sed 's/bro/mate/g'

Didn't that get investigated, little came of it, and now they won't investigate 'because we did already'?

That's a good point! The growth in arrests shown in the article I linked starts in 2017, though. I think internet usage has gone up significantly by some measures since 2017, but whether or not that's sufficient to explain the increase in arrests, I am not sure.

I'm far more worried that America will stop me at the border and mistreat me for something I wrote online than I am about the UK. Heck, I'm more worried about visiting the US than China at the moment. The America effort to suppress free speech is very real.

Opinion polling is largely bunk. In addition to the problem with getting a good polling sample today, questions are carefully crafted to achieve the desired results. Opinion polls are for shaping consensus, not reporting it.

Consider how badly off "will you vote R or D in 7 days" polling is in the US, even with the top national experts on the problem. Opinion polls are much, much more troublesome.

You have misread (in a very common way for, I believe, a very common reason.)

I said it's less democratic. That's not necessarily less bad unless you believe democracy is the ultimate measure of fitness for a state.

Less than 30% of the electorate voted labour. The problem is that the opposing party consistently ran as opposition but then executed on labour's policies instead so most people just didn't vote because they didn't see anyone running to vote for.

The electorate legitimately did not want these people or their policies, they effectively weren't given a choice. To call that democracy delegtimizes democratic elections.

It was a win under the rules but a memorably shallow one. Labour won a big majority of seats in 2024 on fewer votes (grand total) than when they lost handsomely in 2019.

Being unpopular is not the opposite of popular.

The winter fuel payments were very unpopular with a very vocal part of the population, while any benefits were very thinly distributed on the rest of the electorate.

The cost of the online safety act is very small and almost invisible distributed across everyone. Any major effects (leaking of personal data) can be blamed on the victims (most people assume that only perverts will have to verify their age). Another effect where security conscious people will be excluded from online discussions is probably in invisible (if not a benefit) to most people.

I don't think ISP DNS solution is very effective when all major web browsers implement DoH by default.

I assume this doesn't block porn on reddit or non-porn websites?

Can they not set their device DNS to 1.1.1.1

I don’t have to show ID, but I do have to pay the bill, which means a direct debit, which means over 18.

The correct solution (in addition to bill layer control and arguably compulsory support for an “over 18” tag in dns which would be easy enough to implement for the same sites that currently demand over 18s, would be to help parents utilise parental controls (having recently been through it with Minecraft and fortnight it was a nightmarish gordian knot.

The hand wringing about how evil vpns are is the same. My son can’t install mullvad or whatever on his phone without my approval thanks to apple’s parental controls. I assume android has the same.

The goal has never been to empower parents though

Why haven't wolves made laws for themselves that prevent them from eating sheep?

But how can those changes be made if the representatives don't act to make them? It would take a pretty big act of solidarity amongst various constituencies to send the message that failure to act is not an option.

> rooted in the ideology that the majority knows best

Let's be careful here, the point in favor of democracy is not that the majority knows best, but rather if that people are to be subject to laws, then those same people should have an equal share in determining what those laws are. IOW, the point of democracy is to give the people what they deserve, and no more.

When people talk about democracies, they almost always refer to liberal democracies.

With liberal democracies, I believe it's more about self-determination or fair representation than who knows best. The point is to prevent tyranny, including majority tyranny.

There can be no liberal democracy without the protection of human rights and the of law.

The UK has been effectively a two party system anyway within living memory (Labour and Tories). Only rarely (e.g. 2010) does the token third party, the Lib Dems) get to be in coalition, and I think no one else has won anything since 1910.

In a monkey's paw moment for everyone who dislikes only having effectively two parties to choose from, this may soon be changing as Reform is poised to overtake the Tories.

> It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests.

I wasn't trying to imply that at all... I just meant that voting for age verification laws themselves were against peoples' best interest, not the blocking of any particular website.

In any case... sites like 4chan itself existing (ignoring any actual moderation issues like CP/etc. or other clearly illegal stuff), to me, simply means that free speech still exists, and I will defend their (anyone's) right to exist and to free speech if I have to. It doesn't mean I agree with/support them or their content though.

>It's a huge stretch to call the existence of 4chan in anyone's best interests.

Absolutely, 100% incorrect. You obviously don't approve of 4chan's content or mission, but that's not the point. It benefits everyone when anyone takes a stand because their legal rights are under attack.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

>This is not a slippery slope

Again, incorrect.

