Every day we get closer to an Orwellian society. The United Kingdom may already be one.
US big tech is influencing europe to do the same as the us, and opening them up for absolute power.
the only way out is to stop being US vassals.
I’m not going to defend the US and it’s tech oligarchs, they are all shit, but the way things are going, the EU and the UK are currently in way worse shape than the US in terms of all this 1984 bullshit.
No country is safe from this anymore, and we may very well be looking at the worse time to be alive when it comes to privacy, regardless of where you live.
my country doesn’t seem interested in doing stuff like this for the foreseeable future. of course the us tech oligarchs can impose it or whatever, but eh, maybe homegrown alternatives can come about finally.
Enjoy it. I’m honestly happy to read this. My country has the bad habit of copying all the crappy shit from the US, and none of the good
mine too, actually. we are currently copying some of their fascists, but this specific way of restricting us doesn’t seem to be on their minds for now.
I’m starting to think you’re Dominican too 🤣
As a US citizen, pray for us 🙏
The olygarch’s have ruined everything again?
The tree of freedom must periodically be watered with the blood of tyrants.
zoinks
The UK ain’t part of the EU mate
the EU is eyeing similar rules
Not any more 😭
Old enough to remember how Europeans smugly thought that they lived in some sort of an enlightened and free society.
Now do Russia and and china
Having supposed freedumbs is literally what y’all have been braying made the West different from Russia and China.
So where is the distinction then
For the age verification is it possible to sign a petition? I think is not too late to join forces… or anything but not letting them go further… as of the chat control probably only contacting the representatives. I really hope lawyers and businessmen try to fight it…
Is this thread about the rising fascist movements? Oh…
Is it about the refugees from their colonies they drown in the Mediterranean? Oh…
Well is it about the pivot from renewables and nuclear to oil and gas? Wh… well what is…
Oh. This is a thread about your online treats.
#1 on lemmy ‘top in last 12 hours’
you are saying that as if all (or any) of those would have started to be a problem just in the last 12 hours…
and this is not about “online treats”, but online threats. It’s not just netflix, amazon and other silly unnecessary things, it’s everything, including every forum where people can organize and discuss things, fucking youtube with their tons of knowledge based content, …
but sure! we have 4 other problems, count climate change too, that’s 5, we really should just ignore this one because it’s literally meaningless!
I do agree. But calling the UK Orwellian is kind of funny, given Orwell’s 1984 is largely, if not mostly, based on the UK:
- Like Winston, Orwell worked in the UK as a war propagandist, and lamented that he constantly had to lie and censor facts, but thought it worth it to defeat the Nazis.
- The ‘ministries’ were entirely based on the UK’s, especially e.g. the ‘Ministry of Defense’ actually being a ministry of war.
- Orwell complained that the UK secret police constantly opened all his letters because he was a commie.
- Room 101 and the Ministry of Truth is basically just satire of the BBC.
As well as cultural changes in the 80s-90s, I think people don’t quite realise how much the internet ‘escaped’ the grasp of governments for the past few decades. By constantly banging the drum of “what about the children D:”, governments are finally just catching up to where we used to be.
Surpassing where we used to be in that regard as in the mean time they have been busy locking down controls over other facets of society.
Almost the entire western world is going authoritarian. Very worrying trend. It has to be stopped.
the only thing that can really stop it IMO is mainstreaming decentralized social media and messaging services.
You’d need to effectively replace Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Whatsapp etc… The only thing that totally keeps us from 1984 is that all these platforms for now have decided to be relatively free and impartial (compared to how bad it could be). But that could change at any time if the powers that be decide to on a whim. They could completely ban all privacy, pacificsm or any kind of political opposition tomorrow.
I am not aware of any western country that isn’t a police state.
The reason the police state gets worse and worse is simply that our glouriouss western countries shift closer and closer to fascism every day.
Unfortunately that doesn’t only impact privacy but also stuff like state repression or presence of state thugs.
To quote very smart people:
OOONEEE SOLLUTION
REEEVOLUTIONI hope for a revolution, but as for my country (Italy), too many people have been brainwashed by mainstream media’s pro-European and Atlanticist propaganda. We call them “euroinomani” (“euro “drug” addicts”)
Have you already written to your members of parliament about chat control, and possibly other matters? Seriously, do it. There is very little you can do, but this might actually help. Slightly. Maybe.
