The free internet might be gone in the next decade. Probably time to buy a few hard drives and do some archiving. I don't just mean piracy. Articles, blogs, anything you find precious.
bloomca · 20m ago
I think about the same. Right now we are at the normalizing the ID verification stage and banning specific content in certain countries/states, once we are desensitized, VPNs will come next, and then some government solution to track everything you do online.
They can go after hostings as well and everybody can take down a lot of things out of fear.
themafia · 44m ago
It's a good time to get an RSS reader and build some direct connections to your sources. They're coming for the "aggregators" next.
Fizzadar · 1h ago
Bought some drives recently having come to the same conclusion. Future of the internet looks bleak.
Apreche · 2h ago
If they do it, I never want to hear any criticism of the great firewall of China from them ever again.
basilgohar · 2h ago
No one likes hearing hypocrisy from politicians, but it's one of their most dominant traits. That is, if you ascribe normal ethics and morals to them. But politicians' are a different breed, and the sooner we understand that, the better.
They will say, and do, whatever they perceive as being the most politically expedient thing to do. The ones that took moral stances in the actual best interest of the populace usually suffered politically for that. The ones that side with power tend to keep their power. This is the folly of political systems in general short of tyrannies, dictatorships, and kingdoms. And now we are seeing how democracies can be stretched into the same quality of life as so-called "lesser" systems but people don't like hearing that argument because the alternative is made out to be so scary.
It's not so much that democracy is the problem, but that it's too easy to sway people when it's so easy for money and power to be leveraged to manufacture consent. So now it's the people electing their own tyrants who will enrich and entrench themselves and being grateful for the privilege to be used for that purpose.
steps down off of soap box and stops yelling at clouds
grues-dinner · 4m ago
> No one likes hearing hypocrisy from politicians
Cambridge Analytica showed politicians in real time that on a population scale, hypocrisy doesn't make any difference. In fact people will bend themselves around to square the circle.
Politicians finally knowing for a demonstrable, data-backed, evidence-based fact that they can do basically whatever they want and keep their support as long as they just say they right things is what has brought us from 2016 to now.
afavour · 59m ago
I’m quite sure they don’t see it as hypocrisy. China censors the internet because they want to control everything about their citizens lives. But us? Oh, we’re censoring the internet to protect the children.
themafia · 42m ago
> but it's one of their most dominant traits
Always has been. What has changed is they now have the power to force their constituency to live with their hypocrisy and lies. Any effort to challenge the "leader" results in claims that you are now a "terrorist."
The internet was supposed to empower the citizenry. It's been captured and is now a tool used to suppress them. So now we see leaders completely unchallenged when their darker habits are exposed.
hinkley · 1h ago
> No one likes hearing hypocrisy from politicians
You’re clearly not paying attention to American politics.
digianarchist · 3h ago
There are a lot of extra steps the UK government can take beyond the fines:
> In the most extreme cases, with the agreement of the courts, Ofcom will be able to require payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, preventing it from generating money or being accessed from the UK.
They’ve done this before (various piracy websites are blocked by ISPs).
The criminal liability of senior managers could cause travel headaches too.
Given that web traffic to certain adult websites has dropped 90% from the UK, in waiting to hear news of the lawsuit.
thebruce87m · 31m ago
What is the resultant increase in traffic from other countries I wonder? VPN endpoint traffic has to pop up somewhere.
Yeul · 1h ago
4chan doesn't do anything illegal unless you think that being mean should be banned.
afavour · 58m ago
Well that depends on what laws are passed, doesn’t it? 4Chan is now in violation of a new UK law.
AlienRobot · 42m ago
The most insane thing about this headline is that implies parents are giving their children devices with unfiltered access to the Internet and then the government needs to play wack-a-mole with every single website they come across to prevent children from accessing it.
jimbob45 · 3h ago
For someone who has never been there, sure. It’s hardly the worst *chan though and I’d argue KiwiFarms is less redeemable.
dmitrygr · 3h ago
I look forward to the current us admin forcing the uk to very publicly walk this back. Their motivation will have nothing to do with defending free speech, but an enemy of my enemy IS my friend.
krona · 3h ago
S.1748 - Kids Online Safety Act[1] is working its way through and as I understand it has fairly broad support.
There may be significant differences between KOSA and OSA in their implementation but they are the same in essence.
Honestly from the summary this seems pretty.. reasonable?
whatshisface · 1h ago
If the limitations on conducting A/B tests on people under 13 are enforced, you will need a driver's license to connect to the internet, and you will need to show it to every website.
