That this would affect businesses is of no consequence.
There are tools designed to evade DPI detection, but even those don't make out out of the Great Firewall of China most of the time.
Technical solutions to political problems only go so far.
This is a historically unpopular government, where a significant proportion of their own membership is opposed to the government as well, dependent on business donors because its membership numbers has crashed.
I think the effect on businesses would make going after VPNs entirely dead in the water.
Its theoretically possible to create a proxy from one pc to another using iroh/quic/(dumbpipe, which got like 880 upvotes I think on HN and I think is trending which is nice)
I feel like Its a cat and mouse game but that's just my 2 cents
The goal here is compliance, and nothing more.
You can't really stop it, but you can start treating it like Piracy. Maybe ISPs could snoop and report traffic that seems to be going to a VPN even if they can't inspect it.
if Britain does block vpn, it would look extremely authoritarian but yeah tbh, its looking the same right now too...
I do think that there is some level of bottom tech that needs to go unsupervised/unrestricted otherwise vpn's can fail (china?)
If however they restrict that level of tech too using (packet filtering?) etc., I don't really know, maybe there could be some side consequences too,like maybe some websites can stop working (like how china is cut off from the world from the outside websites primarily)
And honestly, the vpn providers can just change their techniques to be more sneaky and hope that UK govt. doesn't catch them and the UK govt. can try the vpn and find its techniques and then block them too
Its a cat and mouse game really.. The one where there is money incentive on big vpn players to play this game forever, so I wouldn't be too worried I guess.
What I am more worried about is that UK users might download free vpns or bad premium vpns which might make their phones botnets etc., so I would recommend proton vpn or mullvad but I don't want to recommend them too much because I don't want to imagine these products turning bad if a lot of people use it. (enshittenification)
Tech savvy like me think maybe I'll have to click the vpn button on the browser one day - not that big a deal.
Non tech savvy probably haven't heard of it.
Semi-autocracy result? It's a democracy. The policy was fairly popular. The next election, quite likely Reform will win and scrap it.
The conversation seems to go something like: UKgovt: "kids are being hurt by porn and self harm stuff on mostly US and overseas sites - we'll stop it and fine them £18m if they do" US folk: - freak out - "how can they harm our precious websites? The UK is over. It's going 1984!" UK people - whateves.
Bear in mind we wrote 1984 and are familiar with that stuff and this bill isn't it. That agent Krasnov guy is more of a worry.
Those who know are annoyed but not enough that it will cause change; I don't think most believe it will get worse either.
Unfortunately the default will be people going on the App Store, getting the first app that has 'VPN' in the title, download, and forget. Completely failing to address a systemic issue.
Ultimately what these laws will end up doing is pushing internet traffic towards the "normie web", create a separation between sites which refuse to implement these measures and those who will.
Ultimately for this filters to work authoritarian countries like the UK will need to ban sites like 4chan which do not comply with their age verification demands despite hosting adult content. As it stands until the UK do this the age filtering may as well not exist because kids (and adults) will just go to other sites.
Additionally search and content aggregators will likely come under increased pressure to blacklist these "rogue" sites so slowly both the ability to access non-compliant sites and the ability to find non-compliant sites will diminish.
Like in the old days when cool sites and blogs spread more by word of mouth than social media and search aggregators, we're likely heading back to a world where those who are savvy enough to work around the filtering of authoritarian states will have access to a new kind of "semi-dark web" or a "rogue web".
I almost like that idea. If the internet bifurcates it might actually become a more authentic place for those of us in know. I suppose the only question then is whether authoritarian countries like the UK will ultimately come after private VPN users as well, but I feel like that would be impractically costly to enforce.
They will not hesitate to do so, the UK has the power to quickly and easily blacklist sites.
We've seen from online bans in recent years that it doesn't really matter if someone is still technically able to access a the banned content, at some point if you make the content hard enough to find its influence becomes increasingly irrelevant.
This new legislation basically gives the UK government an excuse to ban large sections of the internet from UK ISPs since they can say they weren't complying with UK law and shift the blame/responsibility in the eyes of the public – "it's not censorship, they're breaking the law!"
In doing this it will likely be enough to reduce UK traffic to those sites by 90%+. While it might technically be possible to buy and install a VPN to access them realistically most people won't bother.
