Without passing judgment on the act, this is incredibly misleading. I found the source of the original quotes[0], and they are taken quite out of context.
From the article:
>First, we are told, the relevant secretary of state (Michelle Donelan) expressed “concern” that the legislation might whack sites such as Amazon instead of Pornhub. In response, officials explained that the regulation in question was “not primarily aimed at … the protection of children”, but was about regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse”, a phrase that rather gives away the political thinking behind the act.
From the source (emphasis mine):
> On 18 March 2024, the Secretary of State was provided with a Submission which made it clear that Category 1 duties were not primarily aimed at pornographic content or the protection of children _(which were dealt with by other parts of the Act)_. Rather, the aim of Category 1 was to capture services that have a significant influence over public discourse. The submission offered, as a possible option, requesting information from Ofcom as to _how content recommender systems function on different types of service_.
The quote leaves out "which were dealt with by other parts of the Act" and the fact that the subject was specifically "Category 1 duties" not the Act in its entirety. It also doesn't mention that the subject was on content recommender systems.
_Again_ this is not a judgment on the Act itself, but providing the full context, which does change the message.
0: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v_Secret...
Doesn't this just mean that it is about "protecting children" and influence over public discourse? The fact remains that the Category 1 rules impose onerous duties on websites that have a significant influence over public discourse, with the effect that many of them will see their influence significantly reduced and may have to fold altogether if they cannot afford to comply.
In fact it is pretty obvious from the OSA itself that the definition of Category 1 is not primarily about capturing porn sites.
I think the original paraphrase is actually pretty reasonable even with the full context - what is Section 1 doing in the Act if it is primarily aimed at protecting children? There is a lot more public discourse going on than there are unsafe children. If the act deals with both it is, practically, an act aimed primarily at influencing the public discourse with some child-related rules tacked on. Something like 80% of a persons life on the internet is engaging with public discourse and 20% is as a child.
That just makes it even worse, they sell this as a child protection act but as you say most of what it affects has nothing to do with child safety.
> In fact it is pretty obvious from the OSA itself that the definition of Category 1 is not primarily about capturing porn sites.
Indeed it is not.
The main focus of the Category 1 stuff is evidently whether big sites are actually doing enough to allow children (and parents) to report threats and danger and not see content they don't want to see.
It is for example about trying to reduce harms to children from pro-suicide and pro-anorexia content as well, and about compelling the Category 1 services to provide mechanisms so children can report bullying, grooming and online sexual exploitation from other users.
And also to provide some access to oversight and reporting from to those mechanisms.
That is to say: if a Category 1 service is open to children, it needs to have workable mechanisms to allow children to report threatening and disturbing content and messaging from other users, it needs to at least provide context/warnings around and probably filter pro-suicide and pro-anorexia content, and it is required to be able to present evidence of how those tools are being used and whether they are effective.
If you've ever tried to get Facebook to take down a scam ad (like, for example, the plethora of ads now using an AI-generated Martin Lewis) you will understand that there are genuine concerns about whether the tools available to non-adult users are effective for anything at all.
Category 1 regulations have not yet been finalised and they are not merely being imposed; the likely Category 1 services are being consulted.
> It is for example about trying to reduce harms to children from pro-suicide and pro-anorexia content as well, and about compelling the Category 1 services to provide mechanisms so children can report bullying, grooming and online sexual exploitation from other users.
Except ... if the government really wanted to improve children's and teenage mental health in the UK, they could easily increase the budget for treatments and youth services. That would be the first thing to do, and they're doing the opposite.
Which shows that they just don't care. Taking needed money away from the most vulnerable children on one hand and claiming that new legislation protects children ... does not sum to protecting children.
There oddly seems to be a concerted effort online to paint the UK as some kind of failing police state recently. This narrative seems to have really taken off with some Americans, who now seem completely convinced that the UK government is some kind of totalitarian oppressor who are snatching people off the streets.
Meanwhile, Brits just look on at this narrative wondering what the hell they're talking about. Look, I'm against this legislation too, but if you actually live in the UK or even just consume mainstream British media, you'd soon realise that this narrative that's being pushed is a distortion that doesn't match day to day reality.
What is happening in Britain is people are being actually arrested for “offensive” speech, which is of course subjective, subject to abuse, and open to totalitarian oppression. This is why the First Amendment in the US constitution is so important
> Britain is people are being actually arrested for “offensive” speech
This isn't actually new though. The difference is that they'd normally be nicked for breaching the peace, which is loosey goosey enough to be used for most things.
ASBOs are far more totalitarian as they can legally stop people from doing legal things. (ie stop a child playing in a park)
But to tackle your main point, Yes people are being arrested for offensive speech, but thats normally only part of the reason for arrest.
I can call my MP a massive <pejorative that gets the Americans all abother>, I cannot however cause a race riot, as that's not allowed under freedom of expression.
I also cannot give advice on pensions.
I cannot threaten the lives of people
I also cannot claim to be a policeman
etc.
The thing you must understand is that _most_ people (ie not columnists or former PMs) accept that there is a tradeoff between "free speech" and a pleasant society. Sure we did look at your first amendment and think "ooo thats probably nice" but then we have the human rights act that enforces freedom of expression. (which the same columnists/former ministers are decrying freedom of speech are looking to get rid of "because it protects immigrants")
The Online safety act is a mess, because ofcom have not issued proper guidance, and the draft bill was directed by someone who was borderline insane (nadine dorris)
Age assurance is not actually a problem, what is a problem is asking me to hand over personal details so some fly by night US startup who'll get hacked/sell my data to blackmailers.
forcing websites to have moderation policies is fine, not having a flexible approach for smaller sites is not fine.
The act is flawed, but its not _actually_ that different from how Network TV is moderated in the USA.
You post recognises the boundary between free and illegal speech.
You have not addressed the fact that UK policing guidelines now have a third category of “legal but harmful” (which has resulted in real door knocks). This is subject to political outlook and therefore as “loosey goosey” as it gets.
> now have a third category of “legal but harmful”
I'm sorry but the police always have had that. Again, ASBOs, public order offences, "please move along now", town dispersal orders.
Specifically ASBOs give the police the power to stop someone doing almost any action, the courts have deemed antisocial.
A good example of that is street preachers being stopped from using megaphones, which must have happened as early as ~2005
> which has resulted in real door knocks
from the OSA, I'm not aware of any cases yet?
> This is subject to political outlook and therefore as “loosey goosey” as it gets.
The law is always subject to political outlook. Even a constitution is no match for a concerted effort to undermine it. For example: article 124/125 of the 1936 USSR constitution allowed freedom of press, religion and the right to gather.
Look, unless we get someone extreme in power, and they are uniquely competent, they we are mostly safe. What will change that is the steady drip drip drip, of both economic hardship, and a willing medium to blame that on minorities.
So 2028 is around the time that jenrick will attempt to lock us all up.
I am talking about a Police visit over a sarcastic satirical tweet. There are other cases.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/31/kent-police-20k-...
> Look, unless we get someone extreme in power, and they are uniquely competent, they we are mostly safe. What will change that is the steady drip drip drip, of both economic hardship, and a willing medium to blame that on minorities. So 2028 is around the time that jenrick will attempt to lock us all up.
Sigh, I was half expecting drivel like that.
Yes, but as the news piece clearly points out, it was incorrect and cost the police £20k.
> Sigh, I was half expecting drivel like that.
Look I have been railing against this shit for _years_ the Public Order Act 2023 is the latest in a looooong line of laws that have actually and practically curtailed our rights to protest.
I have organise, I have petitioned, I have shouted and screamed, and yet here we are. I have given up.
I look over at the states and just have to hope that it reeks enough that it puts people off the badenoch/jenrick/farage wank fest.
Sadly with the underfunding of courts, and the move to bench trials, means that we are probably fucked, no recourse unless you're rich
I think you mean broadcast TV. Broadcast radio is similar. The legal justification is something about the limited supply of public airwaves. Those regulations wouldn't fly in the US for any other medium.
I'm happy to be wrong, but I don't believe that's correct. There have been some people arrested for inciting violence via social media during the Southport riots.
There is also Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who has been remanded in custody for contempt of court for continuing to libel an immigrant even after his claims were proven to be false. And by contempt of court, he literally has produced a movie continuing to slander said immigrant for his own ends.
Another is Palestine Action being made a proscribed terror group. While lots of people, as evidenced by recent protests, see this as problematic, its not particularly different to other groups like environmental activists that commit criminal acts being proscribed and there are numerous examples UK/abroad of that. PA members at the direction of PA leadership have fallen into that category not because of their beliefs, but because of their actions – like breaking into Israeli-owned security research company with a van, and into an RAF base, in both cases committing vandalism and destruction of property.
