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Is 4chan the perfect Pirate Bay poster child to justify wider UK site-blocking?

(torrentfreak.com)
361 points gloxkiqcza | 19 comments | 24 Aug 25 16:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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torginus ◴[25 Aug 25 08:26 UTC] No.45011561[source]▶
I genuinely do not understand where how the idea of building a total surveillance police state, where all speech is monitored, can even as much as seriously be considered by an allegedly pro-democracy, pro-human rights government, much less make it into law.

Also:

Step 1: Build mass surveillance to prevent the 'bad guys' from coming into political power (its ok, we're the good guys).

Step 2: Your political opponents capitalize on your genuinely horrific overreach, and legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public as fighting against tyranny (unfortunately for you they do have a point). They promise to dismantle the system if coming to power.

Step 3: They get elected.

Step 4: They don't dismantle the system, now the people you planned to use the system against are using it against you.

Sounds brilliant, lets do this.

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specproc ◴[25 Aug 25 08:56 UTC] No.45011763[source]▶
The West aren't good guys and have never been the good guys. We talked a good talk about democracy when we had communism to compare it to, but without that to contrast with, we look increasingly like the managed democracies you see out East.
replies(6): >>45011789 #>>45011815 #>>45011926 #>>45011981 #>>45012075 #>>45012222 #
1. simmerup ◴[25 Aug 25 09:04 UTC] No.45011815[source]▶
So naive. Talking points from the mouthpieces of the CCP and Russia who would love us to believe we’re all the same
replies(3): >>45012020 #>>45012094 #>>45012127 #
2. closewith ◴[25 Aug 25 09:39 UTC] No.45012020[source]▶
No, it's not naive at all. The UK in particular are not the good guys.

Apart from their appalling behaviour during their recent expeditionary wars, their current support of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, their sexual and physical abuse of locals near British Overseas bases, they also have an incredibly poor record with their own citizens.

British behaviour in Northern Ireland was itself genocidal, and involved the regular murder of civilians from decades. Even today they are continuing the legal protection of the perpetrators.

replies(1): >>45012927 #
3. specproc ◴[25 Aug 25 09:50 UTC] No.45012094[source]▶
Russians of any gender or minority could vote for their representative in 1917. Women in the States only got full suffrage in 1920, African Americans in 1965. So no real pedigree there.
replies(2): >>45012189 #>>45012547 #
4. buyucu ◴[25 Aug 25 09:54 UTC] No.45012127[source]▶
Not everyone you disagree with is a CCP/Russia/<insert_scapegoat> mouthpiece.
replies(1): >>45012923 #
5. andrepd ◴[25 Aug 25 10:03 UTC] No.45012189[source]▶
And only in 1917... :)
6. AnthonyMouse ◴[25 Aug 25 11:05 UTC] No.45012547[source]▶
African Americans got the right to vote in the US in 1870.
replies(1): >>45012584 #
7. specproc ◴[25 Aug 25 11:14 UTC] No.45012584{3}[source]▶
But a whole state-level legislative architecture meant that suffrage wasn't accessible nationwide till the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Modern voter registration laws, which are gathering pace today, are largely targeted at keeping minority voters from exercising their democratic rights.

Great timeline here: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/05/politics/black-v...

replies(1): >>45012633 #
8. AnthonyMouse ◴[25 Aug 25 11:22 UTC] No.45012633{4}[source]▶
If you want to talk about whether something exists in practice rather than on paper then I have some news for you about Russia.
replies(1): >>45013100 #
9. simmerup ◴[25 Aug 25 12:02 UTC] No.45012923[source]▶
No, but they could very easily be using the same talking points
replies(1): >>45013021 #
10. simmerup ◴[25 Aug 25 12:03 UTC] No.45012927[source]▶
I consider it naive to even start talking about nation states in terms of ‘good guys’
replies(1): >>45013380 #
11. aa-jv ◴[25 Aug 25 12:15 UTC] No.45013021{3}[source]▶
So? Maybe the Russians are right about some things, now and then.
replies(1): >>45013220 #
12. specproc ◴[25 Aug 25 12:26 UTC] No.45013100{5}[source]▶
Yeah, exactly. I'm saying the UK and America have democracies of equal quality to and poorer pedigree than Russia.

Edit for clarity.

replies(1): >>45020418 #
13. simmerup ◴[25 Aug 25 12:43 UTC] No.45013220{4}[source]▶
Doubtful
replies(2): >>45014211 #>>45015797 #
14. closewith ◴[25 Aug 25 13:00 UTC] No.45013380{3}[source]▶
Well, all countries are complex collections of people and ideas, so like people, there are no pure good guys.

But we have all been subjected to particularly US propaganda portraying the West as the global good guys, and specproc challenged that worldview in the comment to which you replied. Ironically, you criticised him for being naive as he was challenging the concept of the West as the good guys, something you now call naive yourself.

So it seems you aren't internally consistent.

replies(1): >>45014401 #
15. snapcaster ◴[25 Aug 25 14:25 UTC] No.45014211{5}[source]▶
the propaganda has worked wonders on you
16. SV_BubbleTime ◴[25 Aug 25 14:43 UTC] No.45014401{4}[source]▶
Yes. I don’t know why anyone would point to people with the safest and most economic mobility in history as some sort of success story!
replies(1): >>45014466 #
17. closewith ◴[25 Aug 25 14:47 UTC] No.45014466{5}[source]▶
> the safest and most economic mobility in history

Do you believe this is the US?

18. buyucu ◴[25 Aug 25 16:43 UTC] No.45015797{5}[source]▶
you've been brainwashed
19. AnthonyMouse ◴[25 Aug 25 23:22 UTC] No.45020418{6}[source]▶
The US has generally had elections in which whether you could run did not depend on your ideology or opposition to the current administration, and the candidate who got the most votes would get into office. Russia, not so much.