Funnily enough. They just need to claim it's "protecting the children" and people fall for it.
The funniest part is that high profile criminal cases go unpunished very visibly. Even if they have minors in their context, because the elite figures in question must be protected from the enforcement of rules.
I'd argue it works because it's a rhetorical tactic that's highly effective at suppressing dissent. Anybody sticking their head above the parapet is going to get painted as somebody who favours pornography over the safety of children, even though this legislation and opposition to it has very little to do with either.
Is the law a good way to stop this? I don't know. The main tool of governance for our elected leaders are laws, and so that's what they do.
We don't teach people about consent and sex. We tell them stupid things like "don't have sex, it's evil" and then send them off. And then stupid things ensue.
https://ifas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CLO_1164_TL1_...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2021.1...
I think Singapore on balance. A lot of crypto type sites freak out if they think you are in the US.
First, this is a law limiting the actions of service providers not users.
But by using a VPN, I'm making my own safety choices. I wish there was an easier opt-out (like an ISP account-level flag), but it I want to present to service providers as (eg) Swedish, so what? I'm an adult, the "safety" laws do nothing for my safety.
The truth is service providers and ISPs have done next to nothing to stop children signing up for (eg) Snapchat, despite a plethora of laws. Of course the parents are to blame, but fixing shitty parenting is hard.
I don't believe it is possible to convince me that VPN's as sold and marketed are anything but a massive scam. Yes, that includes the company that you say is honest.
Perhaps you mean that they are bad value(ripoff vs scam)? Then sure, probably they are. But you're basically paying to not get flagged by cloudfare. Back in the day, you bought a cheap server from OVH or some other lowcost provider, stuck openvpn on it (nowdays wireguard) and you were golden. But now that Cloudfare middle-mans half the internet, it doesn't really work anymore.
You pay the VPN providers for "clean"(ish) IPs so you don't get stuck behind Cloudfare captcha-loops.
If people think they do other things, that's not a "scam", that's people being misinformed about what a VPN is and does. That's on them.
It wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.
They listen to podcasts and watch youtube. They know that a good VPN will stop their internet banking details being stolen, protect their family in their home and add 2-4 inches to their manhood.
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Malicious actors are now harder to distinguish than legitimate actors, since they both will use VPNs. This is because in essence what VPNs are used for is always to evade the law, regardless of whether it is a law with high approval, like CASM, malware, spamming, drug trade; or laws with high approval for breaking them, like pornography age verification laws, or Intellectual Property laws on movies and music.
This is regardless of who is to blame for this issue, some will argue that it's the fault of those that break the laws with VPNs, some will argue that it's the fault of lawmakers for making stupid laws that deserve to be broken, muddying the waters. Undoubtedly, the third party, strong criminals, will make or amplify propaganda to legitimize breaking small laws, so that they can have legitimate alibies for breaking the law.
It’s already done a bit voluntarily. Try to use a VPN and pay for something with a prepaid credit card. Try to make a Steam account. Etc.
Get ready for a verified ID that’s required to access anything online because that’s the end goal.
There's precedent in financial regulation, is it legal to send and receive wires to and from a swiss bank to conceal their russian or chinese or congolese or iraki origin?
Similarly in intl. trade it is illegal to hide the origin of imports, it is even illegal to reroute imports for the purpose of evading tariffs or compliance.
If y'all want to keep VPNs legal, I suggest you find better excuses than downloading porn and evading netflix restrictions, because the other side argues about infinitely higher stakes.
Create a better, standardized, open-source parental control tool that is installed by default on all types of device that can connect to the web.
The internet aspect of the parental control should be a "Per Whitelist" system rather than Blacklisting. The parents should be the ones to decide which domains are Whitelisted for their kids, and government bodies could contribute with curated lists to help establish a base.
Yes, there would be some gray area sites like search engine image search, or social media sites like Twitter that can allow you to stumble into pornography, and that is why these devices that have the software turned ON, should send a token through the browser saying "Parental Control". It would be easier for websites to implement a blanket block of certain aspects of their site than expect them to implement whole ID checks systems and security to make sure that no leaks occur (look at the TEA app) like the UK is expecting everyone to do.
