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

(torrentfreak.com)
361 points gloxkiqcza | 2 comments | 24 Aug 25 16:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.439s | source
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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.
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throwaway2037 ◴[25 Aug 25 09:26 UTC] No.45011926[source]▶

    > managed democracies you see out East
Can you name some? I am confused by this term.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia all have fairly robust democracies. Yes, some of them probably look and feel different than those of NATO, but they are a great improvement over previous colonial administrations, monarchies, theocracies, and "single party democratic states" (Korea and Taiwan before late 1980s/early 1990s break-throughs).

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1. kissaprofeetta ◴[25 Aug 25 12:28 UTC] No.45013122[source]▶
Japan has had a ruling party in power almost continously for 70 years. If the ruling party was not friendly to the West, then I bet you it would be called something else than democracy.
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2. throwaway2037 ◴[26 Aug 25 03:15 UTC] No.45021895[source]▶

    > Japan has had a ruling party in power almost continously for 70 years.
On the surface, this is true. When you look deeper, you will realise that LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) is so large, that it acts as a platform, instead of as a single, monolithic political party. Within the LDP are various factions that win or lose elections and premierships. It is also interesting to compare the Singaporean "democratic" system versus the Japanese one. Very quickly, you will realise that "single ruling party" looks different once you understand the details.