Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

But this solution is like arresting all the pot dealers but leaving all the heroine dealers unscathed. The reputable sites, such that porn sites can be lol, will comply but the harder core places won't. So you restrict access to the less questionable content. If a kid wants to find porn they will, and you just made it easier to get the more questionable kind then the "safer" alternative. You're basically guiding kids to the stuff you wanted to keep away from them. If you want to keep kids safe it starts at home. Monitored computer time and parental control software. But that takes effort on parents behalf, something I guess parents are too lazy to do.

You're offloading parental responsibilities to society at large and doing it in the worst most inefficient way possible. Congrats I guess?

[Oexmelin]

Hansard is being redacted 

It's been misread as Han's hard.

[Josquius]

I was thinking earlier today on the prohibition thing and the fact kids are ingeneous at finding a way around filters.

Parental/school  filters usually work via hard blocks on sites.

I wonder if there's one that instead merely sets a quota.
You can have porn three days of the week but no more! Sort of thing.

[crazy canuck]

Hansard is being redacted 

It's been misread as Han's hard.

 

[Tamas]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yeah. In my early old age retired state I spent an awful amount of time on holiday and use hotel wifi a lot. I use a vpn of course, an extra layer of security and also useful for using services that are limited to certain jurisdictions. Oh well, I'm already dangerously unsound on the Palestine issue, once we are all criminals then the state can just arrest anyone it finds vaguely irritating. Much as the anti-cannabis laws only seem to be invoked againts black people and the working class (very patchily even then).

[Josquius]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

Worse than that, even in offices companies often use vpns.

But I've heard the argument is not a blanket ban and rather corporate approved vpns would be OK, just not private ones that don't track your use, which makes it worryingly realistic....

I don't see it happening, but who knows.

[Syt]

Yeah. In my early old age retired state I spent an awful amount of time on holiday and use hotel wifi a lot. I use a vpn of course, an extra layer of security and also useful for using services that are limited to certain jurisdictions. Oh well, I'm already dangerously unsound on the Palestine issue, once we are all criminals then the state can just arrest anyone it finds vaguely irritating. Much as the anti-cannabis laws only seem to be invoked againts black people and the working class (very patchily even then).

At least you don't have government ID cards yet.

[Sheilbh]

I love how they picked the worst option of allowing platforms to pick their verification service. To access adult content online, you have to let third party companies have your details. And like we are in a world where nothing ever gets hacked. And said content doesn't even need to be adult, just decided by platform that it sits under mature gating.

Yeah - in fairness it was passed under the previous government. The ICO have I think actually reviewed and approved one or two age verification company as having products that work from a privacy perspective. I'm not sure if they're being widely adopted. But also this placing the obligations on the big platforms (often on a risk based, so for them to assess) is a relatively common approach in UK (and recent EU) law, which I find really frustrating. Not least because, as you say, it embeds the platforms and their power. But we see it here but also in the Digital Services Act in Europe and lots of the other upcoming digital regulations on their way.

But I think in its way it is kind of telling that there have been various ministers serving various PMs of, apparently, different styles and views - but it just kept trundling on through the legislative process. It also had, throughout, relatively broad support from Labour in opposition. There was opposition from the free speech/civil libertarian groups like Liberty, Open Rights Group etc - but I can't think of a less relevant group in British public life, especially when, as I say, they come up against grieving parents and children's charities. In part I think it shows the power of campaigning groups in the UK (see also the nature groups and planning reform) with sympathetic "campaigners say" articles in the BBC and Guardian. But also, despite all the political changes since 2017 when this was first proposed it just kept going.

In a way it reminds me of assisted dying in that I don't think our MPs are very good legislators in recent years. They seem to think they're just voting on principles and how they say the law will work (which is always positive and benign) is what matters, when what they're actually voting on is the detailed bill before them and its provisions are how the law will work. Who can oppose wanting to regulate online harms and stop children from seeing porn that legally, already, they should not be able to see? The details of how that's done is apparently below or above the paygrade of MPs.

Anyway, I see Labour cabinet ministers are doubling down and if you oppose the Online Safety Act, you're marching shoulder to shoulder with the restless shade of Jimmy Savile:

I think the point that Peter was making is that predators today, sexual predators today, operate online. And if social media had been around in the same way as it is today, when Jimmy Savile was committing those crimes against young children, then it's inconceivable that Jimmy Savile wouldn't have been in the online space as well.

It is a fact that Nigel Farage and the Reform Party have said that they would repeal the Online Safety Act in its entirety, when of course some of the most significant provisions of that legislation is to protect children from predators, from seeing pornographic material on their phones and on their computers. And so Nigel Farage doesn't like the truth of the matter when my colleague explains to him the importance of the Online Safety Act and why he is so wrong to be wanting to repeal it.

(Incidentally - I really hope Labour have thought through this line of attack given the grooming gang inquiry.)

At least you don't have government ID cards yet.