Also, I'm for teenagers (not little children) having access to pornography. I was once a teenager, every adult was, and we know that it's a natural thing to masturbate which includes the consumption of pornography for most in some way. Repressing their desires, their sexuality, and making this private aspect of their life difficult isn't the way. Yes, yes, there is nuance to it, (very hardcore/addiction/etc) but it should be up to the parents to decide with given tools if they trust their kid to consume such a thing.
As for the tool itself. Of course we have parental tools, but they can be pretty garbage, their all different, they're out of the way, and I understand that many people simply don't know how to operate them. That's why I believe that creating a standardized open-source project that multiple governments can directly contribute to and advertise for parents is the way, because at the end of the day, it should be up to the parents to decide these things, and for the government to facility that choice.
Obviously, besides the internet aspect, the tool should have all the bells and whistles that you'd expect from one, but that's not the topic.
And yes, some children would find a way, just like they're doing now for the currently implemented ID checks. It's not lost of me that VPNs with free plans suddenly exploded in 4 digits % worth of downloads. A lot of those are tiny people who are smart enough. Or using an app like a game to trick Facial Recognition software.
Also, I'd be remiss to not point out a very obvious fact. This, and I'm not just referring to the UK, isn't about children, it's not about terrorism, it's not about public safety. It's about control, it's about tracking, it's about documenting, it's about power over the masses. I know some people will hand wave this away, but we have been seeing a very obvious, very fast, rise of authoritarianism since COVID and later the war in Ukraine. It's not a new trend, but it is one that got accelerated at those stages and has been progressively getting worse world wide.
I'm against: pornography, as found in search results, is generally quite bad. Sexism, racial stereotyping, misrepresentations of queer issues: and that's just the titles. Page 3 has nothing on porn sites.
Maybe I'm judging a book by its SEO spammers here, but I've not read anything that'd disabuse me of this notion: indeed, people raise concerns about unreasonable body image expectations, normalising extreme sex acts like choking without normalising enthusiastic consent practices, the sites allowing CSAM and "revenge porn" that they've already taken down to be re-uploaded…
That said, I routinely come across nudes / sexualised imagery on the Fediverse, and that's… not an issue? Sometimes I find it a bit squicky (which teaches me not to play lift-the-flap with clearly-marked content warnings – I don't know what I expected), but the only times I've seen something viscerally offensive has been people re-posting from porn aggregation sites. (I've blocked three or four accounts for that, and I don't see it any more.)
If porn sites had the kind of stuff that queer / disabled techies post on main on niche social media sites, then I'd be absolutely fine with teenagers accessing porn. As you say, a safe environment for adolescents to explore their sexuality is unequivocably a good thing. I just don't think commercial porn sites provide that.
This is what concerns me the most about the Online Safety Act. It's shutting down the aforementioned queer / disabled techies on their social media sites, and surely plenty of other pro-social sex communities I don't even know about, but it's not going to do a thing about the large aggregators that are the real problem. It in fact makes the whole problem worse.
I don't think children should have access to porn, because they should have access to decent sex education, and (most?) porn is extremely misrepresentative of reality. According to https://xkcd.com/598/, exposure to porn can affect people's sexual fetishes. I think it is bad for people to develop an interest in violent, dangerous, or asymmetrically-pleasurable sexual activities before they have have had a chance to… uh, however it is people would otherwise figure out what they're into.
It is better for people to learn about BDSM from actual practitioners (including the background context, such as… uh, safe words? and whatever a "scene" is) than from fictional characters. If the average person (or, heck, the average 16-year-old) attempts to act out a rape fantasy, without proper access to information about SSC / RACK / etc, how's that going to go?
This isn't really the sort of thing you can teach in schools. For one, children mature at different rates: some 15-year-olds are too young to even be thinking about that sort of thing, while others are having sex in secret while their parents pretend to be oblivious. (And some of us never start being interested in that sort of thing.) Teaching anything more than the basics (how reproductive biology works, contraceptives, STIs, respecting consent, enforcing consent, the risk profiles of various popular sex acts, "if you skip foreplay, you might need additional lubricant to avoid injury", "don't use condom solvent as a lubricant", "seriously, don't rape people") in compulsory education fails to respect children's autonomy and is wrong. (Schools don't teach those basics properly, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
I also do not trust schools to provide decent sex education, because there are even "good schools" that cover up peer-on-peer rape, and place the onus of "getting along" afterwards on the victim. How's an institution that does that supposed to teach a holistic notion of consent? (No environment with such a high child-to-adult ratio where the children aren't allowed to leave is ever going to be safe, but the reputational incentives lead to particularly bad outcomes when these things happen; we don't have strong enough cultural norms requiring that adults act responsibly when what "shouldn't happen" happens.)
