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by hermitcrab 327 days ago
I am cynical as the next guy. However, I think the UK government is just trying to protect people (children in particular) from what it considers harmful content. They are just being heavy-handed about it.

The previous and current UK government have also been steadily hacking away at UK citizen's right to peaceful protest. But I think that it is a different issue, and it doesn't help to conflate the two.
2 comments
easytiger 327 days ago
However, I think the UK government is just trying to protect people (children in particular) from what it considers harmful content.

I can't come close to agreeing. The same minister pushing this, who is by his own admission semi literate and can't understand very basic concepts, has basically no understanding of technology (or indeed expertise in any area), has made no secret of the fact this is about censoring online speech he personally does not like[1]. He is a paid up yes man deep in the pockets of companies selling low effort AI solutions to governments for the purposes of enforcing speech[2] who wants, all said and done, to shut down twitter/X because people express opinions there he doesn't like. This has almost literally nothing to do with the old fashioned pearl clutching "think of the children". So much so he's going around holding anyone with reasonable opposition to this bill for child sexual assault, future, past and present[3]. This is obvious overcompensatory zeal. And it is week one.

What he has not done is engage earnestly with legitimate concerns about privacy and the bill. And he never will.

[1] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-peter-ky... | https://archive.is/Snw7y

[2] https://news.starknakedbrief.co.uk/p/we-need-to-talk-about-s...

[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo

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hermitcrab 327 days ago
Peter Kyle has not been on my radar. I agree that giving a senior government post to someone with a reading age of 8 (assuming that is true) is alarming. It is also noticeable that Rayner, the deputy Prime Minister, left school at 16 with no qualifications. Hardly confidence inspiring.

I despise Farage. But I think equating him with Savile because he didn't agree with a bill, was totally unacceptable and Farage deserves an apology (probably the only time I am ever going to say that).

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oneeyedpigeon 327 days ago
I am in exactly the same Farage-wise. I think he is a vile human being, but equating him with Savile is the worst kind of gutter politics, the kind I never thought we would see in the UK. I now resent this Labour government even more, for making me feel sympathetic towards Farage.
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jalapenos 327 days ago
Why do you despise Farage?

Everyone else is so great and the UK's been doing well under their "we're great and Farage is the enemy of this paradise continuing"?

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hermitcrab 327 days ago
I have no great love for the Labour party. The Conservative party even less so.

However many of the challenges the UK is facing come from the fur-lined, ocean going balls-up that is Brexit. And Farage was the main architect of Brexit. And that is just for starters.

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jalapenos 327 days ago
Can you explain why that is though, Brexit being such a big deal?

I don't know how to reconcile that with other countries doing fine on their own two feet (especially when that country has very much done fine on its own feet before)

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yawpitch 327 days ago
> I am cynical as the next guy.

Hold my beer.

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