UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

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.

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

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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-...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hmm. New account, no history before this thread. Not at all suspicious.

So, DSIT, Age Verification Industry Association or Molly Rose astroturfer?

So there is not a magical space where the law does not apply? that is what you call hypocritical.

Why does that link say the current director of public prosecutions is Sir Kier Starmer? It's hard to take it seriously.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Because the rest of Europe has much stronger reaction to unpopular political decisions

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.

> 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.

Thank you for the insight, I thought the economic hardship after brexit would make them realise the importance of civic duty…

>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.

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.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgm28lmk474o

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.

It's not about accessing pubs. It's about deciding what is a pub.

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.

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.

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.

    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.
    Submitted