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Two-tier encryption in the UK

506 pointsposted 3 days ago

512 Comments

egorfine

3 days ago

I genuinely believe that in 2015 Apple had the balls to resist and today they don't.

I am judging by a simple fact, that "please confirm your age" screen is now mandatory during the iPhone setup in all countries, and in some it's behind a KYC. I have a strong opinion that this is insane. And once they let the foot in the door - there is no closing it.

microtonal

2 days ago

Even in 2015 Apple put in backdoors. They have been really good at making people believe things that are not true. E.g. from the linked post:

iCloud already protects sensitive categories of data (like Passwords, Health data, Messages in iCloud, etc) with end-to-end encryption by default.

Except that there is a footnote in Apple's security document where they confirm that Messages in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted if you don't enable ADP and have iCloud Backup enabled (which is probably most users):

Standard data protection: When iCloud Backup is enabled, the keys to your backups are secured in Apple data centers. If you use both iCloud Backup and Messages in iCloud, your backup includes a copy of the Messages in iCloud encryption key to help you recover your data.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651

So, there is always a backup of Messages in iCloud accessible to Apple and thus (US?) law enforcement, unless you enable ADP and the people you communicate with also use ADP.

WhatsApp is similar by the way. Unless you enable E2E backups, they end up in iCloud/Google Drive backups and are only encrypted at rest. Of the major messengers, I think only Signal completely opts out of iCloud backups and have their own real E2E-encrypted backups.

Even most technical people I talk to do not know this and don't have ADP enabled.

There are a lot of weak defaults like that.

kyralis

2 days ago

The original implementation of iCloud included Apple's ability to recover the data. You can view this as a backdoor, and that might be fair, but the reality is that it's also a feature in the eyes of many customers - because people will lose devices and passwords, and when Apple doesn't have the keys that means they also lose data. Many customers would rather be able to get their data back.

Apple has moved more things into the bucket of "we do not have the keys for this" over time, but pretending that this isn't a tradeoff for the common customer is disingenuous. That's why ADP exists, so that those who want to make a different tradeoff can do so.

Commenters on HN tend to be technically savvy and tend to want the defaults to be tailored to a technically savvy customer base. That's fine, but that's not a real representation of all of the smartphone users out there, and in this case Apple is directly offering the choice that they usually get knocked for taking away.

wolvoleo

2 days ago

Except they don't really. If you're in a convo there only needs to be one user who doesn't have ADP turned on and uses iCloud. And all your data is leaked.

It should be possible to force your messages to be excluded from backup even by recipients. Otherwise it's just for show when it comes to real life.

vladvasiliu

2 days ago

> And all your data is leaked.

Not all your data, just the data exchanged with that person.

But how could you force this? They could always copy it or whatever. Yes, I know, defaults.

But this would then need to be somehow enforced on the other side, right? Like preventing copying, or screenshotting, etc. And in that case, see the HN thread the other day about applications messing with these functions and how people want their devices to be theirs and not controlled by some third party.

basilikum

2 days ago

> Yes, I know, defaults.

You gave the answer yourself. If the person you are writing with has E2EE enabled for message backups then just exclude that chat from backups on your end or enable E2EE for that chat. That means if you take the restore route without having access to the keys that conversation will not be restored.

You could even let people overwrite that setting. Preventing screenshots or copying has nothing to with this. Apple is claiming that message are end to end encrypted when in reality their defaults are set so that they are not. That is a lie and al they would need to do to change that is to change those defaults.

danhor

2 days ago

> WhatsApp is similar by the way. Unless you enable E2E backups, they end up in iCloud/Google Drive backups and are only encrypted at rest

One of the few good things about WhatsApp is that Meta can very credibly claim that they can't access the backups (as they're not stored by Meta). Meta holds the encryption key & Google/Apple hold the backups, so at least you now have deal with two entities to get the data.

I don't think without forcing more customers to loose data (e.g. by requiring them keeping an encryption pin/key) it's possible to perform backups in a (much) better way.

dns_snek

2 days ago

> I don't think without forcing more customers to loose data (e.g. by requiring them keeping an encryption pin/key) it's possible to perform backups in a (much) better way.

I have full confidence that the industry would be quick to innovate if they were forced to, but that's not in their interest nor the government's interest.

