[ReaperCub]

> True, but MPs receiving a few mails that say “this law has affected me in this way” is IMO far more likely to be effective than a petition with 100k signatures that says “I don’t like this law which you recently approved”.

I think they are both ineffective. So I don't believe that is true.

> MPs have been known to respond to letters. I have had responses to various issues.

Getting a response is one thing. Having something done is another.

> It obviously depends on the MP. Many MPs were very much opposed to this issue.

The legislation was going to happen at some point or another. The direction of travel was quite clear. There are always going to be some dissenters, but the awful legislation got passed anyway. So what did their dissent achieve? Nothing.

I came to the realisation a number of years ago that for the majority of people, the only care about being able to use their Netflix, shopping on amazon, check their email and post photos on Facebook. Concerns outside of that are simply too abstract/distant to care about.

[Mawr]

> I think they are both ineffective. So I don't believe that is true.

Well, I know doing nothing is ineffective. Might as well do something.

[ReaperCub]

On this particular issue, that something can't be political. Assuming anything can be done at all.

There is no support from the public and I don't be believe there ever will be, and there is no/very little support from any of the political parties.

Even in places where you would think they would be against such legislation, the disagreement is often how it is worded.

I would rather this not be the case. But I have to accept reality and exist within the confines of it.

[teamonkey]

> I think they are both ineffective. So I don't believe that is true.

I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter. Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction.

Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them.

[ReaperCub]

> I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter.

It won't be effective in this case. It been going in the same direction of travel and none of the parties (including outsider parties such as the Greens, Reform etc) proclaim to believe in in reversing this direction of travel. They are much more interested in other issues that are much more hot button. Those issues are easy for the public to understand because they are likely to have encountered them often.

> Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction.

No it won't. People will either find a way to circumvent via VPN/Tor or some other mechanism (which is what they already do) or they will simply shrug their shoulders and won't bother.

There has already been a large number of forums/sites that have been shutdown or site been blocked in the UK and there hasn't been any significant traction on this issue.

> Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them.

I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level).

I have personally made attempts. I wrote to my MP often. I cited links, news articles etc to back up my argument. It was an utter waste of time. At best you may get a short response. I realised I was ultimately wasting my time, I stopped and will never do it again. I actually feel stupid for believing that I could make any difference at all. I suspect this is the experience for other people and is often not spoken about.

Moreover much more notable people have tried to make themselves heard around a number of related concerns about freedom of speech, threats to privacy, iffy counter-terrorism laws etc. More often than not has always been either ignored entirely, responses that completely ignored the crux of the issue, or straight up lies from successive governments for almost two decades now.

Realistically our options will be to learn to live with the poor legislation, circumvent it, or leave the country.

[amiga386]

How nihilistic and dismissive.

Do you wait for the end of football matches before deciding which team to support, because only the one that won matters?

I advocate against laws I don't like, and try to give people practical advise about how to protest against them, as well as how to circumvent them, and minimize their effects, and encourage them to pass this knowledge on. I consider it a good use of my time, even if not everyone cares to retain that info or pass it on.

Politics is never a foregone conclusion (unless you completely give up and go silent, in which case your opposition has carte blanche to do what it likes)... but like "viral content", it's not something you can always whip in your your favour. People are irrational creatures, and you never quite know what will make them all sit up and take notice. You can never be sure what will set the nation's agenda, and what stories "have legs", until they happen. For example: the Post Office scandal was a dull boring thing that nobody cared about, and then... an ITV drama made people care? But there have been ITV dramas about political scandals before, and they didn't all have that effect. But that one did. And the writers of the drama didn't just make stuff up, they followed the details of campaigners and journalists who had been covering this for years, even if at times they felt they were shouting into the void.

You just keep trying and see what sticks and what doesn't. The standard UKGov petitions site has at least some quantum of usefulness in that it encourages people to think about the issue, and if they sign it, they know there are others that agree with them. Change is possible.

[ReaperCub]

> How nihilistic and dismissive.

I believe it to be a statement of reality. I am simply spelling out how it is. It is not an endorsement.

Moralising about my assessment does not make it untrue.

> Do you wait for the end of football matches before deciding which team to support, because only the one that won matters?

I also read spoilers for movies before I watch them in the cinema. I am truly awful ;-)

> I advocate against laws I don't like, and try to give people practical advise about how to protest against them, as well as how to circumvent them, and minimize their effects, and encourage them to pass this knowledge on. I consider it a good use of my time, even if not everyone cares to retain that info or pass it on.

I would only bother talking about how to circumvent them. The other activities are a waste of time. It took me quite a while to come to this conclusions (about 20 years) but that is the conclusion I came to. Those who are interested in circumventing it will come and find you typically, those who aren't won't bother.

> Politics is never a foregone conclusion (unless you completely give up and go silent, in which case your opposition has carte blanche to do what it likes)... but like "viral content", it's not something you can always whip in your your favour. People are irrational creatures, and you never quite know what will make them all sit up and take notice. You can never be sure what will set the nation's agenda, and what stories "have legs", until they happen.

