Comment by andai

Why is it funny? You think British media can’t be critical of the British government? They are famously merciless.

Also, the economist is majority foreign owned, so try doing more than 1 second of research, or be more civil, or ideally both.

I'm sure there are people in Russia, China, ... who don't feel like they're living in an authoritarian country.

HN is extremely pro free speech and the UK has recently decided to engage in censorship. Part of the issue users here reckon with is the recency. Unlike many authoritarian countries that seem hopeless with regards to free speech the UKs censorship is a recent development that many think can still be undone through political action. Similar to takes on why Israel is being protested when places like sudan arent.

The UK has very recently[1] announced a new push for client side scanning by messaging providers which is both very likely to be unpopular and known here, so once one person cracks the joke, others are going to want to comment. Don’t think that requires astroturfing.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/08/starmer-t...

It's just people who use "For You" algorithm on X.

Neither do people living in China

Why would you be? The fully corrupt, fear-mongering party that idolized Orban's Hungary and tried to copy his tactics, including taking over the courts (resulting in EU sanctions) and turning the state media into a propaganda machine, only recently lost the elections. And not a full term later, the polls favour them again, combined with a meteoric rise of even worse anti-EU fascists who they'll happily join forces with to take over in 2027.

I get you might not hear this stuff if you're not in EU or Poland itself, but seriously, just check the latest polling and history of PiS rule. It would take over a decade to event attempt to undo the damage that has been done to the rule of law in Poland, and the currently ruling "anti-PiS" coalition only had a short while (in which they failed to do anything) before getting neutered by the populace electing their own Trump-like buffoon that proceeds to veto everything the ruling coalition tries to pass. For added damage, the 3rd and 4th leading candidates (with combined 20% support) were the aforementioned fascists. Here's one [0]. Consider the wiki article a fraction of the cesspool he regularly produces.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grzegorz_Braun

Ah, yes, the Economist, a famously government-controlled media outlet.

It shows the irony of trolling the UK's "authoritarianism" in a thread on a release of a model by a US company, given the US is arguably _more_ authoritarian. (Poland is more of a fun tidbit, as they are indeed tied in the Economist's index.)

> In the UK you get thrown in prison for making a slightly unfriendly tweet.

Do you? The closest thing I can think about is how someone was jailed for encouraging arson attacks on asylum hotels. I'd be extremely surprised if the US had zero cases of somebody receiving a police visit after threatening to kill the President or bomb a school or something...

(FWIW I do think the UK needs stronger free speech protections, but saying that you'll be immediately jailed for writing unfriendly tweets is a huge stretch)

>the quality of discussion on HN has gone to shit, i miss when model released used to have actual informed takes from people that used them or substantive discussion about the system card

Your comment earlier.

Edit: also, not much change in the last 10 years in prison population. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04...

In the UK you get thrown in prison for making a slightly unfriendly tweet. Freedom of speech simply does not exist.

"These days if you say you're English you'll be arrested and you'll be thrown in jail."

It's just not true. Where are you getting this nonsense from?