Some people believe there is a problem, but there really isn't a legislative agenda against free speech.
Vandalism and destruction of property is a shockingly low bar. The suffragettes threw an axe at the king and no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation.
I'll stand to be wrong, but I believe in one case a member of staff and two police officers were also assaulted. Terrorism isn't necessarily about body count, it's about motivation. If the motive is political change, and the ends is violence/criminal damaged/anti-social behaviour that tends to be enough. Similar cases exist in the US, too.
I personally think its a bit of a stretch and will likely be undone. However, to pretend they are simply peaceful protests being unfairly targeted is also incorrect.
Yeah the assault one is interesting cause they didn't end up charging them with it at all... perhaps reading the police statements without corroborating evidence is problematic.
> no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation.
That wasn't a thing back then, not really
https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-453005/...
Arrested for "obstructing a policeman"
All of the suffragettes that were caught were normally caused with vandalism
Breaking into a military base and attempting to damage military equipment used to defend the country is a very high bar.
> no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation
Is this true? I'd be surprised.
If I broke into a US military base and started vandalizing B-52s, I honestly think I'd be pretty lucky to escape with my life.
> its not particularly different to other groups like environmental activists that commit criminal acts being proscribed
I can't find any on [0] - do you have examples?
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror...
I should note that my comparison was to a US organisation proscribed as an eco-terror organisation, the name of which escapes me, and which I couldn't find in a quick scan back through my reading or here[0]. I came across them through a podcast interviewing both sides about a decade out. I'll keep looking though and try and qualify my source :)
I guess what I mean is this: while I think the PA proscription is probably misjudged, it's not without its precedent.
>>some people arrested for inciting violence via social media during the Southport riots.
Yes, but only on the right. The leader of Hope not Hate was not charged for his inflammatory tweets, and then you have this guy saying he hoped right wing protestors' throats would be cut being completely let off:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/suspended-labour...
In one area at least, there is progress: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/free-speech-rules-to-prot...
Arrests are up, but sentences are down — i.e. fewer convictions/criminal records
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...
> there are several reasons why an arrest may not result in a sentence, such as out-of-court resolutions, but said the “most common is “evidential difficulties””, specifically that the victim does not support taking further action.
As mentioned at the top of the above document, there was a debate in the Lords on 17th July on the topic where many of the participants were pretty scathing about the situation: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C...
The minister was naturally defensive towards the end, albeit they did say:
> Importantly, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing, at the request of the Home Secretary, are currently undertaking a review of how non-crime hate incidents are dealt with. We expect to see some information from the police on that. It is self-evidently important that some of those incidents help us gather intelligence on potential future crime, but, equally, we do not want the police to do things that waste their time and not focus on the type of crime that the noble Lord rightly mentioned in his introduction.
That quote could be taken straight out of “Yes, Minister”.
> Arrests are up, but sentences are down — i.e. fewer convictions/criminal records
Well that’s certainly a relief! People are only being _arrested_ for """offensive""" speech, not convicted!
I mean … is it not a relief that “””offensive””” speech isn’t actually a crime?
There’s widespread recognition right up to the Lords that this is a shitty situation, dangerous/chilling, and a waste of police time. We all think it's nonsense, and it’s being called out for being nonsense in parliament. Literally no-one, AFAICT, thinks it’s a good thing that arrest numbers are rising for non-criminal speech.
TBH I would hope when the dust settles that more people will get in shit for wasting police time — either reporting non-crimes to the police, or not actually wanting any (further) action taken. Feels like in many cases the “victims” are just playing the system as it (rapidly) develops, to take an online beef offline, rather than totalitarianism. If it were totalitarianism they’d be locking folk up, or at least convicting them of something, but that’s where we came in — those numbers are falling.
Sure, but so are people in the US, despite the first amendment.
The US constitution is only valuable if enforced, which is clearly not the case at the moment.
Definitely not happening in the us too! Certainly no academic visas being cancelled.
Yes, yes! This is all well and good, but whatabout America bad?!
No I think it's projection. It's happening over there, so they want to deflect attention and pretend "bad things" are happening over here instead, in a bid to support their chosen fascists in the next election.
There are very significant concerns about the actions of the Westminster government recently no doubt – this is stupid legislation, and it compounds with other stupid legislation (see the recent arrests for supporting proscribed groups). Everyone should be protesting this nonsense.
That said, there is equally a clear and obvious effort to distort what is happening. And I don't think anybody should really be taking lessons about "totalitarian oppression" when current US government policy is to send gangs of masked thugs to round up brown people.
The government in power has little to do with the Act, it was passed two years ago by a different party that is now refusing to own the mess that they created. Sure, one can say that the government could be more diligent at repealing bad laws, but the Parliament had quite a few things on its plate already, so it's not surprising that this Act coming into power during the summer recess wasn't high on the agenda.
Passed with the support of the current governing party, it should be noted.
This is entirely not true, and the government is entirely free to withdraw this stupid, harmful legislation. Do not make excuses, because this is how the Labour Party get away with this sort of stupid action.
The government can't "withdraw" an Act of Parliament, only the Parliament can, by passing a new bill.
It's not a Labour Party's action, the deadline was written into the act two years ago.
Ignoring the usual baiting about how those brown people are illegal aliens and that’s the underlying reason they’re being rounded up — European countries are always held up as the standard the US should strive towards. So yes, it’s fair game for us to criticize them when they do things like police “offensive” speech.
No, this isn't baiting – it's an actual thing that's happening, regardless of how much you want to remain in denial about it. And I don't care about whatever weird preconceptions you've imposed – European countries have their own struggles to deal with and equally can do it badly. None of this is interesting discussion, and focusing on these weird "purity tests" around hypothetical freedom when ignoring the actual substantive impacts of the policies is why these people keep getting away with their terrible legislation.
As someone who does live in the UK, and has for 25 years, while I too see the distortion you talk about, things have taken a distinct turn towards authoritarianism to the point that I watch what I write under my own name.
The funnest part about that is you better make sure no matter what you write is also future proof against any and all whims of any other regime that may rule at any point in the future. But that is ultimately the point of any abusive and toxic system created by psychopathic, megalomaniac, malignant and grandiose narcissistic people and groups; they want to broken and shattered, never sure what may set the abuse off, until the day you remain beaten down and submissive to the demigods.
That is true anywhere, and one reason why I think UK constitutional law is fundamentally broken in that, as some will tell you, the UK does have a constitution; but also, that constitution includes the principle of "parliamentary sovereignty" which means that parliament can at any point strip away all rights and privileges - the most important element of a functioning constitution, and a functioning democracy, is how it protects against government over-reach - even when supported by the majority (perhaps especially then), but as you allude to, not just now but also in the future.
And this is also a key argument when people try to justify oppressive laws by appealing to their own good nature: Protecting speech and protecting agaisnt the government isn't always - or even usually - against protecting against the present, but protecting against every future potential government, and especially protecting against those who might be attracted by tools of oppression created in the present to seek power.
I'm quite free-spoken most places, and usually feel more constrained by not wanting to be too controversial for potential employers etc. when writing under my own name.
But the shift in the UK recently has been particularly troubling to a degree I haven't experienced first-hand before, and while it makes me more cautious about how it will be interpreted now, you're right:
It's scarier to consider how these tools will be abused in the future.
This country where 80-year old vicars are arrested for holding up a small piece of paper expressing support for a non-violent proscribed organisation? Everything is fine citizen, move along...
> who now seem completely convinced that the UK government is some kind of totalitarian oppressor who are snatching people off the streets
It's a bit hard to argue otherwise when the draconian arrests are well-documented by pretty much every single media outlet.
Could you list some for the benefit of those of us who haven't seen any?
Am British, don't agree with you in the slightest.
Our media is absurdly distorted itself. Sometimes it's more objective to look from the outside in.
Look, I've been visiting Britain as a tourist for years(since more than 10 years ago) - mostly to visit my friends who live there.
Each time i come there it's worse than previous trip, and your whole infrastructure feels oppressive. Constant reminders to be vigilant because something bad might happen(train and metro jingles come to mind) - implying a terrorist attack. Constant reminders that you're watched by cameras, while crime itself is rampant.
I come from Eastern Europe, yet visiting UK genuinely feels like visiting oppressive police state.
I am aware about your history(first The Troubles, then terrorist scare of 2000s, now domestic problems) but this is NOT the normal state for modern western country. Most likely perspective of Brits who have been living through this since ww2 is heavily culturally skewed, rather than then outside observer's one.
>> then terrorist scare of 2000s
The Ariana Grande concert bombing was only five years ago. You can see a list of those in the 2020's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...
Yes, and it was effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies.
The whole highest order issue in the whole west is that there is not only effectively zero responsibility, zero accountability, but also zero consequences.