For similar reasons, I think any policy based on the assumption that children are innocent little angels we must avoid corrupting, is dead on arrival and bound to fail. Children are young people, with all the autonomy that entails.
There's no particular difference, apart from power dynamics, between exposing a 17-year-old to sexual material they don't want to see, and exposing a 30-year-old to sexual material they don't want to see. Of course, we cannot generally ignore power dynamics, which is why age-based rules are useful; but age is a proxy for things like autonomy, capacity for choice, informedness of choice, and tendency for choice to be respected by others. A 17-year-old at risk of exploitation does not magically become less vulnerable on their 18th birthday. If the rules to protect teenagers from harm don't protect all teenagers, there's probably something fundamentally wrong with them. (Yes, yes, you can move the threshold to 20. Very clever. Way to miss the point.) Furthermore, if the rules don't protect all teenagers, they probably don't even protect all teenagers below the age of 18, because they're not addressing the problem close enough to its source / to the harm.
As should be apparent from my earlier post, I have very little personal experience with pornography. But I have spent a while thinking about this topic, and I'm not sure how this position is parodic. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
Maybe the social ills caused by porn will disappear with proper sex education; in that case, I might be inclined to support the prospect of children who choose to seek it out having the authority to access pornography. But my current understanding of the world suggests that a restriction is more beneficial than access. (It's only, what, four years to wait? During which time children can learn to deal with randiness in ways other than "fire up ye olde web browser" or "shag a friend".)
Computer-mediated ID verification, and the Online Safety Act in general, is obviously bad, and should be opposed. But, being obvious, that goes without saying. (Was that your objection: that I didn't clearly pick a side?)
I said "if porn sites had the kind of stuff": your paraphrase adds an implication I vehemently disagree with. The impersonal nature of a website (or magazine, or whatever) is important. Children shouldn't be looking at porn on social media sites, because they should have neither social nor parasocial relationships with sex workers qua sex workers (lumping amateurs in with professionals, here): this is a (non-central) special case of "adults should not have sexual relationships with children". We can't ignore the power dynamics.
That's one of the things I think the OSA got right: if you read between the lines, each measure does seem to be motivated by an actual problem, some of which aren't obvious to non-experts like me. I'd love to get access to the NSPCC's recommendations for the OSA, before it got translated to this awful implementation: that'd make it much easier to try to design alternative, more effectual implementations.
Note also, the queer/disabled techies I mentioned? They take pains to ensure that minors do not interact with them in a sexual context: some of them explain why, and others make blanket prohibitions without explanation. It is generally understood that consent and boundaries are respected. And, from what I can tell looking at public social graphs, this works: nobody I know to be a child is interacting with nudes, risqué posts, erotica, or accounts dedicated to that purpose, even if they're otherwise quite close in the social graph. (Maybe I should do a study? But analysing people's social graphs without their consent doesn't feel ethical. Perhaps interviews would be a better approach.)
There is the occasional post from a child (youngest I've observed was 16) complaining about these policies, because they think they don't need protection. That they're complaining, rather than just bypassing the technical barriers (as everybody in my school knew how to do), is perhaps another indication that this approach works.
(I'm a degree separated from the communities that post sexy stuff online, so my observations may not be representative of what actually happens. I'm also seeing the situation after moderation, a few minutes delayed due to federation latency: I know that "remove the consequences of a child's foolishness from the public sphere as quickly as possible" is a priority in online moderation, so this selection bias might be quite heavy. Further research is needed.)
But, noted. That's excellent feedback.
To steal your wording from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44728577: if some children are going to seek out porn no matter what we do, better for the first thing they find not to be "content that demeans women and distorts their worldview on sex and relationships". If the Online Safety Act effectively prevented children from being exposed to that, then I would be ambivalent about it – but the law clearly won't achieve any of its stated goals. (I suspect bad porn is clearly-defined enough to prohibit directly, with cigarette-style prohibitions on making attractive to children sufficient for the respectful stuff, but I expect many people to call any ban "draconian".)