Any type of punishment for 4chan due to their legal content is damn close to the definition of "slippery slope". You're familiar with the "anti-slippery slope" argument already ("First they came for 4chan and I said nothing, because good riddance!"), so you're obviously cogent enough to understand what you're saying.

>The sheer anarchy of the libertarian mindset that much of this site supports is not a good thing.

This is not for you to decide. Your mindset is why free speech laws must exist in the first place.

As shown by the proroguing of parliament by Boris Johnson on the September 9th, from September 10th to October 14th in 2019 (1), just a couple of months before the COVID19 pandemic landed and the first cases were being reported.

This action to prorogue was however later deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court on the 24th September 2019 (2). See recent changes to senior members, and subsequent rulings on matters of state importance by the Supreme Court for a look at what happens when they try to correct parliamentary actions by the ruling party. They have been singing from the governmental hymn sheet ever since.

Whither democracy? Whither justice?

1. https://labourheartlands.com/parliament-has-been-prorogued-a...

2. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme...

Democracy cannot stop Parliament from passing a law either. UK is Parliament first, democracy second.

The House of Lords is part of Parliament.

That's not really the point. You can always think of another example. I was talking about the Online Safety Act.

Reading the polling questions, it doesn't actually seem that contradictory.

> To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography?

Most people say support, presumably thinking "yeah those things seem bad and kids shouldn't be able to look at them".

> How likely or unlikely would you be to submit any proof of age (e.g. a photo/ video, photographic ID, using banking information, digital ID wallets etc) in order to access... Messaging apps / Social media websites / Online discussion forums / User-generated encyclopedias / Dating apps / Pornography websites

"Ok no I don't like this method, and obviously I'm not going to submit a photo of myself to look at porn." I don't think anybody hearing the first question was thinking "yes I support age verification even if it means blocking Wikipedia".

> And how confident, if at all, are you that the Online Safety Act will prevent children and people under 18 from seeing illegal and harmful material online?

Nothing contradictory about supporting a policy that you don't think will completely work, especially after realizing that you yourself would probably try to get around it.

I think combining or switching the first two questions might produce very different results.

The phrasing on these polls is really unhelpful because it doesn't include the actor.

"To what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography"

is like asking me

"To what extent do you support the detainment of people suspected of theft"

and then concluding I support vigilante mobs dragging people out of their homes when I answer in the affirmative. The means IS the question - the sad meltdown we're all about to witness as the UK government realises their lack of jurisdiction is because the actor is wrong, not because the end is wrong.

The phrasing should be "To what extent do you support or oppose the British government enforcing the introduction of age verification checks to access platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography"

Forcing major device manufacturers to implement these content blocks to a certain level of rigour is the obvious, enforceable, effective, minimally invasive way to achieve this entirely reasonable goal. I can believe that pornography consumption by preteens is not a good thing and that this implementation is stupid at the same time.

Doesn’t seem weird at all, Britons are saying a) I agree children watching porn is bad but b) I value my privacy online and c) don’t think sending in photos of an ID is really going to stop kids. Actually seems pretty reasonable, and a reasonable democratic representative should look at that and say “well, how else can get A if method B is unpopular and unlikely to work?”

Instead they seem to have conflated B with A. Maybe they are afraid that any criticism on this method is interpreted as attack on doing anything at all for kids watching porn on the internet or even twisted into some kind of endorsement.

Western democracies have fair and competitive elections in the same way they have fair and competitive markets for things like internet access or mobile phones. You are effectively only allowed to choose between a very carefully managed set of choice that are provided to you. This set of choices is often so dire and distant from people's actual desires that many just don't bother voting at all.

George Carlin used the analogy of restaurant to modern democracy. You have the appearance of choice because you are handed a menu where you can choose liberal or conversative or green party, etc. But all of the actual policies and laws are drawn up by the same chefs in the back and you eat what you are served.

our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power.

The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split.

It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.

First past the post, and not proportionally representative - so could be improved a lot.

The People’s Republic of China has elections, no?

First past the post, so no, not really.

> It's always slightly surprising to see Americans online react to this thinking there is some Illuminati conspiracy happening. Britain and Europe are not the US, we don't have much of an interest of having 4chan dictate public policy.

Too late by about nine years at the very least.

[flagged]