I don't believe it is a forgone conclusion. I believe that one has to obtain power to enact change.

I don't believe that anything is "bottom up" i.e. there is a ground swell of public opinion and this peculates up to those in power. I think it is "top down".

> People are irrational creatures, and you never quite know what will make them all sit up and take notice. You can never be sure what will set the nation's agenda, and what stories "have legs", until they happen.

It is actually well understood what makes them sit up and notice. It has been extensively documented.

> For example: the Post Office scandal was a dull boring thing that nobody cared about, and then... an ITV drama made people care? But there have been ITV dramas about political scandals before, and they didn't all have that effect. But that one did. And the writers of the drama didn't just make stuff up, they followed the details of campaigners and journalists who had been covering this for years, even if at times they felt they were shouting into the void.

This only proves my point. Until a major broadcaster in the United Kingdom e.g. run by people with power, money and connections, popularised something only then did people take notice.

> The standard UKGov petitions site has at least some quantum of usefulness in that it encourages people to think about the issue, and if they sign it, they know there are others that agree with them.

I don't think it does. The people that sign these petitions have often already decided that the law needs to be repealed. Ask someone working down the local shop if they even know if this petition exists? Probably not.

> Change is possible.

Not by us. This is a lie told to you to keep believing. It was a bitter pill to swallow that ultimately your voice will go unheard. However it is ultimately liberating as you can direct your energy elsewhere.

[teamonkey]

> I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level)

This is partly a perception issue. You need to adjust your expectations.

Individually you are unlikely to make a difference. You write a letter and are knocked back, you see no immediate impact and all your human senses are telling you “this didn’t work”. That is how the human mind works. It’s very demoralising (arguably by design).

You feel like you are the only one acting, because you do not see anyone else acting, and therefore you feel alone on this issue, and knowing you do not have the individual pressure to move the needle, you feel it is shouting into the void.

This is a human feeling but it is not necessarily reality. You don’t know who else has acted on this, who has written letters, what the various MP Signal chats are saying. You have no way to gauge support.

Therefore you should make the efforts even if there is no positive feedback, because there are unseen forces.

You might also need less political pressure than you think. MPs are human. Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament.

Continual pressure on all fronts. Keep pushing, help efforts that gain more support and build more pressure. It’s all you can do but also the least you can do.

[ReaperCub]

This reply you have given me is why I don't like having these conversations. You fundamentally still believe that the democratic process can work. I don't even believe it really exists. I believe what you see happening publicly is nothing more than political theatre.

> Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament.

Lets pretend this did happen.

What happens next is when some tragedy occurs (there are plenty that happen unfortunately) e.g. a teenage girl committing suicide because she was bullied on Instagram.

Then every major news website, news paper and news broadcast runs with "Dangerous Internet Trolls caused the suicide of lovely teenage girl".

Then there is a series of "discussions" about the issues on Question Time or LBC. The solutions presented will be various draconian measures which means more censorship, monitoring and surveillance. They will have a token person (that is often unlike-able) arguing against more draconian measures for "balance" which will be derided by the rest of the panel (and often the audience). After that you are back to square one, because it is now politically toxic.

This is known as "manufacturing consent".

I've seen this play out literally hundreds of times now.

[amiga386]

> Then every major news website, news paper and news broadcast runs with "Dangerous Internet Trolls caused the suicide of lovely teenage girl".

Sure, that can happen.

What if tomorrow's headline is "porn habits of everyone in Britain revealed", or "6 in 10 people's bank accounts stolen after ID leak". Would there be room for change then?

We can then have the trustworthy, familiar face of Martin Lewis on the news telling people how to protect their identity, and he can highlight how this terrible problem was caused by mandatory rules set by Ofcom, and they can have some squirmy little git from Ofcom promising to "look into the problem", and by day 4 of the ongoing national identity theft disaster, the government will yield.

We can be cynical, but can hope too.

[ReaperCub]

> Sure, that can happen.

It has happened! Quite a number of times in fact. That why I used that particular example.

> What if tomorrow's headline is "porn habits of everyone in Britain revealed", or "6 in 10 people's bank accounts stolen after ID leak". Would there be room for change then?

No. It will be spun in a way where they can justify more draconian measures or something else will be into the news cycle and it will be forgotten about after a few weeks.

> We can then have the trustworthy, familiar face of Martin Lewis on the news telling people how to protect their identity, and he can highlight how this terrible problem was caused by mandatory rules set by Ofcom, and they can have some squirmy little git from Ofcom promising to "look into the problem", and by day 4 of the ongoing national identity theft disaster, the government will yield.

I think it would be the ICO not Ofcom. Nevertheless, they will have some politician or spokes person blaming it on not enough funds and/or powers going to the appropriate regulator.

> We can be cynical, but can hope too.

It isn't cynicism. I am literally describing what happens more often than not.