Mississpi is a pretty Republican state and has enacted even more stringent and privacy-invasive laws.
basisword · 3h ago
>> I look forward to the current us admin forcing the uk to very publicly walk this back
He'll need to start first with taking action at home. Florida and I believe Texas have also implemented age restrictions for various websites and did so before the UK.
So maybe they're not your friend.
croes · 3h ago
But the predator of your predator isn’t your protector, just a bigger predator.
The current US administration isn’t pro free speech, they just use other tools to prevent it.
UK uses laws, US uses money respectively the lack of money for you if your speech doesn’t suit them.
US free speech has a price tag.
cyanydeez · 3h ago
The us is on a parallel track
You will be underwhelmed.
ecocentrik · 3h ago
4chan is a conversion funnel for right wing extremism. That's a friend and ally situation. But yes, we'll likely see Vance defending kids for wanting to be kids, ignoring the adults that own and operate the platform and their role in grooming kids to embrace fascism by creating a safe space for hate.
DaSHacka · 9m ago
Sounds like their parents outta start doing their job, then.
svgmaker · 3h ago
i think so.
pinoy420 · 3h ago
My local MP won’t do anything and basically dismissed me as a pedo/terrorist for even considering talking against the OSA.
What can be done if those who represent you, don’t?
logicchains · 1h ago
If you're an engineer, contribute to technologies that take power away from those who lord over you. Which in this case would be distributed, censorship-resistant communication technologies. There's a lot of work to be done, not only in hard engineering, but also in things like UI and marketing, as widespread adoption is the best way to maximise the chance of success. For all its flaws, cryptocurrency (in particular anonymous ones like Monero) is a demonstration that this is possible: no government desires for its citizens to have a means to transact large sums anonymously online, yet Monero still exists. And as governments impose more restrictions on the internet, there'll be more and more demand for means to bypass those restrictions.
mystraline · 3h ago
Vouched.
However you really need to name your MP. These political public figures need named and shamed for using binary fallacious logic like that. And barring listening to constituents, get rid of them.
basisword · 2h ago
They represent their constituents - you are one of those. If the majority of their constituents support the legislation they're doing their job. Could you post their full response to you? Pretty shocking if they accused you of being a terrorist pedophile and worth making people aware of which MP this was!
hungmung · 3h ago
More made up problems for a fundamentally inept government to solve because fixing real problems like a broken healthcare system is hard and not a guaranteed political win.
Thanks Starmer, you're a worthless turd and no different than your predecessor.
FridayoLeary · 2h ago
I think it was an agenda years in the making. I saw the groundwork being laid for this in 2021 and it somehow survived a general election and an entirely new government with a different political alignment. Ive seen other laws like this. It was nothing to do with the politics or the politicians, it has to do with civil servants who are working with their own agenda. Just like yes prime minister.
People seem to have forgotten that all major UK ISPs are now logging TCP connection metadata and all DNS queries
ISPs will send you warning letters if you're using bittorrent
Gabriel_Martin · 51m ago
I mean he has the same bosses right?
daymanstep · 43m ago
You mean the electorate ?
amanaplanacanal · 26m ago
Maybe the Bavarian Illuminati.
basisword · 3h ago
The Online Safety Act was passed when the Tories were still in government.
Rolling that back essentially makes you a prime minister that believes children should have unfettered access to porn, self-harm material, gore, and that the outspoken parents of kids who've killed themselves after accessing this material shouldn't be listened to. At least, that's how the media (on all sides) would spin it. Not really a fight worth picking.
MrGinkgo · 2h ago
The way to fight it without coming off that way is by advocating for a form of age check that doesn't require personal information, which I haven't heard any really water-tight suggestions yet.
If their real interest was in protecting children, they'd make a free, publicly accessible age blocking system that parents could choose to opt into, that isn't thrust upon all citizens at once
zahlman · 1h ago
>a form of age check that doesn't require personal information
But your age is personal information.
YurgenJurgensen · 2h ago
That’s populist talk, and if the PM wants to play populism, he’s not doing a very good job of it.
FridayoLeary · 2h ago
He's not doing a very good job of anything. His main problem is he has very few fundamental beliefs. All he has is some vague left wing aligned principles which he allows others to advise him on and then selects whatever position will gain himself the most goodwill. Which is why his ministers can propose atrocious ideas and he will go along with them. It's not as if he has anything better to suggest.
basisword · 2h ago
The problem the majority of people have with this law is "I can't easily access my free porn anymore". The counter-argument is "child kills self"[1] because shitty tech companies can't control their thirst for money. Like I said, I don't agree with the legislation but it's not an easy argument to make.