Very bold choice to argue the nuance of “But how do we define ‘child’?” in a discussion about showing pornography to kids, though!
It’s a parent’s responsibility to keep their children away from that type of content, not to hand them access to it so they can develop maligned, destructive ideas about sex, intimacy, and women.
(¬‿¬)
The fact of the matter is conservative movements are surging not only in UK, EU, US but in Asia as well (ex. Recent surprise seat gains by moderate right parties).
The reason there is a common reaction across borders is the decoupling from globalism which pushed the overton window so far left that its brought a yo-yo effect to the right.
Globalism isn't a conspiracy theory its real established and demonstrable political movement to dilute all cultures by attacking their national identity, heritage through mass immigration which ultimately leads to a low trust social dynamic via crime (proven by statistics) or incompatibility (belligerence against their host counry and refusal to integrate and pushing imported foreign culture and values).
It's no wonder that such reckless push to gaslight its own ethnic/religious incumbents have swung polls in the opposite direction, and in a desperate attempt to hold on to the power that globalism has given to those that preach it, ironically turn to fascist tactics such as censorship, criminalization of speech and increased surveillance that only emboldens more overton window shift to the right.
You kept calling people "far right" yesterday for slightest disagreements to progressive policies in order to censor and intimidate them and today you have huge number of people who no longer care for that label as they find safety in size and number.
At this rate, given the way things are going in UK and EU and many other countries, its going to manifest in extremely far right wing policies being normalized and coming to power as majority of the population becomes "far right" and the new normal center, and those that called themselves "liberal progressive left" will find themselves outside the Overton window.
We've probably seen these ebbs and flows in politics countless times throughout human history and I understand better as to why things like Bolsheviks, Nazis, Communists came to rise.
The demand to bypass political censorship and surveillance increasing in the West, the so called bastion of democracy and freedom, will backfire into wide scale civil unrest. We've already seen a preview of it in Spain recently, where a group of Moroccan migrant gangs have attacked locals and in turn locals fought back and burned down a large mosque.
I've been to UK, France and Ireland recently and there is deep deep resentment from the locals towards the Muslim and North African population, and it reminded me of my childhood growing up in Lebanon, witnessing the arrival of Muslim refugees, neighborhood demographics changing, ppl being jailed and labeled racist for complaining, then came civil war between the new majority group and the incumbents, political concession by virtue signaling equity and harmony which lead to even more corruption within those demographics that did not respect agreements and its ultimate demise today.
I cannot see a future without the same events unfolding in Lebanon playing out in UK. All it takes is one major event (for us in Lebanon, it was Muslim militant group attacking a church) to ignite the flame, and as you saw Torres, Spain it finally took an elderly Spain man being victim of attack by 3rd gen Moroccan youth to explode into violence.
Remigration unfortunately is the only way that can peacefully diffuse smoe of the tensions and to avoid the same fate as Lebanon but I can see this will be a difficult path especially innocent individuals of that demographic caught in the middle during this rapid Overton Window shift accelerated by an increasingly sophisticated users and dystopian surveillance apparatus....
They are humans as well and can therefore think ;)
If not for kids, then why they introduce data-gathering solutions? I wonder why...
Exposure to pornography early on in life dramatically increases the chance that person will be affected by things like sexual addiction, or gravitate towards extreme views in the same vein like incels.
Testosterone is a very powerful drug, and young brains need protecting from explicit content if we want to bring up mentally healthy males in our societies.
Currently my kids got already out of my hand, and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them. Internet became something else, so maybe I won't install a VPN to their phones and they won't be able to see the most horrible things anymore.
What is your source? I believe you are incredibly biased. Netflix is one of the biggest user of bandwidth worldwide, and if we're talking about the percentage of "pornographic" IP packets, I think it's even less than the former.
> and I really wonder how could I filter the content that goes to them
Parental control on device and DNS-level blocker (think AdGuard, PiHole, ...). Hosts file could also work as long as they're not admin on their PC. If they're skilled enough to circumvent all of that, then I think your kids will be fine.
