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

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.

It's quite simple: European states require serious restrictions on liberty in order to do the incredibly unpopular but morally good things they feel they're doing.

> in order to do the incredibly unpopular but morally good things

Who is electing the leaders of those states if the things they do are incredibly unpopular?

The notion that states are the perfect reflection of the democratic will is quite silly.

Suppose a party in Europe is elected on the premise that they will provide free ice cream for all. This is an important issue for people, so they vote for the party. When they get into power, they ban ice cream to promote "healthier living".

Most citizens do not support this policy but they did support the government being elected due to various leveraged mechanisms, such as political polarization, identity politics, laws, outright lies & manipulation, etc.

Ironically, these states keep turning over their leadership because it's incredibly unpopular and the new leadership just continues to do incredibly unpopular things.

It is worth noting that the principles behind the online services act are still broadly popular in the UK

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-...