In a world where you can cast your vote anonymously in the voting booth, it’s a dangerous game to piss off a large number of voters, even if they can’t admit publicly why. They will be reminded every day of that idiotic policy. Like cookie consent banners.
afavour · 1h ago
I think you’re correct and the person you’re replying to is correct too.
Voters aren’t all that rational. They could choose to vote against the person that blocked their access to porn but also choose to vote against the person who made porn available again because doing so puts children in danger or whatever the scaremongering line would be.
miohtama · 2h ago
Nick Farage from Reform plans to pick this fight. Of course whether he does it or not will be seen.
grues-dinner · 9m ago
He says he's against the OSA but he's also find by religious right nutters who think it's a great thing. So if/when he gets into power, don't expect anything better to replace it. Not that I would expect him to uphold a single promise: as I understand it, Reform doesn't even commit to a formal manifesto, anyway.
monkey_monkey · 28m ago
Farage is a moral-free scumbag who will be known in history as one of the architects of Britain's period of decline. The fact that he hasn't been held to account is one of the great scandals of our age.
akk0 · 2h ago
Not a fight worth picking if truth, sanity, principles and integrity are worthless to you, I'm sure.
They can go after hostings as well and everybody can take down a lot of things out of fear.
They will say, and do, whatever they perceive as being the most politically expedient thing to do. The ones that took moral stances in the actual best interest of the populace usually suffered politically for that. The ones that side with power tend to keep their power. This is the folly of political systems in general short of tyrannies, dictatorships, and kingdoms. And now we are seeing how democracies can be stretched into the same quality of life as so-called "lesser" systems but people don't like hearing that argument because the alternative is made out to be so scary.
It's not so much that democracy is the problem, but that it's too easy to sway people when it's so easy for money and power to be leveraged to manufacture consent. So now it's the people electing their own tyrants who will enrich and entrench themselves and being grateful for the privilege to be used for that purpose.
steps down off of soap box and stops yelling at clouds
Cambridge Analytica showed politicians in real time that on a population scale, hypocrisy doesn't make any difference. In fact people will bend themselves around to square the circle.
Politicians finally knowing for a demonstrable, data-backed, evidence-based fact that they can do basically whatever they want and keep their support as long as they just say they right things is what has brought us from 2016 to now.
Always has been. What has changed is they now have the power to force their constituency to live with their hypocrisy and lies. Any effort to challenge the "leader" results in claims that you are now a "terrorist."
The internet was supposed to empower the citizenry. It's been captured and is now a tool used to suppress them. So now we see leaders completely unchallenged when their darker habits are exposed.
You’re clearly not paying attention to American politics.
> In the most extreme cases, with the agreement of the courts, Ofcom will be able to require payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, preventing it from generating money or being accessed from the UK.
They’ve done this before (various piracy websites are blocked by ISPs).
The criminal liability of senior managers could cause travel headaches too.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2kz9kn93o
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/174...
4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44982681
There may be significant differences between KOSA and OSA in their implementation but they are the same in essence.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/174...
https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-22-2025-mississippi-hb1126
Mississpi is a pretty Republican state and has enacted even more stringent and privacy-invasive laws.
He'll need to start first with taking action at home. Florida and I believe Texas have also implemented age restrictions for various websites and did so before the UK.
So maybe they're not your friend.
The current US administration isn’t pro free speech, they just use other tools to prevent it.
UK uses laws, US uses money respectively the lack of money for you if your speech doesn’t suit them.
US free speech has a price tag.
What can be done if those who represent you, don’t?
However you really need to name your MP. These political public figures need named and shamed for using binary fallacious logic like that. And barring listening to constituents, get rid of them.
Thanks Starmer, you're a worthless turd and no different than your predecessor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Act_201...
People seem to have forgotten that all major UK ISPs are now logging TCP connection metadata and all DNS queries
ISPs will send you warning letters if you're using bittorrent
Rolling that back essentially makes you a prime minister that believes children should have unfettered access to porn, self-harm material, gore, and that the outspoken parents of kids who've killed themselves after accessing this material shouldn't be listened to. At least, that's how the media (on all sides) would spin it. Not really a fight worth picking.
If their real interest was in protecting children, they'd make a free, publicly accessible age blocking system that parents could choose to opt into, that isn't thrust upon all citizens at once
But your age is personal information.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62998484
Voters aren’t all that rational. They could choose to vote against the person that blocked their access to porn but also choose to vote against the person who made porn available again because doing so puts children in danger or whatever the scaremongering line would be.