zlacker

>>mmaria+(OP)
Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.

>>zapthe+zf
You are approaching this from a uniquely U.S. perspective. The U.K. is pretty middle of the road as far as “surveillance” and while this may offend the freedom-at-all-costs sensibilities, it’s a fairly milquetoast change.

Visiting the Heineken website in the U.S. requires that you assert you are over the age of 21. Texas has instituted I.D. verification for pornography.

Regardless of how you feel about this law, it is not accurate to say the U.K. is unique in implementing it.

>>abxyz+Mu
It his law combined with all the other iffy laws in the UK which make this nefarious. This is the issue about discussing anything about how draconian the UK is. If you compare any single law in isolation, it isn't that different. However if you take how the British authorities and how they operate it, and all the other laws you start to see a more draconian picture.

That is what many people, especially those that do live in the UK don't appreciate.

>>rubyAc+bB
I lived in the U.K. for decades and I have lived in many other countries. I’ll criticise the U.K. government and society endlessly but to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense.

From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.

The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation. “Draconian” and “authoritarian” aren’t in the vocabulary of most U.K. citizens. They’re far more concerned about immigration and the economy.

The long-standing “the U.K. has the most cctv cameras per person” meme is further evidence of this. A well-loved fact carted out by freedom-loving anti-surveillance types… that the mainstream of the U.K. could not care less about.

>>abxyz+gE
>to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense. From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.

This is a very dangerous measure of how worryingly authoritarian or not a particular place is becoming. People's perceptions are notoriously subject to all kinds of blindness and unknowns. The perceptions of most average Germans living in the first years of the Nazi state were also of minimal concern for authoritarianism, and little more than a series of modest blimps on the radar, and where did that take them?

This is not to compare the underlying savagery of something like the Nazi state with the soft bureaucratic smarminess of the modern UK, but the underlying risks of any creeping authoritarianism are the same: a steady normalization of deviance.