I see videos that I think are overtly sexual in nature on YouTube, even if the video is something supposedly "innocent". If you click through to their profiles there is an inevitable link to 18+ content most of the time. I am subscribed to only tech/film/gaming channels on youtube and this content is now always put into my feed. I probably have cursed myself by checking these people's profiles after the fact.
You are right though that by bandwidth, streaming services including Netflix make up the majority of data over the Internet and it is not pornographic/dangerous for children at all.
I think you really did. I don't watch much YouTube and don't use social media beside Instagram—which I mostly use for messaging friends and not exchanging photos—but I don't see a lot of erotic content on the mainstream platforms.
Im not for this bill at all, but I agree with what the government are saying about parents being unable to protect their children because the children know more about the systems than the parents do.
You are asking tech to solve people problems. That is a recipe for disaster.
Exactly, by protesting and fighting laws like this.
What exactly do you want people to "make sure of" with the law in place? If someone is concerned about this law, what specific action should they be taking in the name of "diligence"?
What needs to be kept in check is the scope. Let's say they try to age restrict sites that are subversive, but not obscene. That's what I'm talking about.
"Children shouldn't view pornography" is fine as an overall goal. A law that suggest the content providers track the faces and passport details of all users is a ridiculous way to fail to prevent that however.
It is however a great way to have an readily accessible log of exactly which citizens are viewing content the government finds questionable.
Invoking the "slippery slope" fallacy when the country with the greatest military in the world is abusing public records to grab people off the street and out of court rooms is an interesting choice.
How do you not follow the argument that there are problems with this?
1. Verify the ID without storing it in your system. Someone just looks at it.
2. Visually confirm that the photo on the ID matches the person entering the building.
Neither of these apply online.
Has everyone forgotten how kids operate? They’re not clueless. They’re going to realize that they don’t need to submit their ID. They just need to submit someone’s ID.
At first they’ll just use fake ID generators and submit those photos.
If that loophole gets closed somehow, a market will appear for buying ID verified accounts for trivial prices. People will create ID verified accounts and sell them cheap for side money. The only way around this is to start storing ID information for every account to make sure IDs aren’t used multiple times.
It’s one giant slippery slope of consequences for the adults forced to submit IDs, while the people who want to work around it do so trivially.
Minors shouldn't have unfettered + unsupervised access to the Internet, that's the solution.
The open Internet isn't a kid friendly place, isn't meant to be, and won't be no matter how many laws you pass.
Children grow up to become adults, and spend most of their lives as adults. It's important to weigh the lifetime cost of safety laws.
A child with unfettered access to the Internet at say 8 years (IMO, way too young should be 15+) is only protected for 10 years. Then goes on to spend ~60 years negatively impacted, fighting ever growing censorship and risking extortion/blackmail when data leaks. It just doesn't seem worth it in this case.
I'd much rather laws mandate special child-safe phones/laptops that could only access a subset of the Internet, rather than forcing every website/app to collect PII and inconsistently enforce age verification for all visitors for all time.
And all of this is besides the point anyway. Social media and cyberbullying are the real threats to minors online. Porn access isn't good, but it's not causing suicides and mental health crises left and right.
The child is not paying for their devices or internet access. Their parents are paying and providing the needed equipment. In a way, it's like giving keys to after hours access to the local mall, where all kinds of stores can be browsed including adult magazine stores, without any shopkeeper to apply the laws.
So one solution is don't give kids the keys. Or, since their online activity leaves a digital trail, even if they did have keys, there's a chance to moderate their activity via seeing what they have done rather than police where they might go.
That's not an equivalent analogy. Freedom of movement, to stand outside a store, is a human right. It is not the same as "freedom to lurk around online spaces on Mummy's laptop and Daddy's internet account."
Children are getting into debt on online gambling sites? Investigate. Suppose we find that half of children saw a betting ad and wanted to play, and a third just really like online poker: banning gambling ads and providing no-money online poker would be good interventions. "Remove computers from the public library" and "require ID verification to participate in pub bets" are not sensible interventions.
You don't need to verify your age to enter a bookstore or a library.
And if you really want to control who can access porn then the only way to do that is with a whitelist filter on the device being used. These laws are onerous without being effective.
