[kropotkinlives]

Those two points are 100% factual.

The benefits cap reduction paid for people who are working to have their personal tax-free allowance raised and decreased the reward for not working ergo they are helping working people by providing tax relief as a reward. This just isn't the same "helping working people" soundbite that the vocal minority of media and population are annoyed about however which is where the disparity arises.

They are ramping up surveillance with the intention of combating online terror. But there probably isn't anything much going on, but they're still doing it so they can be seen to be doing it.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the situation, would personally smash the state in a second, nationalise all industry and live as a strong fisted respectable worker under a common flag, singing Auferstanden aus Ruinen in a second but newspeak and doublethink it is not.

[fweespeech]

> They are ramping up surveillance with the intention of combating online terror. But there probably isn't anything much going on, but they're still doing it so they can be seen to be doing it.

The stated intention of combating online terror. However much like their ISP filtering, it was used for things other than the stated purpose within the first 6 months.

[DanBC]

ISP filtering has not been used for other things.

There are three seperate systems:

1) the mandated porn filters; these are optional. Some of them have granularity so the customer can select other categories of stuff to block

2) court ordered blocking of torrent sites. These are quite seperate from the porn filters and they require a judge to rubber stamp an order.

3) the IWF lists of sites dealing in images of child sexual abuse. This is a system voluntarily used by most UK ISPs to filter sites that contain images of child sexual abuse.

When arguing against them it's probably useful to at least be factually accurate about the different systems.

[fweespeech]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141208/06160229348/uk-we...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/03/david-c...

I mean you can deny these things happen I guess? Before Cameron started meddling, this stuff was far less frequent and far more reasonable.

[DanBC]

That kind of stuff has been happening forever. Of course it's more common now - every UK customer is now covered. But anyone who's been behind filters at work or school can tell you that filters have always had false positives.

Focussing on those cases is probably a mistake. They're caught in filters by accident, and the people responsible say "whoops!" then tweak the filters to unblock the charity sites. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

And we've seen this rhetoric from politicians - "this is complicated; mistakes do get made; but we adjustthe filters when mistakes are made; and we need the filters because TERRORISTS or EXTREME PORNOGRAPHY".

[fweespeech]

Yet mysteriously other countries and the UK for decades have been fine without them.

https://www.blocked.org.uk/faq

You are aware they block things like dating sites as a matter of policy unless you opt-in to the "perv list", yeah?

[DanBC]

So what? You call it a perv list, but you also point to the high rate of false positives. So someone opting out of the filters isn't chosing to view porn but is chosing to view a false positive.

You seem to think that I think the filters are a good idea. I don't. I do know that using factually wrong information when talking about the filters does not help when you're trying to change law.

[kropotkinlives]

That is merely human nature.

Humans in quantities more than one aren't trustworthy even if their initial intentions are good. Bad solutions attract bad people eventually. That's what happens in that 6 months...

[murbard2]

Nationalize? I believe you mean collectivize, but telling slip.

[kropotkinlives]

No I mean nationalise as in transfer from private to state ownership or control.

Most of the UK was nationalised at some point in time but I had a stab at how successful centrally planned economy was in East Germany from the worker's perspective here.

[murbard2]

So you want to smash the state, then place industries under state ownership?

[kropotkinlives]

Exactly that. Only some of the mechanisms need to be destroyed.