The easiest to understand example of this may be how corporations can commit all manner of what are effectively crimes (i.e., it is what you would be charged with) and they not only do not have any effective consequences, the consequences usually instill the lesson that it is extremely profitable to commit the crimes and just pay the meaningless fine as a cost of business.
In most cases corporations even just account for it as an expense and add it to the cost and price they charge. So, for example, all the EU fines they so concisely levied over the last years against American tech companies like Microsoft and Google; they had been charging the various European governments and companies for a reserve to pay such expected fines.
It always baffles me that people do not understand the basic premise that organizations of people are not their own entities, especially when you don’t punish the individuals that make them up in the same way that individuals that are not in corporations are. Is quite literally a kind of new stratified system. Joe if ACME Corp can commit financial crimes and get away with it, but you can’t. He can even commit homicide through negligence with impunity, while you are thrown in jail for decades.
It really should be the other way around, if a corporation commits crimes, if you did or should have known about the crimes, you are collectively also held criminally liable just like a getaway driver of a bank robbery is.
Somehow we have not evolved past the point that the most powerful and responsible are the least accountable and have the least consequences for their actions.
The rest of your text may have a bit of a point, but:
>>effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies.
Nothing justifies blowing up teenage girls you deluded psychopath.
As a Brit, I'd agree that it's not ideal.
However, the characterisation of terrorist scare in the 2000's, is somewhat off. Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks, most notably 7/9, which have led to increased vigilance and securitisation.
So while travelling in Hungary, Croatia, or Italy over the last few years I've noted the difference, I also appreciate that each country is dealing with its own internal context that can be difficult to grasp from the outside.
Anyway, thank you for visiting our fair shores :)
> Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks
And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK.
> And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK.
Most of which were performed by the British Government through police, military, and paramilitary forces against its own citizens.
What people like you seem to miss or maybe simply lack the sophistication (if I may say so) for, is understanding the nature of the ruling system and how far it will go to achieve its aims, which are also hidden from you. The ruling class are obviously a rather small group, so they inherently and by necessity rely on extreme manipulation, gaslighting, lying, deception, etc. to keep everyone off balance and not looking at them for causes or even accountability, let alone doing anything about them. It is why those who are extremely adept at manipulation and abuse are the ones who keep the ruling class in power in all places in the West, where the ruling class defers to them for that skill of manipulation and abuse.
It seems impossible to you that a government and its actors would e.g., not only allow, but even facilitate something like terrorist attacks specifically for the very purpose of making incremental, ratcheting moves towards an authoritarian system more palatable… for your safety of course.
It’s really not any different than how all abusers will incrementally test and press with various cycles of pressure and relief on their target of subjugation and abuse.
All the signs of manipulation, subjugation, and abuse are there in basically all western countries. Have you ever heard of Biderman’s chart of coercion[1]?
[1] https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject...
Hi hopelite. I typed out a decently detailed response to your message, but decided to cut it short. I think we probably have a profoundly different viewpoint and set of experiences which would be too much to try and reconcile here.
I'll say this: history, certainly British history, shows that bad actors are real and that power is simultaneously unavoidable, useful, and deeply dangerous, particularly for those who seek it out. I'm certainly not oblivious to that or "lack the sophistication" to see that the world is complex.
However, for all its ills, I'd rather live here, now, than anywhere else at any other time in history and I think there's better things ahead if we can stop see those who have different viewpoints as inferior, or as enemies, and find some common ground. I'd certainly rather be here than in Gaza, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afganistan, China, etc.
Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but given the same outrage flew during the Snoopers Charter debacle and we are all still here and talking, maybe "they" are not out to get us all.
Don’t look back in anger
> Look, I'm against this legislation too, but if you actually live in the UK or even just consume mainstream British media, you'd soon realise that this narrative that's being pushed is a distortion that doesn't match day to day reality.
The censorship in the UK isn't that overt. There's no masked gangs grabbing people off the street, what there are is government "nudge" units, media talking heads and government-aligned media trying to push you toward points of view acceptable to the establishment. We're the world leaders in manufactured consensus.
> government-aligned media
The telegraph and times are government aligned? so is GB news? Now thats a good joke.
I have actually met the media teams for a number of government departments (including during the drafting of the OSA) They are almost the living embodyment of "the thick of it" clever people trying to do good, surrounded by industrial grade cunts.
> The censorship in the UK isn't that overt.
Yes, it is.
> There's no masked gangs grabbing people off the street
The British Government is definitely not above masked kidnapping gangs and worse. The Glenanne Gang, MRF, etc.
The problem in the UK is that politics are not in any way looking after its citizens. Its a group of elitists that serve large financial institutes. If you look at the UK now it really is much worse than lets say 30 years ago. Infrastructure is in a bad shape. Poverty is pretty visible. Loads of people living paycheck by paycheck. The mighty UK empire is gone.
TINA /s
I think it's fair to say that the maggats will say whatever they need to achieve their aim, not what they believe to be true. They have the national guard deployed in their capital to stifle dissent by the same orange taint who said he wasn't allowed to do that when it was his people trying to stage a violent self-coup (and he has since pardoned those criminals).
What they want is a similar fascist group in the UK to do well in the next election - and freedom of speech is one of the easiest things to moan about when criminals are getting nabbed.
>> some kind of totalitarian oppressor
Well, it's only really happening for people on the Right. If you're firmly within the left wing Overton Window (apart from perhaps Israel/Palestine), you don't have much to fear from Two Tier Kear.
Yup entirely this. The biggest sign of this is Tommy Robinson, who has blatantly committed outrageous cases of stalking, harassment, and contempt of court, for which he has been convicted. But because his schtick is complaining about Muslims he is then treated as a hero of the US right, gets invited on right-wing talk shows and gets bigged up by Elon Musk. I recently had a guy sit next to me on a plane bring him up as supposed proof of the UK being an authoritarian state.
I go absolutely out of my way to avoid politics nowadays, which makes it all the more frustrating when this nonsense is shoved in my face by idiots on HackerNews or dimwits sitting next to me on the plane.
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I'm not American and I find the English legal system hilarious.
In practically all countries a bunch of smart people got together in the 19th century to write a constitution but the British thought that they were above such petty concerns.
Profound legal analysis there. The United States' experiences with its written constitution don't give me any reason to think one would be a good idea in the UK.
I know right? Just look at all the wrongthink in the US being bandied about
I see no greater diversity of viewpoints in the US than the UK. I do see a country that's falling apart, sadly.
I see the opposite, happily
The UK has a constitution, it's just not written in a single place.
Many (most?) western societies have a similar concept for civil and criminal law with common law jurisdictions, where precedent is used rather than an explicit, exhaustive legal code. Effectively, the UK's constitution is to written constitutions as common law is to civil law.
I will argue that the UK doesn't have a Constitution and that's because of this one thing: No parliament can bind a future parliament. A Constitution is exactly this: a contract binding all future Parliaments to a specific set of axioms that must be respected.
The US constitution is very similar, except in two important regards: amendments require two thirds majority votes in both houses and ratification by 75% of the states.
We don't have the state mechanism. You could argue the four nations could serve a similar purpose, though there's a debate about how democratic that is when England makes up something like 85% of the UK population (and doesn't have its own legislature).
> The UK has a constitution, it's just not written in a single place.
No we don't. We have what is referred to as an "uncodified constitution".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncodified_constitution
It is a collection of laws and conventions, but there is nothing set up as an overarching set of rules to guide the country. If something were to happen that was deeply unpopular with what the majority of the country feels "makes us British", there is little we could do about it.
Successful court cases against the government have usually been because the government of the day forgot to pass the law that gave them the power to do whatever move they wanted to make. A constitution change is a much bigger deal.
That's nonsense as there are plenty of common law countries with monolithic constitutions. Unlike common vs civil law systems which are both widespread globally, the UK is the outlier in having no written constitution.
It's not even internally consistent, although propaganda rarely needs to be consistent. The UK government is somehow both entirely powerless (can't do anything about crime at all), and exceptionally powerful (tightly policing the speech and thoughts of 70 million people).
Very little odd about this btw. Those efforts are intentional and blatant, e.g. [0]. In that case, you can even see that the accounts listed in the article flaunt what they are, their first posts after the blackout are about Israel.
[0]: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-...
This isn't necessarily contradictory. A government can choose not to prosecute certain crimes, such as property crimes targeting lower classes or crimes committed by certain social groups, while cracking down on what it perceives as a threat to its power.
I'm not saying that this is happening in the UK now, but every piece of news I hear about it is less than great, to say the least.
Where do you get those news from, precisely? Who has influence over what does and doesn't get seen?