I do think a standardized requirement for commercial websites to have content rating meta tags (like the existing content=adult and content=RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA) would be a good thing though, just to make more lenient filtering easier.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65388255
Read the actual guidance. They in no way require "send pictures of your official identity documents to every site".
There are a bunch of ways (some advisable, some not) where an existing entity that knows you are an adult can extend just that -- we know they are an adult.
Credit card providers know all their customers are adults, for example -- because you have to be an adult to enter into a credit agreement. And credit cards are insured.
Mobile phone companies in the UK block adult content by default and have done for some time; you have to unblock it by telling them you are an adult. But once you've done that, adult content can be verified quite trivially with an SMS.
And there are other methods still. For example a site with longstanding members is allowed to estimate the age of members based on how long they have used the same email address!
It's not a porn filter. It's a set of rules for companies to follow to identify adult users.
Is it the best law? No. But it's not the Texas law, that's for sure, and that law has survived a US Supreme Court challenge.
That's a lot more data leakage than some central authentication for it, and PII going to more places. And it's very optimistic to assume implementations will be good faith and secure.
I'm not sure I would call the USC a mark of quality right now anyway.
So this is a new filter on top of the old.
Maybe by the authorities, furthering policies already in place to deal with people who don't toe a certain line of thought.
Probably by people outside the law, who now have a fantastic system to relentlessly attack. A place to source identity information that can be used for almost any part of a criminal enterprise, from buying credit cards to selling new names to carry.
And when security of government systems fail, in a way where damage is irreversible like this case, it is... Rare... To see fair outcomes.
It's not even that I think this is a good idea, but it does seem a fairly standard extension of existing laws. Potentially I'm missing something? Everyone else seems to be enraged by this.
(1) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/28/who-likes...
I think the bit that I don't understand yet, is: - Most people are not arguing that all pornography should be accessible to all ages - Most people seem horrified that online pornography isn't accessible to all ages
I think that the second point is a miscategorisation from me. Reading the rest of the comments, people seem more up in arms about the introduction of government tracking into a space where it previously wasn't (obviously commercial tracking already happens a lot in that space, but I don't think that justifies having even more).
I think I need to read some more on the implications of these kind of laws, I suppose I don't really understand too well what the relationship between government tracking and age checking is.
Also, we are up in arms about the introduction of government tracking is 1) it's not JUST government tracking, the age restricted sites will also get your PII and 2) most people get concerned when governments start getting involved in things regarded as private, like sex, porn, etc. 3) What will require verification is unclear "age restricted content" is pretty open.
Think I'm getting why people are so concerned about this, and why it's about more than age verification.
Honestly, if the way this worked was that you could head over to the Pornhub office and get unlocked access from the bouncer at the door, that would probably be preferable.
The problem is the surveillance and tracking, not the age verification itself.
I have no idea if that's true, but if it was, I'd be massively concerned about that (compared to non-phased about the general idea of age-verification)
https://www.pcmag.com/news/uk-online-safety-act-age-verifica...
Who defines what should be censored? The law certainly doesn't; it's purposefully vague to give the most latitude possible to the implementers. There's already been cases with the new UK law where peaceful arrests were censored by the law due to "violence."
VPNs exist, proxy websites are easy to setup, and frankly parents need to take some ownership.
Two alternative laws that'd have been much better: a) Require ISPs to provide a child friendly Internet gateway that would blacklist large weather if the Internet without a login. And b) legally require websites to accurately describe the content on their page and it's age appropriateness in headers sent back to the user, so the ISP or end device can decide whether to age gate a website.
These are much better solutions, the burden on websites isn't so onerous (many small sites have already had to shutdown due to the burden of the UK law). Implementation is distributed, preventing a single state actor from having full control of a censorship machine. Parents are empowered to decide what content is okay for their children. And you don't have to upload your fucking ID to use the Internet.
People who support this crap need to stop believing politicians every time they say "think of the children!"
This. None of this is the state's job, it's 100% on the parents to educate themselves, their children, and be the responsible party for determining and controlling what their kids can or can't do with technology and the internet.
If the state feels like they need to do something, they would be better served providing education and tools to parents. Hell, for the really tech illiterate the state could just offer a managed MDM service that they could enroll their kids devices into if they really can't figure out parental controls themselves.