I don’t know if this is 100% strictly privacy related but I think it does fall in the sphere of protecting one’s right to express oneself privately.
"Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values, according to documents seen by the Observer.
The new definition, prepared by civil servants working for cabinet minister Michael Gove, is fiercely opposed by a cohort of officials who fear legitimate groups and individuals will be branded extremists.
The proposals have provoked a furious response from civil rights groups with some warning it risks “criminalising dissent”, and would significantly suppress freedom of expression."
Why is the UK turning into a fucking dictatorship
It’s incredible how many people think the UK is better than the US when it clearly is not.
Not having healthcare is kind of a big deal. It’s easy for us Europeans to forget the implications, but for a significant portion of the US populous, if they get sick they’ll either go bankrupt or they’ll simply just die. Which is insane.
to be fair… they won’t die from an acute injury… they will die slowly from chronic conditions while being sucked dried for everything they got.
This is one I’d say is comparing apples to oranges. They each are good and bad in different ways. The unfortunate thing is that our current government wants the UK to be more like the US which will be a net negative to everyone in the UK. For example, they’ve been gutting the NHS for years to pave the way for a privatised hellscape.
Oh yeah, because authoritarianism doesn’t give large chunks of the labour party massive hard ons too.
If they’d had their way all our biometrics would be on a database and we’d have to have our id cards with us at all times.
Yes, that’s true. Recently though, the ones responsible have been Tories. But I agree. There’s a general tendency in the governing culture of the UK to override basic rights in the name of expediency or convenience for the government.
Having lived in various countries in Europe including over a decade in the UK, my theory is three fold:
- It already started with a system were power is dynastic (not just because of the monarchy and an unelected 2nd chamber were many members inherit their position but also because it has a well-entrenched system of private schools which tie to elite universites and from there to political, media, corporate and judiciary to positions) were there used to be some level of noblesse oblige (the duty of the upper classes toward “their lessers”) which is now completelly gone: the UK copied the “everybody for themselves” spirit from the US (but not the “go getter spirit”) into a system which was already incredibly stratified into classes and riddled with priviledge, so it basically ended up just being used by the rich scions of the rich to tell themselves their wealth is due to personal merit and from which it “logically” follows that the poverty of the poor is due to them being lazy and the rest of of the population should just do as they’re told by such clearly superior people.
- Starting in the Thatcher years the Press in the UK was bough by a handfull of very rich people who don’t pay tax in the UK, most noteably Murdoch. That fully privatised and Press whose ownership was then heavilly concentrated, was then used for propagand purposes, pushing anything and everything to make the power of the state subservient to the power of money, mainly by removal of regulation and lowering of effective corporate taxes and taxes for the wealthy (though the UK already had unique legal frameworks to allow the very wealthy to avoid all tax, most noteably the Non-Resident Tax Status) as well as views such as the above mentioned one that poverty is caused by laziness and being wealthy comes from merit.
- Being a de facto Two Party System due to a First Past The Post representative allocation system that makes it extremelly hard for a third option to rise to power (and on the rare occasions when they get close - about once every half a century - they’re quickly “put back in their place”), the extreme right in the UK, rather than try and gain power through the popular vote (as you see, for example in The Netherlands, where they float around the 15% mark) were they would require millions of votes to get power, have instead just infiltrated one of the power duopoly parties and thus only needed about 50k votes to take power (by outvoting other factions inside that party to elect their people as leaders). Once they dominated the Tory party, the First Past The Post system makes it extremelly hard to dislodge the party even though it has massivelly changed, and you even get effects like the other mainstream party of the Party Duopoly shifting its policies more towards the agenda that’s being set by the far right now in power.
Murdoch is the main driving force. He got Tony Blair in, and after the Leveson Inquiry where the ethics of the press was called into question and found wanting, absolutely nothing was done (under Cameron).
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a fucking manual.
Lol fr. It’s like they watched all the movies and books about dystopia and thought, “okay, this looks good, let’s do this”
Even the wording and grammar sounds like they are doing a 1984 parody
Honestly a lot of things today seem like funhouse mirrors of scifi dystopias. There is something to be asked of chicken or the egg with our similarities. Did the writers just think about how we would eventually end up and just got slightly wrong with the details or did someone with terrible social skills and a fucked up hyper focused head think it was a good idea and aimed to make it reality.
It happens all the time with items from Star Trek. Literally engineers wanting to make the gadgets they saw and even Meta pulls it’s name from a dystopia novel that Zuck thinks is neat instead of horrifying.
So do we put forth ideas only to normalize them and make them true? Do thoughts become reality whether good or bad? Or do people have the ability to extrapolate where we are heading through guess work and random chance with enough time and effort?
Because I’m horrified if twilight becomes real… Oh God is it already real?? Has anyone been to Utah lately?!
The day after the 5th of November. Nothing bad ever happens when you suppress the freedom of speech and the right to protest.
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes and his companions
Did the scheme contrive,
To blow the King and Parliament
All up alive.
Threescore barrels, laid below,
To prove old England's overthrow.
But, by God's providence, him they catch,
With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
A stick and a stake
For King James's sake!
If you won't give me one,
I'll take two,
The better for me,
And the worse for you.
A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
A pint of beer to wash it down,
And a jolly good fire to burn him.
Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!Climate protests are probably gonna be illegal in many places soon… :(
broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values
Guess I’m an extremist 🤷♂️
Who gets to define what the country’s values are? Who defines which activities undermine them and its institutions? You could plausibly argue that the present Conservative government is working hard to undermine the country’s values and institutions. You could argue that introducing this very bill is an attempt to undermine the country’s values and institutions.
Proper nomenclature is “domestic terrorist”
Funny how mouth breather right loved patriot act until recently …
Now they woke up but it is too late!
They think they’ll be the ones enforcing the act, so they’re not that afraid.