I will just link instead of re-typing the same points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44711336
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If it was a police state, JD Vance wouldn’t be getting it on his holiday here from protesters and video vans driving around and being refused service in a pub.
It could end up that way but we’re not there yet. If we do get there we tend to make the French look like amateur protestors (look up poll tax riots).
I’m less worried about a police state than a corporate dystopia. The attendee list at Trump’s inauguration would be far scarier to me than the OSA is.
If it WASN'T a police state, 500 people wouldn't have been arrested for holding up a sign.
Let's extrapolate on a simple point because it's not so simple...
A sign for a proscribed terrorist organisation, which its members are backed by a Russian plant (Fergie Chambers - now hiding in North Africa) and have damaged military aircraft, military facilities and attacked police officers with sledgehammer. Things that, in the US, you would have been shot for.
The protesters could have waved any other sign around in support for the cause without any problems, as hundreds more were doing, but not that specific organisation.
However the 500 people are at best naive victims of their own incompetence and being used as political pawns, not for the cause but instigators.
All this stuff is rather less black and white than it sounds.
A politician disliked by the state facing criticism doesn't mean anything. What matters is when people say something the state doesn't approve of.
>If it was a police state, JD Vance wouldn’t be getting it on his holiday here from protesters and video vans driving around and being refused service in a pub.
"Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA?"
"Yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan," and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan," and you will not be punished."
That is a very simple perspective. Nothing about the current British government would preclude being underhanded and manipulative, i.e., making sure that not only the current US government, but the next system’s candidate is made to feel discomfort and displeasure in order to manipulate.
People do this kind of underhanded passive aggressive thing all the time, why would it not be the case for the British government to basically “neg” the VP that has on several occasions now dressed them and all the Europeans down and embarrassed them? I could very easily see this being the very kind of manipulative and passive aggressive thing that the British government would facilitate as a spit in the face of the guy who admonished them for their thought/speech control.
You seem to have a “police state” model in your mind that is akin to a North Korea and less what it will most likely be in the west, far more manipulative and sophisticated, as depicted in Orwell’s 1984.
I think you're overcomplicating it. Having actually worked for UK gov directly with politicians, they are mostly either trying not to look bad but way out of their depth in stuff and being propped up by civil service.
In that circumstance they'd stay out of it and blame it on the citizens while trying to get favour with Vance some other way.
Spend a few months in Azerbaijan if you want to experience a police state. I have :)
I suspect it's projection as a defense, because a number of Brits do see the US as some sort of failing police state that's snatching people off the streets.
I guess if you get your attack in first you'll be able to go "we're not the fascists, you're the fascists."
None of that is to excuse the legislation, of course, which is not very good and will have a lot of poor consequences.
it's become fashionable for people to just lie about things in order to shock the audience into their point of view.
What's more, they try to bully other people into lying about things to get their way. For example, I can't tell you many times I've read comments saying we'll never get anywhere if we insist on playing by the rules.
Playing by the rules here means things like being honest.
I'm going to say something that many here won't like given the usual reaction to European regulation, but social media platforms have enabled multiple foreign influence political campaign operations during election times in Europe, and notably led to the invalidation of the 2024 Romanian presidential election [1].
As of recently, probably bolstered by the new US admin, US social media platforms have taken a more confrontational towards regulators in EU countries where they operate. For instance, Twitter refused to cooperate with a French investigation [2].
It really is unsurprising that European countries muscle up their legislative response to what they see increasingly as media platforms going rogue in support of operations aimed to distort political debate in Europe. The only alternative would be to outright ban US social media and build EU platforms.
[1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lection_pr%C3%A9sidentie...
[2]: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/07/21/x-refuse...
I wouldn't expect many to take issue with your point here. The problem at hand isn't whether or not social media has been a net positive or net negative, the problem is whether the government should be in the business of arresting those who say things the government doesn't want said.
We can deal with social media directly without government censorship and arresting the public. Remove any legal protections that give social media a free pass regarding what is posted on their sites. If we want people's speech to be censored, at a minimum that should be done by the private company who is financially on the hook for what content they allow.
OSA has nothing to do with prevention of influence though. It's about building scaffolding for mass surveillance.
If it was about influence, there are better ways to handle it, without forcing entire population to give up their personal data to some dodgy "age-check" companies. Many run by foreign hostile intelligence agencies.
I do agree it's not a good way to do it and mass surveillance is part of what we'll get as a result.
The source includes a direct comment from the secretary of state that Category 1 of the OSA is about regulating sites with a significant influence over public discourse.
Therefore it makes perfect sense to say that the OSA is at least in part about regulating sites with a significant influence over public discourse. I find that at least somewhat alarming; is the "incredibly misleading" part that this is not all that the OSA is about?
(For reference, a rough description of the Categories are: you use a recommender system or allow sharing the site's content (1), you're a general-purpose search engine (2A), or you allow DMs between users (2B). Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174 )
The numbering as Category 1 does suggest that is the first and foremost purpose of the Act.
Normally if there is something they want, but don't think the public would approve then it gets wrapped up as clause f, section 232, paragraph 9.
Aka, this rule does not apply to all current and former members of parliament clause.
This is unfortunately quite a common tactic being used by people opposed to the OSA. Recently there was an article in the i newspaper which claimed you have to show ID to order pizza online, and it's because of the OSA. Turns out their source was a misleading tweet by a political activist who had ordered from Deliveroo or similar and were seeing the usual message shown to people who order alcohol. Nothing to do with the OSA at all.
So the journalist or their editor didn't do any basic fact checking, that's also a sadly common tactic.
Hmm. New account, no history before this thread. Not at all suspicious.
So, DSIT, Age Verification Industry Association or Molly Rose astroturfer?
A new account would tend not to have any history.
It seems uncharitable to immediately assume bad faith.
What is it about the content of the comment you disagree with?
I think it provides a further example to the parent post that regardless of what one thinks about the Act, the discourse isn’t entirely neutral.
There's a bunch of HNers who always rotate accounts. It's a little annoying but a green commentator in itself doesn't mean an astro turfer.
It's also a perfectly reasonable point, you just don't agree with it.
I believe rotating accounts is against the policies of the site, although I totally understand the impulse.
The reading of the quote that the tweeter provided is even worse.
I'd rather not be subjected to fake news on HN.
instead of posting the journalists story, HN posted some randomers tweet. thats the problem
Simon McGarr is an Irish solicitor who is a widely respected expert in privacy law and how it impacts online services, so not exactly a randomer. He also has a track record of being right about the unintended consequences of online regulation.
It's a misleading quote from a misleading article. It's remarkable how the article never mentions that the Act was passed by the Tories, blaming "civil servants" for it. The author did frame the Act very differently back in 2023 when it was passed [0]:
> It is high time the government took action, by which I do not mean passing the Online Safety Bill, an approach that is like putting a new filter in the opium pipe.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3l0e4vr0ko
I strongly suspect it's also meant to curtail growing support among youth for Palestine in the Israel/Gaza conflict.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/665564933022223
Essentially creating an internet for children/teens that echos the government narrative.
The online safety act was drafted long before Oct 2023.
But broadly I agree, in the sense that the government are uncomfortable with political movements they lack the ability to shape or control.
In hindsight it's incredible just how much influence the British government has historically had over media. The largest TV and radio stations were often directly government owned (BBC, Radio 1, Channel 4) and many newspapers are vulnerable to defamation / contempt of court accusations / injunctions when they sway too far from the official narratives. Especially on any issue adjacent to criminal justice.
Of course, they'll say all of the state owned media operated without political direction. And that regulators / prosecutors operated in a politically neutral fashion with due process and impartiality.
> Of course, they'll say all of the state owned media operated without political direction
Before Brexit I would have said so too. The government regularly clashed with the BBC. And Channel 4 news was a delight. Recently the TV channels have clearly been brought into line via governance and the need to change the funding.
> Before Brexit I would have said so too.
Given the dubbing of Gerry Adams, the coverage of Iraq/Afghanistan war crimes, and anything related to Ireland, I don't know you could possibly have believed this.
It was just that pre-Brexit, you agreed with the propaganda.
Propaganda is perhaps at its most poisonous when it's stuff you agree with. It's so much harder to see, and likely far more effective at bypassing our critical thinking.
Passage and implementation dates count. The Tiktok ban in America was also first floated (and died) well before October 2023. It was revived and passed after pro-Palestinian videos blew up on the platform.
So, here's the thing, the BBC has a whole section of its news site dedicated to the conflict, including documentation of alleged atrocities committed by Israel and Hamas. Its produced documentaries detailing the settlers movement. The BBC is paid for by the taxpayers. LBC regularly has pro-Israel and pro-Palestine people on. GBNews, Sky and the Murdock-verse have their views mostly from a pro-Israel POV, more left-leaning papers like the Guardian continue to report in favour of the Palestinian people (not Hamas).
