The other example is when the government changed the student loan rules by raising the allowed annual cost from 3k to about 9k, and also linked the interest to inflation, and increased the number of years that have to pass before the loan gets written off. So just for comparison - I paid 12k for a 4 year MSc Computer Science course, and it had 1.1% interest attached to it. So I paid mine off within few years of starting to work. My sister did her degree just few years after me, and her degree cost her 40k + her interest is 8%. She has a job but her payments barely cover the interest. She will never pay it off, so it will get written off at some point, maybe - but until then it's a permament 10% tax on all of her earnings. It's bonkers.
My point is - I feel like in any other country, this kind of economic assassination of entire generation of people would be met with people marching on the capital and burning down cars and setting tyres on fire in front of government buildings in protest. In UK barely anyone cared. Still no one cares. There is no political party that even suggests doing anything about it.
So with this new act - it's more of the same. You've heard our government already anyway - saying openly that if you are against this act you are on the same side as Jimmy Saville(one of the worst child rapists this country has ever produced). Essentially you can't be against it in public or you're compared to actual pedophiles. The only politician who even suggests that hey maybe this isn't right is Farage who is a despicable individual for many other reasons.
If you want my personal opinion on why that is - British society is extremely comfortable with the status quo. People would rather shrug their arms than actually do something about anything, we're surrounded by history, by buildings standing for the last 1000 years, stability is like the paramount value here. That's not to say Britain hasn't has some of the greatest civil movements in history - but right now, in 2025, the feeling I see everywhere is just apathy.
The power structure is designed in such a way that it is difficult for the Government itself to do change anything.
"The EU could be scanning your chats by October 2025 – here's everything we know" (https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-co...)
"Chat Control is back & we've got two months to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans" (https://tuta.com/blog/chat-control-criticism)
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.
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.
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.
This hits hard, I never framed the issue like this. We really are living a corpo-fascist cyberpunk nightmare aren’t we? Minus the purple neons sadly
Once upon a time, yes. But they don't work in the modern world we live in now.
Show me a successful protest that achieved change in the past ten years?
Here is an incomplete list of reasons why I would never get involved directly in politics:
1. It takes literally decades to get a political party off the ground without major backing. All the new parties that you hear of are bankrolled by elite backing.
2. The way the Government and the civil service is setup is designed so you can't actually make any changes. Dominic Cummings has many interviews he did in the last year you can find where he explains how Whitehall is fundamentally broken. I suggest you listen to them.
3. I have a chequed past. Most of my adult life I was abusing alcohol, and as a consequence of that I have done and said lots of stupid things. A good portion of my extended family are criminals (which I don't associate with for obvious reasons). If I or anything connected to me gain any public appeal at all, I would have all the muck which I've put behind me dragged up. I don't want to expose myself or my family to that.
"Just start a new party and tell people about it" is perhaps the most misleading and flawed idea you could present unfortunately. There have been new parties, there are new parties at every general election, you never hear about them for good reason.
Providing you accurately define the Irish in question all four are subject to the OSA, none have actively opposed it in any meaningful way.
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.
The French yellow vest
The Dutch farmer protests
I can go on if you want
1. Listen, yes it’s very hard work, but it’s this or be squeezed until there’s nothing else. And when people start having famines we’ll have a new French Revolution, millions will die, and this will require a lot more energy than doing changes today.
2. Will do, I don’t know enough on that subject to have an opinion on that. But unjust, unmovable systems, like monarchies (wink) have been toppled in the past. Even recently.
3. Sorry I was just using my environment as an example, I meant people that trust you, that you trust. This kind of movement starts small
As that is the country we are talking about here.
To quote someone: "You give us rights, only because we gave you riots"
Are they though?
It’s simple: you only need the wille to rig and the power to freely manifest that will. No matter how elegant the design of a democratic system, or how many procedural safeguards exist, nothing can stop you.
Sad but true—if there isn’t enough power to balance that wille.
May all who value freedom also have the power to defend it.
The vast majority of the British public absolutely love to ban things. If you listen to talk radio or daytime tv most of the time they’ll be having a discussion on banning something. We have a nanny state and the public like it that way.
Personally I use an allow list for my kids internet access and don’t rely on the state to parent them. I guess that’s too much bother for most people.
- I've been to many protests in my time and often I believe them to be counter productive e.g. Critical Mass. I travelled to London twice to see what the protest was about. This was in the mid-2000s. I saw lots of annoyed commuters, lots of people getting drunk/high and it was more of a social gathering than a protest.
- Street movements are easily infiltrated by malign actors e.g. The CIA have a term called "initial instigator", this is where you turn a riot into a protest by inserting a person or people that will cause trouble. The CIA (and I would imagine British Intelligence) have handbooks on how to subvert/run a protest/riot. You can find these online.
- Many of the protesters you see maybe part of a rent-a-mob. You can literally go to company, and much like you would for film or TV hire a bunch of people to be in the background.
- I have plenty of will and energy to get involved. However often I find that many leaders make the mistake of being too inclusive. This means that often you will end up with people that will intentionally or unintentionally turn your movement into something else. If you listen to some of the account of people that were at Occupy Wallstreet, this is one of the reasons why the protests failed.
By a few tech communities with a very limited reach. I refuse to believe at this point that the complete silence on the topic from mainstream media across EU is a coincidence.