From the fact Britain produced Orwell, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, I figure the UK has always been some shade of “Orwellian”.
Historically, the UK has always been very self assured in their goals and never looked for outside input while disregarding the people that they were upending. Anyone who wasn’t helping them was viewed as an enemy to be controlled, oppressed , or destroyed. If that isn’t a non-political explanation of rightwing authoritarianism, I’m not sure what is.
We are living in Orwellian society, it’s just the news catching up with reality.
The news has been trying to obfuscate this awareness for as long as possible.
It has been effective but every day more people take notice.
As an American it’s nice to see were not the only ones in a complete downward spiral.
Nice? I wish it was just the US so getting to another country would make it safe for us. This is awful.
As an American, no it’s not nice. Why would I want more of this shit elsewhere?
Also, Americans are subject to supporting this bullshit. If any company in the us (or in the world really) owns or maintains data that the EU qualifies as adult-oriented, they have to either maintain a means of actively prevent EU users or support the filtering and tracking that the EU mandates. If not, they can be fined by the EU, and as long as there is a financial relationship between the us and EU, the fines will be enforced.
This has global impact.
I’m curious if more companies will move their hosting to countries that are non compliant with EU regulations and move to accepting payment from cryptocurrency only. I would not be surprised if x-rated content providers were to move to such places.
Misery loves company
Wishing ill on people, eh?
Only on you ;)
Thanks, but you’re a tad late
The UK would be one if anyone could be bothered to run it properly.
They’re looking to install Nigel Farage as their prime minister. The island is derelict.
Not quite.
Farage keeps running around saying “Pick me! Pick me!” and the press keep asking “Is farage a viable candidate?” while not offering the same credence to anyone else.
The British public are “We’re fucking sick of this bollocks from the establishment” and a lot of them are falling for the privately educated ex city trader Farages nonsense that he’s a “man of the people” because all the centrist parties are saying “aren’t immigrants awful?” in an attempt to distract from their own incompetence and quite frankly, the left is 10 years behind in offering a coherent alternative to all the bullshit.
a lot of them are falling for the privately educated ex city trader Farages nonsense that he’s a “man of the people”
This parallels Trump, but I think it’s mostly not that people are really fooled into believing these wealthy politicians are just like them. I think the attraction is more that the current system isn’t working for a lot of people and hasn’t been for a long time. Someone who offers to tear it down can attract a large following even if they don’t have a good proposal for what to replace it with.
It took a while for me to see that because I find the racist and nationalist beliefs of the likes of Trump, Farage, and the AFD so appalling it’s hard to see anything else.
Definitely, it’s them playing stupid so centrist liberals will mock them because they can’t help themselves and they use that to say to the genpop “look, I’m just like you and these sneering elites are laughing at me, and by extension you”
I think the attraction is more that the current system isn’t working for a lot of people and hasn’t been for a long time.
Exactly. They play the outsider who has the balls but not embroiled in the quagmire, to come and “drain the swamp”
The perverse hilarity of trump saying this is that he is the 1%, he is the trust fund kid that had everything handed to him on a platter. He literally is the swamp (a corrupt child rapist)
Farage in the UK went to one of the top schools (Dulwich college) where he was disciplined for singing Hitler youth songs. He got a job in the city through his dad as a commodities broker before going into (disrupting) politics and people seem to believe his shit when he acts like he’s one of the common folk!
People need their heads banging together falling for that shit!
Test preview
I’m quite curious to see how it will end in the UK with the porn filters because the people don’t seem to be inclined to use their IDs online, the system is brittle, and non-porn websites are being blocked too.
As a Brit who has seen the UK government’s ill thought through and unworkable attempts at police state bullshit go through the process a few times now, I’m going to predict: VPN use goes up massively, the government starts talking about banning VPNs without considering that this would break half the internet, then some wealthy business donor has a quiet word to them because businesses need VPNs to function, but they can’t publicly back down because they already called everyone who opposed it a pedo. So they pick one or two VPN companies (whichever ones have the most foreign-sounding names), have the tabloids run a propaganda campaign about how evil they are, then ban them even though they aren’t based in the UK and it makes no difference to anything, then they’ll claim they won and the laws will stay on the books forever but nobody will bother to enforce them and everything will carry on as before.
Sign ups for Swiss VPN providers from the UK are up massively, nobody will use their ID for porn.
Must be a great time to be in þe VPN market.
Orwell never could have imagined society as it exists currently.