So if the government had a major problem with the a free speech, its doing a pretty good job of not showing that.
In the Commons, the argument hasn't been against the humanitarian crisis faced. However, the situation is more complicated when Hamas and a significant portion of the Israeli government want to eradicate each other and end any hopes of the two-state solution, and act accordingly violent.
The situation with Palestine Action being made proscribed also isn't because of their beliefs, but their actions. You can't commit criminal activity like destruction of property and violence against people for political reasons and not come under the remit of anti-terror legislation. The same has happened to environmentalist groups that have taken their actions too far, and for groups like the IRA pre-Good Friday agreement.
I could walk to my local town centre with a placard for either saying: "Stop Genocide in Palestine" or "Down with Hamas" this weekend and not be arrested.
> I could walk to my local town centre with a placard for either saying: "Stop Genocide in Palestine" or "Down with Hamas" this weekend and not be arrested.
You might "just" get threatened with arrest:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/17/armed-police-t...
Or you might get arrested:
https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/peter-tatchell-arres...
There are many similar ones, but they are now much harder to find due to the hundreds of arrests over Palestine Action.
Right, supporting PA is illegal, opposing what's happening in Gaza is not. That's why I specifically didn't say having a placard with a message supporting PA, but "Stop Genocide in Palestine". That is the detail that matters.
You'll note the person threatened with arrest in the first one did not express support for PA, but the police claimed that saying "Free Gaza" and "Israel is committing genocide" was expressing support for a proscribed organisation.
This has been a common theme after the proscription: The police has repeatedly abused the proscription to go after people expressing opposition to Israels actions in Gaza, without mentioning PA.
The excuse for that is that the Terrorism Act is not limited to making direct, overt support illegal. Section 13 makes it illegal to wear an item or clothing or wear, carry or display an article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.
This has multiple times been interpreted by the police as justification for threatening arrest over expressing support for Palestine, and the government has done nothing to stop the police from drastically overreaching in this way.
For the Americans looking at this act, you're maybe putting it in the context of American politics and thinking who cares if the porn sites have my face or id.
But in the UK you can be arrested and jailed for saying something online that offends someone else.
> But in the UK you can be arrested and jailed for saying something online that offends someone else.
It's hard to take this seriously, especially when if I ask for citations it'll likely be a couple of extremely obscure cases where the details are being conveniently glossed over.
Wikipedia literally has an extended section on this issue. No one is going to give you citations for something trivially googlable.
> In September 2022, a British woman was arrested and charged for holding up an "abolish monarchy" sign at a proclamation ceremony for King Charles III in Edinburgh. Similar arrests throughout the country around this period over anti-monarchy republican sentiment have alarmed human rights groups.
That's bad, but it is not an example of someone going to jail.
30 arrests per day and increasing
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
Arrests != Jail. Read the original comment.
Right, taken literally it isn't wrong. They said "can be arrested and jailed". They were arrested and they would have been jailed too if they didn't go to court and defend themselves. How does that not meet the bar of "can be arrested and jailed"?
You can get arrested for offending people in Whatsapp group chats: https://news.sky.com/story/grenfell-tower-model-paul-busetti...
And theres the "obscure cases where the details are being conveniently glossed over" part. How long has he been sentence to jail for again?
I'm not defending his arrest, and quite obviously something went very wrong there, but again, we're talking about jail here. Posting an obscure cockup as if its the norm is pretty disingenuous.
keep moving those goal posts to justify your denial
How can there be denial for something you cant actually demonstrate is anything more than a fringe issue?
Britain has always been very hypocritical about freedom of speech. Take for example "Speaker's Corner", an area of Hyde Park were police will tolerate any sort of speech - except that, if there are complaints and the speech is considered potentially unlawful, they will arrest the speaker right after he's done speaking.
Speaker's Corner has never been a place "were police will tolerate any sort of speech". It's a place where anyone can speak.
You're still subjected to exactly the same legal restrictions on the speech itself as anywhere else in public, and that's nothing new.
It's not new, no - the position has been the same since at least the XIX century, when Britain gave asylum to European insurrectionalists. But it's always been fundamentally hypocritical: being "free" to complete a sentence before you go to prison is not meaningfully different from getting interrupted before you go to prison.
I wish it wasn't like that, but the position isn't hypocritical:
You're free to complete saying something unlawful because until you've said something unlawful you haven't committed a crime, but furthermore, English law on what is "unlawful" to say or do is also complicated in that many things are okay to say or do in contexts where they will not cause offence but becomes illegal if done in front of the "wrong" people or with the "wrong" intent.
As such, until there has been a complaint there often will not be a basis for saying that something was unlawful to say unless it is really far over the line.
If you were to start shouting something blatantly illegal such as chanting support for a proscribed organisation, you must certainly would not find police standing there and waiting unless they deemed it likely to be more disruptive to peace and order to stop you right away.
This expends past speech - e.g. public nudity is in the same category that isn't illegal in itself but where intent or the effect on others can make it unlawful - and this notion on relying on intent and whether or not someone present took offense rather than clearly delineating where the boundary is, is a challenge with English law because of the huge gray areas it creates.
[used "English law" as shorthand here - really it is the law of England & Wales, and much of it will be the same in Scotland, but Scotland does have a separate legal system, hence why it isn't "UK law"]
So there is not a magical space where the law does not apply? that is what you call hypocritical.
The hypocrisy is in touting that there is such a space, in order to gain points for freedom in international relations, then conveniently discard the pretense whenever it suits the authority.
Here is more information about the arrests that are currently taking place:
https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for...
Why does that link say the current director of public prosecutions is Sir Kier Starmer? It's hard to take it seriously.
It doesn't say he's currently the DPP. It says:
"As director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer issued..."
Past tense.
> But in the UK you can be arrested and jailed for saying something online that offends someone else.
actually no. its grossly offensive. Not someone finding it offense. And normally its a legal garnish, for something like trying to get someone else killed or injured via text.
However you can be arrested for organising a protest that someone might reasonably find annoying. That has much less legal oversight.
All sides of all governments desperately want to install every oppressive thought-policing and free-speech limiting technology possible. They lust after China's "social credit score" and will do anything to control you.
Please cite examples of someone being jailed for offending someone (that doesn't include incitement to violence).
Held for eight hours + other abuse: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-o...
I'm sure you realise this, but you are of course massively and deliberately oversimplifying to the point of being misleading.
Like… it's okay to complain about bad legislation without misrepresenting it. It's bad enough that you don't need to make shit up about it.
The Times is more or less lying here.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedi...
> On 18 March 2024, the Secretary of State was provided with a Submission which made it clear that Category 1 duties were not primarily aimed at pornographic content or the protection of children (which were dealt with by other parts of the Act).
Notice this is under Sunak, not Starmer. The Times chooses when to support and opposite the Online Safety Act based on which party is in government, and provides evidence for its view by lying through omission.
The Online Safety Act is undeniably terrible legislation, but you won't find good-faith criticism of it from the Times.
What’s with england and its complete lack of response to this kind of power grabs?
there's really nothing anybody can do. protests dont work, riots dont work, petitions dont work, and theres nobody else to vote for who isn't also a cunt.
I’m just going to say it: you are wrong, protests, public pressure and civil disobedience are why you have many of the right you have today. I get you don’t have the will/energy/possibility to do anything, but don’t go around telling lies about the usefulness of public intervention.
There are a number of issues with this view:
- I've been to many protests in my time and often I believe them to be counter productive e.g. Critical Mass. I travelled to London twice to see what the protest was about. This was in the mid-2000s. I saw lots of annoyed commuters, lots of people getting drunk/high and it was more of a social gathering than a protest.
- Street movements are easily infiltrated by malign actors e.g. The CIA have a term called "initial instigator", this is where you turn a riot into a protest by inserting a person or people that will cause trouble. The CIA (and I would imagine British Intelligence) have handbooks on how to subvert/run a protest/riot. You can find these online.
- Many of the protesters you see maybe part of a rent-a-mob. You can literally go to company, and much like you would for film or TV hire a bunch of people to be in the background.
- I have plenty of will and energy to get involved. However often I find that many leaders make the mistake of being too inclusive. This means that often you will end up with people that will intentionally or unintentionally turn your movement into something else. If you listen to some of the account of people that were at Occupy Wallstreet, this is one of the reasons why the protests failed.
You’re analysing things in a vacuum, there are historical and contemporary examples of public protest, pressure campaigns and civil disobedience leading to policy change, and you’re arguing they’re what, all CIA plants or impossible? If not, please make your point clearer.
Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis
> You’re analysing things in a vacuum, there are historical and contemporary examples of public protest, pressure campaigns and civil disobedience leading to policy change, and you’re arguing they’re what, all CIA plants or impossible? If not, please make your point clearer.