I do the same but let's not pretend that's within the technical ability of the average parent. Of course, it should be and that would be a far better place for the government to direct its efforts.
unless im speaking to a 90 year old, nobody thinks browser history means offline copies of the page
Thanks.
> Listen, yes it’s very hard work, but it’s this or be squeezed until there’s nothing else. And when people start having famines we’ll have a new French Revolution, millions will die, and this will require a lot more energy than doing changes today.
All parties that you would have heard of, will have major backing from a number of wealthy donors. You also have to have the right people involved. Not everyone should be engaged in politics directly.
I am not under the delusion that I can fix the country. I can't even master the mess in my spare room. The best I can do is try to help my family, friends and community.
As for violent conflict. Many people think there is going to be some sort of violent conflict coming to the UK. David Betz has several interviews on YouTube on the subject. I've emailed him personally (about something unrelated) and he is a serious person. I don't know whether he is right or not and only time will tell.
> Will do, I don’t know enough on that subject to have an opinion on that. But unjust, unmovable systems, like monarchies (wink) have been toppled in the past. Even recently.
The monarchy isn't the problem.
Firstly, the paper reporting the "power grab" is a national newspaper read by millions. Secondly, as noted in several other places, the spin the newspaper has put on the judgement is deeply cynical. Lastly, this legislation has been in debate for years under multiple governments with a decent (by no means unilateral) amount of public support for some (but distinctly not all) the provisions.
What I am saying is that protesting is a method of freedom & rebellion that is now flawed for today's modern world. It may work in a few odd countries but overall now achieves nothing.
Protests do not work in these modern times.
It may of worked in the in the 1800's because society was maybe of been more united, less corrupted in power however the power that folks had has been chiseled away and has been decaying ever since.
Adding the fact we are now more divided than ever.
The only kind of protest that would work today are those of who use their wallet. Stop buying from corporations from the likes of Amazon, funding Google. But no, we won't do that; whatever would you do without your Amazon prime.
Instead let's hold a stick with cardboard glued to it and pretend that politicians care. (spoiler: they don't)
Protesting about war and then buying resources to protest about the war off Amazon who back the war is face-palming hilarious.
Otherwise everything is a just waste of time, resources and exposure. But by all means, if it makes yourself feel better then go for it.
And no, I didn't vote for Brexit.
Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis
Not quite, "inflation" is CPI, as the government will tell you endlessly if you work for it and ask for a pay rise. Student loans go up by RPI (which is almost always higher).
If your preferred cause is not cutting through in that way, it's worth asking what's different about the cause.
I am not analysing things in a vaccum. I gave you some reasons why I don't believe these things are productive today.
One of those is an example from my own personal experience of being at a protest that literally had 1000s of people there.
I don't believe that all of it was CIA plants and never said that.
I explained how street movements are infiltrated by malign actors and how some intelligence agencies have used these techniques.
> Have you any proof that these rent a mob thing exists? You used “maybe part”... Please find a specific service for renting a mob, not a single individual or small group. Or proof that this service exists, because this is an awfully convenient way to bend the narrative to your side “they were all faking it” is almost never a valid hypothesis.
It is well documented. Just not commonly known. TBH you could have looked this up yourself.
It isn't really any different than hiring extras for a TV/Movie production (as I previously stated).
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rent-a-crowd.asp
Companies and political parties have been doing it for quite a while.
e.g.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-aide-says-paid-actors-...
or some of the sites themselves give you examples of where they have done it.
https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/hire-a-crowd-case-studies/
Here are some companies that literally offer it as a service, I found these after doing a two minute google:
https://www.envisagepromotions.co.uk/services/crowd-services...
https://www.rentacrowduk.co.uk/
https://dreamsagency.co.uk/hire-a-crowd/
I am sure there are many others.
1) You asked for evidence of a rent-a-crowd / rent-a-mob service. Something which you could have looked up yourself.
2) I gave you links to companies that offer these services. I understand that these websites aren't the best, I literally listed the first 4 that were spat out by when searching. I suspect they probably don't get most of their business through the website. They look like websites I was making for companies back in the late 2000s.
3) Then you make allusions to to me delusional.
I think you are looking for excuses to dismiss my point of view. Probably because you don't agree with it.
I can find two of the agencies on Companies House:
- Dreams Agency - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
- Envisage Promotions- https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
The other one might be a trading name and I can't find anything that matches directly.
Can I have an apology please?
But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed
I've closed businesses after they weren't successful. Doesn't mean it was illegitimate? No. It means they didn't make money.
Even if that one wasn't legit there are plenty of others that one can find easily e.g.
It isn't very nice when people dismiss things like this when they can be found on duckduckgo.
Normally these businesses are used for media campaigns.
But there is nothing stopping them from being used by political groups, parties etc.
> But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed
Thank you.
Gotta work a little more on those assumptions
If you have too weak internal political support for something cardboard signs do help push something maybe over the edge.
> Two internet providers are tracking and collecting the websites visited by their customers as part of a secretive Home Office trial, designed to work out if a national bulk surveillance system would be useful for national security and law enforcement.
> Home Office sources indicated that it was taking advantage of abilities in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, to test what data can be acquired, how useful it is in practice, and how it might be used in investigations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...
A childish and pathetic comment