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.
That sounds much better.
“Better than the US” is a bit too unspecific to judge. If you mean for privacy, the UK is certainly on the bad end of things.
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.
I dont care to compare. I dont need to lord over people on whose country is turning more shit. Just do what you can to stop this current worldwide rise in fascism. VOTE (if you can).
These things are multifaceted.
Privacy? Hell no.
Healthcare? Absolutely (though trending the wrong direction)
Public transport? Better, though again heading the wrong way.
That idea fell way off for me after the lies and manipulation of Brexit.
UK has always been slowly moving towards 1984.
They shear amount of CCTV is extremely unsettling for foreigners visiting.
Tories.
Damn. It’s always those stupid conservatives who ruin everything on this planet
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.
Oh absolutely. I just think that there’s a danger that people will think if the Tories are out of power all of these kinds of proposals will just disappear.
Well… The voters who vote for Tories…
Dumb people will always exist
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).
Strong analysis
Conservatism is fascism in a trench coat
I agree
Monarchy, dictatorship … potato patato
They’re not a monarchy though, and haven’t been for a long time. They’re a parliamentary democracy, or at least they have been. They’re definitely edging dictatorship.
Queen died, and they gained her spoiled cunt of a son as a king.
Oh yeah that’s it, the 63rd inbred figurehead that finally did the trick
#ThanksGaza for exposing these governments.
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?!
don’t forget to practice your double think
Doubleplus ungood.
Climate protests are probably gonna be illegal in many places soon… :(
Honestly I think climate protests are the least of your concern. Before you know it we will need to be careful not to commit though crime as then the thought police will find us
Lol, that and Israel is what this is all about.
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.
Person/group in charge is always right!
No no no, you see you’re missing that only browns and poors can do that.
Proper nomenclature is “domestic terrorist”
Funny how mouth breather right loved patriot act until recently …
Now they woke up but it is too late!
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“You’re no longer allowed to be upset at your government and if you are you’ll be met with violence”
people use violence
“They just love violence nobody said they were upset!”
Are we in the V for vendetta timeline now?
remember remember
The 5th of November…oh shit that was yesterday.
Finally, its about time. We need to centralize authority as democracy never does anything good
Edit: this is a joke just to be clear
Die in a hole, in Minecraft
That’s not very Orwellian of you
Wow. This is two shakes short of full-blown Fascism.
Sweet Jesus, it really is time to bail. Any recommendations on where to go? I’m hearing the weather is much better in France and Spain.
Is Scotland on board with this dictatorship malarky or are they fighting it? I didn’t see them kick up a fuss about the online safety bill which made it to law, which makes me think they aren’t fighting it.
Yeah but how do we leave without a crap ton of money to buy our citizenship in another country?
I was considering moving to Scotland if they vote to leave the UK and rejoin the EU
I honestly dont know how most of us can make a move happen. Its a shit state of affairs.
I hoped that Scotland was going to be our get out of jail card too. I’m still hoping.
You don’t have to buy citizenship in the United States or Canada. Both countries are also fighting internal fascism, but it’s not as bad as what we’re seeing in the UK.
Being a permanent resident is essentially buying citizenship since you’re not allowed to work, living in those countries without working isn’t cheap
Every immigrant I know has a work visa. They work and live here. Their lives are basically the same as regular citizens except they can’t be unemployed, they have to update their visa every year, and they can’t vote. After 7 years on a work visa you can apply for citizenship in the United States.
France is right behind the UK right now. It’s not as bad yet but will be in the near future.
Whoever thought 1984 would become a documentary - and V for Vendetta a possible solution.
Everyone that seen the UK go ?
Its kind of ironic that its happening in the UK of all places
Sounds CCP as fuck to me
Can’t beat 'em, join 'em.
You down with CCP (Yeah you know me)
Who’s down with CCP (Every last homie)
You down with CCP (Yeah you know me)
Who’s down with CCP (All the homies)
Something very western is happening to countries in the west, making them taste their own medicine:
“What are we, some kind of orientals?”
I’m sorry but the CPC is leagues better than the leadership of the UK could ever be.
I want off Mr Gove’s wild ride.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
Last week the home secretary, Suella Braverman, described pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London as “hate marches”, prompting dismay from many participants who consider themselves peace campaigners.
Martin Bright, editor-at-large, Index on Censorship, added: “This is an unwarranted attack on freedom of expression and would potentially criminalise every student radical and revolutionary dissident.
The government’s 2011 Prevent strategy defined extremism as the “active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.
Under the proposed definition in the documents, extremism would be the promotion of any ideology which aims to “overturn or undermine the UK’s democracy, its institutions and values; or threaten the rights of individuals or create a permissive environment for radicalisation, hate crime and terrorism”.
The original article contains 948 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good bot
Welp, I recommend getting it out of your system while you can