I am not analysing things in a vaccum. I gave you some reasons why I don't believe these things are productive today.
One of those is an example from my own personal experience of being at a protest that literally had 1000s of people there.
I don't believe that all of it was CIA plants and never said that.
I explained how street movements are infiltrated by malign actors and how some intelligence agencies have used these techniques.
> Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis.
It is well documented. Just not commonly known. TBH you could have looked this up yourself.
It isn't really any different than hiring extras for a TV/Movie production (as I previously stated).
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rent-a-crowd.asp
Companies and political parties have been doing it for quite a while.
e.g.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aide-says-paid-actors-...
or some of the sites themselves give you examples of where they have done it.
https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/hire-a-crowd-case-studies/
Here are some companies that literally offer it as a service, I found these after doing a two minute google:
https://www.envisagepromotions.co.uk/services/crowd-services...
https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/
https://dreamsagency.co.uk/hire-a-crowd/
I am sure there are many others.
Oh yeah these services seem totally legitimate… you know what, keep believing what you want buddy, have a good day
Right. Let me get this right:
1) You asked for evidence of a rent-a-crowd / rent-a-mob service. Something which you could have looked up yourself.
2) I gave you links to companies that offer these services. I understand that these websites aren't the best, I literally listed the first 4 that were spat out by when searching. I suspect they probably don't get most of their business through the website. They look like websites I was making for companies back in the late 2000s.
3) Then you make allusions to to me delusional.
I think you are looking for excuses to dismiss my point of view. Probably because you don't agree with it.
I find it insulting that you would send such clearly fake websites, that’s why I’m stopping the conversation. Have a good day
What is fake about them?
I can find two of the agencies on Companies House:
- Dreams Agency - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
- Envisage Promotions- https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
The other one might be a trading name and I can't find anything that matches directly.
Can I have an apology please?
One of them is closed and had a yearly of 5k, not exactly screaming legitimacy.
But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed
> One of them is closed and had a yearly of 5k, not exactly screaming legitimacy.
I've closed businesses after they weren't successful. Doesn't mean it was illegitimate? No. It means they didn't make money.
Even if that one wasn't legit there are plenty of others that one can find easily e.g.
It isn't very nice when people dismiss things like this when they can be found on duckduckgo.
Normally these businesses are used for media campaigns.
But there is nothing stopping them from being used by political groups, parties etc.
> But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed
Thank you.
Yeah I’m really sorry about that, that argument of payed crowds always seemed so manufactured…
Gotta work a little more on those assumptions
Spoken like a man who doesn't know what kettling is. Or expedited judicial process for (some) rioters, with prison time for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
> you are wrong, protests, public pressure and civil disobedience are why you have many of the right you have today.
Once upon a time, yes. But they don't work in the modern world we live in now.
Show me a successful protest that achieved change in the past ten years?
Wasn’t turkye’s failed coup less than 10 years ago? Direct result of public intervention
The French yellow vest
The Dutch farmer protests
I can go on if you want
Those are European, cool. Any successful UK protests?
As that is the country we are talking about here.
Brexit
Brexit wasn't a protest. It was a campaign.
Are you going to move the goalpost further if I give you one?
I was specifically targeting protests in the UK. As we are talking about the UK.
And I was specifically talking about UKs lack of protest, see the issue here?
But the UK is not lacking in protest; we do protest.
What I am saying is that protesting is a method of freedom & rebellion that is now flawed for today's modern world. It may work in a few odd countries but overall now achieves nothing.
Protests do not work in these modern times.
It may of worked in the in the 1800's because society was maybe of been more united, less corrupted in power however the power that folks had has been chiseled away and has been decaying ever since.
Adding the fact we are now more divided than ever.
The only kind of protest that would work today are those of who use their wallet. Stop buying from corporations from the likes of Amazon, funding Google. But no, we won't do that; whatever would you do without your Amazon prime.
Instead let's hold a stick with cardboard glued to it and pretend that politicians care. (spoiler: they don't)
Protesting about war and then buying resources to protest about the war off Amazon who back the war is face-palming hilarious.
Otherwise everything is a just waste of time, resources and exposure. But by all means, if it makes yourself feel better then go for it.
And no, I didn't vote for Brexit.
> Instead let's hold a stick with cardboard glued to it and pretend that politicians care. (spoiler: they don't)
If you have too weak internal political support for something cardboard signs do help push something maybe over the edge.
No I get what you’re getting at. I might have a different idea (maybe anachronistic indeed) of what protesting means, having done it in my youth.
how are the plebs meant to operate the state machinations? even Farage went to private school. We are a generation away from being able to make a difference beyond the riots
They work. But they don't work if your objective is to replace a political party with another one... The problem is the system itself. It needs uprooting.
To quote someone: "You give us rights, only because we gave you riots"
I think the most effective solution is to work to ensure that people who have sensible views and are able to think in a reasoned way on topics like this stand for election themselves.
As much as many people have distaste for the existing parties, a few people getting involved and changing the parties from the inside on one or two topics like this (which are not party political in nature) is likely to be much more effective than standing as or voting for an independent, complaining or protesting.
Anything involved with the electoral process is doomed to fail. The system is designed that way to squash the few voices that want change. It needs uprooting not band-aid.
Voting for the alternatives won't make any difference either.
The power structure is designed in such a way that it is difficult for the Government itself to do change anything.
Right. The big lie of what's called Our Democracy (in the US, UK, and other Western nations) is that having 51% on your side and winning elections means you get some control over government. What recent years have made clear is that the bureaucratic class does what it wants, and resists most attempts by the people to control it through their representatives, using its media wing to call those anti-democratic and other epithets. At best, you can make temporary changes that the machine will roll back as soon as it can get rid of your representatives.
Then create a new party, give talks about this, mobilize your friends, family, make them understand that civil liberty is literally worth dying for
I really get annoyed when someone suggests this (it not your fault). You are believing what you are told at school about how Politics works. Many of us understand this is unrealistic.
Here is an incomplete list of reasons why I would never get involved directly in politics:
1. It takes literally decades to get a political party off the ground without major backing. All the new parties that you hear of are bankrolled by elite backing.
2. The way the Government and the civil service is setup is designed so you can't actually make any changes. Dominic Cummings has many interviews he did in the last year you can find where he explains how Whitehall is fundamentally broken. I suggest you listen to them.
3. I have a chequed past. Most of my adult life I was abusing alcohol, and as a consequence of that I have done and said lots of stupid things. A good portion of my extended family are criminals (which I don't associate with for obvious reasons). If I or anything connected to me gain any public appeal at all, I would have all the muck which I've put behind me dragged up. I don't want to expose myself or my family to that.
Sorry for your past, happy you got out of it.
1. Listen, yes it’s very hard work, but it’s this or be squeezed until there’s nothing else. And when people start having famines we’ll have a new French Revolution, millions will die, and this will require a lot more energy than doing changes today.
2. Will do, I don’t know enough on that subject to have an opinion on that. But unjust, unmovable systems, like monarchies (wink) have been toppled in the past. Even recently.
3. Sorry I was just using my environment as an example, I meant people that trust you, that you trust. This kind of movement starts small
> Sorry for your past, happy you got out of it.
Thanks.
> Listen, yes it’s very hard work, but it’s this or be squeezed until there’s nothing else. And when people start having famines we’ll have a new French Revolution, millions will die, and this will require a lot more energy than doing changes today.
All parties that you would have heard of, will have major backing from a number of wealthy donors. You also have to have the right people involved. Not everyone should be engaged in politics directly.
I am not under the delusion that I can fix the country. I can't even master the mess in my spare room. The best I can do is try to help my family, friends and community.
As for violent conflict. Many people think there is going to be some sort of violent conflict coming to the UK. David Betz has several interviews on YouTube on the subject. I've emailed him personally (about something unrelated) and he is a serious person. I don't know whether he is right or not and only time will tell.
> Will do, I don’t know enough on that subject to have an opinion on that. But unjust, unmovable systems, like monarchies (wink) have been toppled in the past. Even recently.
The monarchy isn't the problem.
give an example of a non violent movement such as youre describing. i dont think one has ever existed and actually achieved anything
Yellow jacket france
they didnt change anything
The co2 tax, which sparked the protests, was repealed. So yes it did exactly what they wanted
For a new political party to succeed in the uk you need millions in funding, and nobodys going to fund something that potentially affects their vast sums of money.
"Just start a new party and tell people about it" is perhaps the most misleading and flawed idea you could present unfortunately. There have been new parties, there are new parties at every general election, you never hear about them for good reason.
Ok I don’t know enough about this political system to contribute on that, there are some political systems built like that, like the US.