Yeah. I've always said, and I think covid lockdowns were a great example, that you'll never lose money betting on the authoritarian-ness of the great British public (I'll never forget the 20-30% of the public who think nightclubs should have closed permanently after covid, even if covid was no longer a risk). As I'm almost certain this law has very strong public support.

But I think this is one of those myths, that are in their way helpful to push back against this stuff. Brits are not "freedom loving", they're curtain-twitching authoritarians who ruthlessly enforce social norms. We're not a "papers please" society only to the extent that we're an "one form of ID and two proofs of address" society instead. A government needs to be making very conscious efforts to have any remotely civil libertarian instincts, because it is the opposite of the gravitational pull of public opinion and the British state.

I know that some on the American and British far right share this stuff but there is something to the "have you got a license for that?" meme of British attitudes.

I guess I'm really surprised that a left leaning government is so sex negative.

I'm not so shocked by that - there's always a slightly puritanical/anti-fun side to the left at least in the UK. There have been big reforms under Labour - decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion, equalising age of consent, civil partnerships. But even then, I think there's rarely any sort of sex positivity or sense that fun and enjoyment are good things.

The left is serious - you think of Oscar Wilde's trouble with socialism that it "would take up too many evenings".

I also think there's a problem - and maybe not just in the UK - that a lot of his has become right and far-right coded. I think there's a need to develop (or perhaps just return to) a left-wing case for free speech, for not over-regulating food and drink and shopping, for small (if unhealthy) pleasures, for backing the hospitality sector and for letting people choose to do things that aren't necessarily good - and against this type of thing.

[crazy canuck]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

What is the connection between a vpn and working remotely? (pun not intended).

[Tamas]

So the Rest is Politics interview with the Gary's Economics guy. Now, I haven't really looked into this Gary character but oh my god this interview, especially Rory Stewart... Do you want to get a taste of how probably the far-right sees us centrists? Watch it.

Exec summary:
Gary: the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few is a self-reinforcing process that is destroying the middle class through out-competing them in asset-acquisition. If left unchanged, this is going to seriously impact people's living standards and will lead to further political radicalisation. I propose to tax wealth to alleviate this and prevent the eventual triumph of a far-right even worse than Farage

Rory: well, you know, the GDP numbers especially in America are very good, so there is no problem. Plus you are of working class background so you are irrational and angry.

[Tamas]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

What is the connection between a vpn and working remotely? (pun not intended).

VPN tunnels are regularly set up by companies to give access to their more sensitive systems and data. For example you accessing your Office 365 stuff by Microsoft's web portal is probably alright for most companies but they will want their system administrators to use (the company's own) VPN connection to do their job.

And as Josq said you'd fairly often have VPNs in an office setting as well. Big companies may have direct connects to their public could infrastructure etc. but not the smaller ones, I guess.

[Grey Fox]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

What is the connection between a vpn and working remotely? (pun not intended).

When I work remotely, the computer at home is only a terminal to the machines that are in my office. I use a VPN then remote desktop to my machines there. A more controlled way for corporate IT than using 3rd party tools (like Team viewer).

[Sheilbh]

So the Rest is Politics interview with the Gary's Economics guy. Now, I haven't really looked into this Gary character but oh my god this interview, especially Rory Stewart... Do you want to get a taste of how probably the far-right sees us centrists? Watch it.

It's not just how the far-right sees centrists like them (particularly Rory Stewart, I quite like Alastair Campbell because he's healthily tribal if monomaniacal about Brexit) In fact precisely because of that there's no way I'll be watching or listening to that

I like Gary Stevenson a lot and I think he's a great communicator. But I think he's very smart, very compelling and basically wrong on a lot of stuff for a variety of reasons.

Edit: Separately I'd just add that the ONS have now said last year was the second highest population growth on record, overwhelmingly from migration not births/deaths with population growing by over 1%. As they say this is the second highest year, the year before was the highest on record. And they're projecting that the UK population will hit 75 million a decade earlier than projected.

Now, not to get too housing theory of everything, but even acknowledging that not every person will (like me) live alone that feels really unsustainable when housing stats look like this:


I am broadly pro-immigration. But I think that relies on building the infrastructure and housing to sustain population growth (no new reservoir in 30+ years) and having a controlled (and visibly controlled) border to build trust. Similarly I think being basically anti-immigration and not wanting to build things is fairly coherent, even if I disagree. But I'm not sure that being pro-immigration and basically quite NIMBY is sustainable - I remember seeing a flat in Clifton, the lovely posh area of Bristol with an anti local housing development and "Refugees welcome here" posters in their windows. It seemed to rather "refugees welcome here. I mean, not literally here here."

[crazy canuck]

Hey, if they ban VPNs they make working from anywhere but an office impossible due to security concerns so that could help the owners of commercial property. A big win for the common man if there ever was one.

What is the connection between a vpn and working remotely? (pun not intended).

When I work remotely, the computer at home is only a terminal to the machines that are in my office. I use a VPN then remote desktop to my machines there. A more controlled way for corporate IT than using 3rd party tools (like Team viewer).

Thanks, but isn't that a different thing from what Tamas is concerned about being banned?