[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.