The same thing applies in the US doesn't it? There has essentially only been two political parties (three if you squint hard enough) for nearly the entire existence of the country?
The US problem is the lack of proportional representation. Getting support of 49% of the population gets you 0% role in government.
UK also has that problem, but its even worse with a minority supported government getting majority power.
Yeah that’s why I was making the parallel
Oh thanks for clearing that up, I misunderstood on my previous read.
Influence for this is obviously a 3rd party bankrolling it, it all came together in about 6 weeks in multiple countries. Doesn't matter who you vote in they'll just bankroll the next one too.
I really recommend a book called "Moral Ambition" which outlines many examples from history where societal change was made possible through people not protesting or rioting, but through people organising into political organisations which could then implement change - the very first example is of a man who lead the effort for abolition of slavery across the British empire, growing from a single man with an idea to a political force that made the change possible. And that doesn't mean you have to win elections - just grow enough that you are at least consulted on changes like this and treated like a partner not like a pest that has to be squashed and arrested.
mass civil disobedience. Not riots.
What would that look like?
There is widely available literature analyzing public disobedience, I suggest you find some reliable source in your favorite learning media.
Thanks. So, Gandhi style peaceful resistance? Would that work in England, the way it did in India occupied by England?
The Brits had to leave India because they were running out of money after WW2, that little sari wearing wrong-un had nothing to do with it
This is historical revisionism
There are other options
We just had the government backtrack on stopping giving money to better off pensioners (WFA) and tightening regulations on disability benefits (PIP) under pressure from the backbenchers and the media.
If your preferred cause is not cutting through in that way, it's worth asking what's different about the cause.
All the main parties are behind it, some say it doesn’t go far enough.
The vast majority of the British public absolutely love to ban things. If you listen to talk radio or daytime tv most of the time they’ll be having a discussion on banning something. We have a nanny state and the public like it that way.
Personally I use an allow list for my kids internet access and don’t rely on the state to parent them. I guess that’s too much bother for most people.
> allow list for my kids
I do the same but let's not pretend that's within the technical ability of the average parent. Of course, it should be and that would be a far better place for the government to direct its efforts.
That’s fair but I use iOS features for it and they do have more simplified set ups like blocking mature content that they define. I wonder how many people take the time to set up screen time for their kids? That is as easy on the level of signing up for a website or managing your online orders.
I appreciate that with recent articles shared here it might look that way. What is difficult as a Brit reading this is that so little has actually changed that I can't quite grasp what you mean.
Firstly, the paper reporting the "power grab" is a national newspaper read by millions. Secondly, as noted in several other places, the spin the newspaper has put on the judgement is deeply cynical. Lastly, this legislation has been in debate for years under multiple governments with a decent (by no means unilateral) amount of public support for some (but distinctly not all) the provisions.
That requires coordination and corporation in a society that is fragmented. It is hard to have a non-hostile interaction these days let alone unity over an online related issue.
Couldn’t agree more, I try my best but sometimes it’s better to just walk away. We have limited capabilities, and the world has an infinite supply of bad faith it would seem
How to rig freedom?
It’s simple: you only need the wille to rig and the power to freely manifest that will. No matter how elegant the design of a democratic system, or how many procedural safeguards exist, nothing can stop you.
Sad but true—if there isn’t enough power to balance that wille.
May all who value freedom also have the power to defend it.
They wait for the next election.
I've lived in the UK for 15 years now and the complete political apathy is probably what bothers me the most about this country. Few years back when they made it so that every ISP had to log your entire browsing history and keep it for a year and 17 different government agencies(including DEFRA, the agriculture ministry!) can access it without a warrant, barely anyone cared. Wasn't really mentioned in public media, other than the standard "we're finally making the internet a safer place against pedos!". When I mentioned it to my friends here the reactions were mostly "meh" to "I don't browse any dodgy sites so why should I care".
The other example is when the government changed the student loan rules by raising the allowed annual cost from 3k to about 9k, and also linked the interest to inflation, and increased the number of years that have to pass before the loan gets written off. So just for comparison - I paid 12k for a 4 year MSc Computer Science course, and it had 1.1% interest attached to it. So I paid mine off within few years of starting to work. My sister did her degree just few years after me, and her degree cost her 40k + her interest is 8%. She has a job but her payments barely cover the interest. She will never pay it off, so it will get written off at some point, maybe - but until then it's a permament 10% tax on all of her earnings. It's bonkers.
My point is - I feel like in any other country, this kind of economic assassination of entire generation of people would be met with people marching on the capital and burning down cars and setting tyres on fire in front of government buildings in protest. In UK barely anyone cared. Still no one cares. There is no political party that even suggests doing anything about it.
So with this new act - it's more of the same. You've heard our government already anyway - saying openly that if you are against this act you are on the same side as Jimmy Saville(one of the worst child rapists this country has ever produced). Essentially you can't be against it in public or you're compared to actual pedophiles. The only politician who even suggests that hey maybe this isn't right is Farage who is a despicable individual for many other reasons.
If you want my personal opinion on why that is - British society is extremely comfortable with the status quo. People would rather shrug their arms than actually do something about anything, we're surrounded by history, by buildings standing for the last 1000 years, stability is like the paramount value here. That's not to say Britain hasn't has some of the greatest civil movements in history - but right now, in 2025, the feeling I see everywhere is just apathy.
For the most part I'd agree, but the Iraq war had a million people (1/60th of the country) who made the effort to protest in London (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2765041.stm), and similarly every month supporting Palestine (150K-800K).
The legal mechanisms in place don't appear to be adequate as when that number of activists are ignored. Certainly in parallel with the online regulation, the legal right to protest has been restricted by the previous Tory government, and this current one.
What's also concerning is the lack of oversight with MPs, they follow guidelines, which seem to let them off from regular laws (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68503255 using taxpayers money in a private dispute- fraud) (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68841840 reads like fiction).
Why MPs are not FCA regulated is beyond me, corruption should be stamped out.
student loan rules by raising the allowed annual cost from 3k to about 9k, and also linked the interest to inflation
Not quite, "inflation" is CPI, as the government will tell you endlessly if you work for it and ask for a pay rise. Student loans go up by RPI (which is almost always higher).
> this kind of economic assassination of entire generation of people
It's worldwide, is the issue. A national government cannot solve the problems created by multinational investment firms.
On a related note, central banks have expressed their desire to increase unemployment.
> A national government cannot solve the problems created by multinational investment firms.
This hits hard, I never framed the issue like this. We really are living a corpo-fascist cyberpunk nightmare aren’t we? Minus the purple neons sadly
Be the change you want to see the in world. Incorportate neon lights more into your life.
Thank you for the insight, I thought the economic hardship after brexit would make them realise the importance of civic duty…
After COVID*
Oh wait it's a bit hard to differentiate isn't it, given the timing...
>Few years back when they made it so that every ISP had to log your entire browsing history and keep it for a year
This is a significant exaggeration in two respects.
First, SSL ensures that ISPs cannot log your literal browser history. They can log which domains you visit, how often you visit them, how much data was transferred, etc. etc.
Second, the law requires ISPs to be able to retain this data on a specific individual for up to a year if specifically ordered to by the Home Secretary. So it is not the case the ISPs in general are all recording this information for all of their customers. From their point of view they have no interest in doing so. I suspect that ISPs would in fact lack the capacity to store all of this data for all of their customers all of the time.
I don't support the IPA because I don't think the Home Secretary should be able to directly order surveillance of specific individuals. However, I don't think it is necessary to exaggerate the scope of the legislation in order to make a case against it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/11/internet-provi...
> Two internet providers are tracking and collecting the websites visited by their customers as part of a secretive Home Office trial, designed to work out if a national bulk surveillance system would be useful for national security and law enforcement.
> Home Office sources indicated that it was taking advantage of abilities in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, to test what data can be acquired, how useful it is in practice, and how it might be used in investigations.
> First, SSL ensures that ISPs cannot log your literal browser history.
unless im speaking to a 90 year old, nobody thinks browser history means offline copies of the page
The point is that they don’t see the URLs you visit, only the domains.
are you sure about that? ive read its meta-info but didnt see that particular caveat
The URL is sent over the E2E encrypted connection. How do you suppose the ISP would be able to see it? Maybe three letter agencies have back doors into this kind of stuff, but your ISP doesn’t.
Why single out England particularly?
Because the rest of Europe has much stronger reaction to unpopular political decisions
EU wants to scan every private message you send. Are there protests in the streets?
"The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025 – here's everything we know" (https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-co...)
"Chat Control is back & we've got two months to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans" (https://tuta.com/blog/chat-control-criticism)
Chat control is being actively campaigned against, and is not yet law. Civil disobedience, demonstrations and other more disruptive forms of protest come after the democratic options have been exhausted. Is this really news to you?
