Comment by bArray
3 days ago
> In the name of “online safety”, the fundamental rights of both freedom of expression and privacy appear to be under imminent threat.
The current UK government don't actually care about children, if they did then they would actually investigate the child SA gangs, or holding people to account on the Epstein lists. We have seen other countries such as Australia [1] "magically" have the same idea at the same time, so this is likely a global group influencing this push.
> The current proposal to ban people under 16 - who also have the rights to freedom of expression and privacy - from some (as yet not fully delineated) social media services is likely to result in wide-spread verification.
This is the real objective, it will be just like the UK porn verification [2]. To express yourself online, you will soon need to associate your activity with your real identity. With the discussion of clamping down on VPNs, it won't be long before you need to verify your ID just to connect to the internet.
This has been a long time coming. Years ago you could buy a sim card with money already on it, use it, and then throw it away. Now you need to associate some credit card or ID with the sim card and perform some verification process.
> And so, for the first time, I am considering locating something (perhaps a WireGuard node, or a SOCKS proxy, or a recursive DNS server / DNS proxy, or perhaps all of them) somewhere on the Internet outside the UK, so that I can route some traffic through that, as needed, to maintain my access to the web.
It won't be enough. At some point the UK government will just mandate that they should be allowed to perform deep packet inspection, and then there will be nowhere left to hide. These changes are also being rolled out everywhere - which Country do you trust to run your data through?
I remember the New Zealand Christchurch attack on a mosque, and how multiple governments around the world pressured Facebook to remove it entirely [3]. They were more worried about people seeing and sharing the attack, than the attack itself. The manifesto was entirely banned [4], and people were left entirely dependent on the state to convey a narrative about the attack.
I have a feeling that this all fell out of the "Christchurch Call" [5]. I don't think this recent push spearheaded by them, but I believe it had a large influence on the efforts now ongoing.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo
[2] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/a...
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47620519
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/24/censor-bans-ma...
I agree with everything you have said. I feel so very, very blessed to have had the experience of this world developing that I have had - from my first 300bps BBS connection at probably around age 8 or 9, through 28.8, 56K, ISDN, DSL & up to the gigabit fibre I type this from, I have always from basically from day 1 communicated with other people over a network. It's almost as intrinsic to my being as actual speech at this point. Maybe even more so on many days. But where we are now and headed to, is just so very, very wrong. It's so wrong it shouldn't even need explanation.
I've seen and experienced all manner of things the state would deem verboten, especially for younger eyes, whether it be the anarchists cookbook sparking my enthusiasm for chemistry and engineering, warez igniting my love of software development or the inescapable porn, memes, and other shit that's filled my screen for decade after decade. I've managed to make it through unscathed, dare I say even somewhat publicly respectable... I'd vote for my kids and any others having my childhood over the toxic stazi-esque nightmare we seem to currently find ourselves in. I LOVED my childhood growing up with the internet, CD-R's, Napster, etc. it inspired me & helped create the life I live today, but now all the kids using tech just look like methed out zombies.
It's also really funny reflecting on this & realising how very little I ever used or valued anything like Facebook, Instagram, etc. whereas things like BBS's, IRC, Discord, Telegram, etc. with random strangers and some shared interests is where I've always felt at home.
So many of the outrageous things the UK government is doing, which seem most inexplicable, can be explained by one simple principle - successive governments over the last 30 years have turned this nation into a tinderbox, the purpose of the state and the judiciary in particular has become singular in its effort to prevent a spark from igniting the whole thing. Though they will become ever more authoritarian and tyrannical in their efforts, defenders dilemma applies - eventually, inevitably, they will fail and all hell will break loose. Plan accordingly.