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

    (torrentfreak.com)
    361 points gloxkiqcza | 11 comments | 24 Aug 25 16:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.924s | 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.

    replies(17): >>45011763 #>>45011799 #>>45011932 #>>45012205 #>>45012358 #>>45012512 #>>45012976 #>>45013249 #>>45013303 #>>45013857 #>>45014035 #>>45014477 #>>45014527 #>>45014559 #>>45016358 #>>45020627 #>>45021408 #
    luke727 ◴[25 Aug 25 09:27 UTC] No.45011932[source]▶
    The thing you have to understand is that the average Brit wants and possibly needs the government to tell them how to live their lives. It's a completely foreign paradigm to the average American, though alarming "progress" has been made on the American front as of late.
    replies(8): >>45011972 #>>45012013 #>>45012249 #>>45012258 #>>45012369 #>>45012965 #>>45013164 #>>45014618 #
    1. sailorganymede ◴[25 Aug 25 09:38 UTC] No.45012013[source]▶
    Average Brit here - we do not like this and the way politics here has been so tumultuous has shown the general public are sick of this behaviour too.
    replies(3): >>45012076 #>>45012148 #>>45023587 #
    2. ghufran_syed ◴[25 Aug 25 09:48 UTC] No.45012076[source]▶
    and yet they keep voting for blue labour or red labour…
    replies(1): >>45012271 #
    3. luke727 ◴[25 Aug 25 09:58 UTC] No.45012148[source]▶
    Tumultuous in what way? There's so little distance between Conservative and Labour today that it really doesn't matter who's in power.
    replies(3): >>45012398 #>>45012449 #>>45013338 #
    4. inglor_cz ◴[25 Aug 25 10:14 UTC] No.45012271[source]▶
    Current opinion polls for both are abysmal, but I don't think that civic freedoms are the main reason; the main reason is immigration, which all the previous governments promised to limit and then silently decided not to.
    replies(3): >>45012421 #>>45012465 #>>45012586 #
    5. bigfudge ◴[25 Aug 25 10:39 UTC] No.45012398[source]▶
    I think there’s more difference than there has been since the 1980s. People really underestimate how far the Tory base (and parliamentary party following closely) have shifted to the right. The willingness of sitting Tory MPs to knowingly lie and dissemble on immigration related issues to create heat is a real break from a past consensus.
    6. bigfudge ◴[25 Aug 25 10:42 UTC] No.45012421{3}[source]▶
    Decided not to, but continued to actively campaign on. It’s created a really weird situation where the actual policy choices are hugely disconnected from the rhetoric and emotion in the debate.

    Legal immigration from South Asia dominates illegal immigration by an order of magnitude, but nobody wants to lose seats in Birmingham, so essentially doesn’t figure in the arguments about small numbers of afghans in miserable hotels in Essex.

    7. pydry ◴[25 Aug 25 10:47 UTC] No.45012449[source]▶
    And both are now more unpopular than ever.
    8. pydry ◴[25 Aug 25 10:49 UTC] No.45012465{3}[source]▶
    Immigration is sucking support more from the tories than labour. They rode into power based upon a promise to do something about it and then massively increased it.

    Labour are recently leaning into being anti immigration because it's one of the few wealthy-donor-friendly policies they can pursue which will potentially gain them votes.

    9. tomatocracy ◴[25 Aug 25 11:14 UTC] No.45012586{3}[source]▶
    For the Conservatives it's all about irregular/illegal immigration. Labour are hugely unpopular on that having apparently no idea what to do about it but they also have massive challenges on the economy/cost of living and the state of publicly funded services.
    10. Nursie ◴[25 Aug 25 12:56 UTC] No.45013338[source]▶
    And they have record low shares of the vote, so … seems consistent?
    11. account42 ◴[26 Aug 25 07:59 UTC] No.45023587[source]▶
    Sick enough to stop it or only sick enough to vote for the other party who has been doing the same shit but everyone has forgotten now?

    Maybe you're not as average as you think you are.