> Chat control is being actively campaigned against
By a few tech communities with a very limited reach. I refuse to believe at this point that the complete silence on the topic from mainstream media across EU is a coincidence.
> demonstrations and other more disruptive forms of protest come after the democratic options have been exhausted
Are they though?
I believe the point being made is that you are saying England when it is the entire UK under discussion. You are missing out three of the four nations of the U.K.
Don’t they have their own governments of sorts? Also, I would never accuse Irish or Scott’s of being passive in their response to political changes…
They do, but with limited powers. It’s not exactly the same as US states and the federal government, but you can think of them as regional governments or levels of government in that sort of way. The Scottish Parliament can pass some types of laws for Scotland. But Westminster (usually) passes laws for the entire UK.
England is the only one of the four without its own parliament.
Providing you accurately define the Irish in question all four are subject to the OSA, none have actively opposed it in any meaningful way.
The OSA applies to all of the UK.
Thx I didn’t know that, thank you
Since this is in relation to "Category 1 services" of the OSA:
> Category 1: should apply to services which meet either of the following conditions:
> Condition 1 – uses a content recommender system; and has more than 34 million UK users on the user-to-user part of its service, representing around 50% of the UK population;
> Condition 2 – allows users to forward or reshare user-generated content; and uses a content recommender system; and has more than 7 million UK users on the user-to-user part of its service, representing c.10% of the UK population.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...
In the Oxford philosophy-exam thread from yesterday, I was distracted by question #3: "Should anonymous posting online be forbidden?"[0] Never mind the quality of essay you (or your machine surrogate) could write about that. The striking thing is this is now within firmly within the Overton Window in British academia—this is what they seemingly teach their cultural elites in their elite schools. In place of Enlightenment* values, they're normalizing the inversion of them—normalizing thinking as an autocrat, in viewing the general public as an unsafe factor and as an adversary.
[0] https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c...
*(A not-small body of which were famously published anonymously in order to escape ostracization. Were these Oxford philosophers to take their own advice, they would forbid all volumes mentioning Voltaire or Spinoza from their libraries).
What was that thread? Oxford philosophy exams never suggest a particular stance on a question so you are free to argue on either direction of this argument and bring about your strongest points based on the current philosophical thinking on the subject. It is not normalizing lack of anonymity (nor horror movies, or the pursuit of happiness), but helps make people hone their argument skills. (And as another user mentioned, the discussion of the british nanny state is not new; it was old when Orwell wrote 1984.)
It was in a thread discussing LLM's,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44893522 ("All Souls exam questions and the limits of machine reasoning (resobscura.substack.com)"—35 comments)
https://resobscura.substack.com/p/all-souls-exam-questions-a...
british nanny state has been in parlance the 60's, its not a new idea really
From my perspective, the UK is a failing state and not worth thinking about. Not much can be learned from the UK except what to avoid doing if you don't want to become them.
List:
1. Don't handcuff 90-year-olds with dementia and put a hood over their heads (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-66317636)
2. Don't take inspiration from Minority Report / Black Mirror - "AI to help police catch criminals before they strike" (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ai-to-help-police-catch-c...)
As an Aussie, I was feeling somewhat consoled about the state of the US by the fact that the EU and UK still seem to have their heads screwed on.
OSA and chat control have made me seriously rethink that…
Has everyone lost their mind?
Black Mirror is the new 1984. Right wing people think "this is a parable of what left-of-centre politics gets you, look how clever I am". Left-of-centre people know that the author of 1984 fought for the socialists in the Spanish Civil War and that the author of Black Mirror is a Guardian journalist.
It is interesting. I care and I don't at the same time. There is a part of me that watches it all from a distance. We have all seen some of those dances before including government grasping at whatever explanation sounds plausible enough to let it go through. I don't know if it is the morning or what, but maybe UKsians need a morning kick with their coffee. Who knows. Maybe they even want to be protected from unsanctioned discourse.
It’s like someone got really into “A Clockwork Orange” and then thought: No, this is woefully inefficient, just one person at a time. It’ll be slower but we can do everyone all at once!
You can argue the intentions here but this isn’t different from what’s been said by them before - the public line is that it’s about safety, and while children add additional things to do, its not a child safety bill and it’s focussed on larger entities that deal with user to user services.
Small note that this refers to the previous Tory government, not the current Labour government, for whatever that is worth.
So the title should at least be "Previous UK administration stated that...".
+ Readable version: https://archive.ph/3pave
[dead]
This conversation seems like politics not technology. The act (which is awful) has already been done to death on here.
This sounds like a misinterpretation. The OSA is primarily about making online service providers responsible for age verification, if they supply adult content. No different in principle from having to prove one's age to buy cigarettes, alcohol, knives, etc.
No-one says "cigarettes are censored!", because, obviously, they're not. Same for adult content online. It can still be accessed, as long as proof of age is provided.
False equivalence, the local pub doesn’t keep track of your identity.
Not to take away from your general point (which I agree with), but that depends where local is.
> Identity technology used at a county's pubs and nightclubs since 2023 is to be extended for a further three years.
> Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) Danielle Stone has agreed to provide funding to keep the scheme at 25 venues that open beyond 01:00.
Thanks for the context, jeez that’s concerning
It's not about accessing pubs. It's about deciding what is a pub.
Better still: it has nothing to do with pubs at all
My local knows exactly who I am, that I'm over 18, where I live, who my kids are, how old they are, what I like to drink etc.
Your local pub doesn't keep records of everything evreryone does in the pub so that they can collate all of your habits and either sell it to advertisers or hand it over to the government when requested.
It's a way different set of incentives and outcomes.
Do you really think those things are comparable?
The claim was a pub doesn't track your identity. I think I proved mine did.
I used the word track, as we were discussing mass surveillance and not pubs, but sure, good job
Your local pub will have CCTV and some have names and photos of banned patrons behind the bar. Some bars and clubs have digital ID scanners upon entry.
Most online service providers who verify age are using third-party suppliers who don't provide any details of one's identity, just whether the user has been age verified or not. And much of that is done by recording a selfie, not handing over identity documents.
One local pub may have a face scanner, the other may not and I am free to choose which one I go to without fear of reprisals. Refusing to follow a government mandate can land me in jail.
Your example doesn’t work. They’re not keeping it for bad actors only, but for every one.
Stop trying to oversimplify the concept, it’s not a pub, it’s not a store, it’s a virtual service. This comparison doesn’t help us at all.
About the face and not ID: good thing we can’t identify someone using their face! /s
That’s not what it’s primarily about, but is the more visible aspect. Lots of the rest is ensuring moderation and the like is supported, scanning for csam, etc. where the risks are higher.
I see much of the rest of it as being similar to alcohol licensing laws. Pubs and bars have restrictions on how they operate, for the good of the community and society.
Now picture the profiles of those who would present a document to enter a pub, and picture the profiles of those who would present a document to access a forum.
> obviously, they're not
No, you are just tracked when you access them - «cigarettes» being, of course, all """controversial""" expressions.
(Already putting children as an excuse for that...)
*** They have censored lobste.rs . The "for adults only site" lobste.rs ***
The owner of lobste.rs decided to censor lobste.rs. And then changed his mind. It's accessible from the UK as it was before.
I see. I only came to know it from the list.
Now what about the rest of the list.
Is this you?
news.ycombinator.com | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com
Reported: 15 August, 2025 at 10:09
Shut down on: 15 August, 2025
Shutting down due to OSA
Discussion site for insufferable nerds.
SubmittedIt is nice of you to do community bond building by being jocular, tgv, but I do not see context nor content.
I do not see context because this is the beginning of "present an ID to access the web", and I do believe in slippery slopes, especially in a world where societies have lost the basics.
And I do not see content because I am not sure you want to suggest anything relevant with that.
For the rest, we can joke whenever we are both here fondly mate, but you have probably picked the worst topic for it.
--
Edit:
> where societies have lost the basics
And that's why I feel your use of "nerd" is so out of current reality (besides its application to the attending). A world of voluntary subjects, and the term for the sieged would be "nerd"?!
I copied that entry from https://www.blocked.org.uk/osa-blocks. It's clear this site hasn't been blocked. "The rest of that list" is not relevant. Most of it seems trolling, to give somebody a headache, I presume.
> "The rest of that list" is not relevant
Last time I checked it (here I barely have any Internet connection) it contained complaints from people unable to straightly conduct their usual web activities, of a sensitivity nature above Peppa Pig.
Hysterics? Possibly. But the first steps that could lead to the worse are taken. I have little trust in the profiles I see to have faith the future steerings.
> Is this you?
If you were suggesting that I could be behind childish acts, in the proper societies I lament are going missing you were supposed to apologize.
My age is private, not low.