Here's a simple one: Build an open standards-based system where users choose their backup provider and let them decide whether they prefer to have full control over the encryption keys or whether they want them to be managed by a third party. Educate them so that they can at least try to make an informed decision. Warn them about the risks and jurisdictions of built-in providers.

If someone wants to continue using their device as-is? Cool, 2 taps and they're done.

Do they want to store all of their app backups on their NAS? Make it as easy as switching your default browser.

danhor

2 days ago

> Here's a simple one: Build an open standards-based system where users choose their backup provider and let them decide whether they prefer to have full control over the encryption keys or whether they want them to be managed by a third party. Educate them so that they can at least try to make an informed decision. Warn them about the risks and jurisdictions of built-in providers.

WhatsApp performs (on Android) backups inside a normal directory. You can just backup it via e.g. Syncthing, which I've done in the past.

It doesn't get much more standards based. Strongly pushing users to deviate from the standard flow IMHO risks them quickly choosing poorer options (e.g. a free, dubious, online hoster). At least with the current setup, the "easy option" is quite safe in terms of not loosing data and very low risk that anyone apart from you and governments with lawful access ever accesses the data.

tweetle_beetle

2 days ago

I'd argue that should/could be relevant, but isn't in reality. Do two global data processors more happy to work with governments/law enforcement exist?

ipython

2 days ago

the default is weak because it's the most user-friendly option. Otherwise, you end up with edge cases where the user lost their only device, or they forgot their password, or ... the list goes on and on, and they lose all their previous chat data.

That's a very user-unfriendly place to be. Most users won't understand why their data is gone, become unhappy, and distrust their devices to safely store their data. It's not even about buying more Apple products at that point - it's just literally reinforcing the stigma that "I can't understand tech, it's too complex".

You can't be security-maxxing and user-experience-maxxing at the same time. I do like Apple's approach which at least gives you the option.

IndySun

2 days ago

2 days ago

Don't fall into the trap of putting our governments on the same level as China, despite the tremendous flaws and the very dangerous backsliding we still enjoy many freedoms that their citizens do not have.

The CCP would like nothing more than everyone living in a democracy saying they're just as oppressed as those living in China. Then their own citizens might abandon such foolish notions as human rights.

We should point out the hypocrisy of our governments but not by using that hypocrisy to minimize China's human rights abuses.

Matl

2 days ago

Multiple things can be true at the same time, there's more repression in China still than in the West at the moment, yes. At the same time it's all rather vague. There's more state control there and more corporate control here. So naturally there's more state repression there. There's also things that China does better than we do. It's not as clear cut as it should be.

If you look at the treatment of pro-Palestine movements in the West, Flock cameras, Palantir contracts, age verification mandates, encryption 'front door' requests, clamping down on whistleblowers etc. then it seems to me that we're heading where China is pretty fast and that the West definitely wants to be where China is, just without the high speed trains.

What I am dismayed by in discussions like this is how simplistic they are i.e. China bad, West good so don't compare.

The collective West just assisted a genocide of an occupied population of people, so when is it going to be 'as bad'? My guess is never because people here want to feel superior over China without actually doing anything for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to come up with all sorts of excuses why the West is not responsible for Israeli actions in Gaza, it's not a genocide etc. without pausing for a second to realize the Chinese also have plenty to say about what you object to them doing not being authoritarian.

lyu07282

2 days ago

Two questions: * How many North Koreans do you know to make such a statement? And what do you personally know about North Korea? * Do you think you are living on the most free country on earth (regardless of where you live)?

cindyllm

2 days ago

[dead]

philipallstar

2 days ago

3 days ago

The only thing where they tried to push back very hard was the EU's DMA, beyond that they folded quickly to absolutely everything else.

PorciiVorbesc

3 days ago

They pushed back on the DMA because that affects the monetisation opportunities of their walled garden ecosystem.

Any other invasive privacy/encryption interventions from the government only affects their users, not their money, so they cave without issues.

indoordin0saur

2 days ago

Wait... you mean this was all just a marketing and PR ploy?

SXX

3 days ago

Apple routinely removes VPNs and other apps from App Store in Russia even though they supposedly left the market in 2022.

They obvioualy never ever resisted anything except its a good PR stunt.

Zenul_Abidin

3 days ago

Apple doesn't KYC in Russia though

We are quickly heading to a world where governments want us to KYC everything, and we saw with the Revolut breach what happens when very, very bad people gain access to our private data.

SXX

2 days ago

Whole point is that Apple routinely execute government orders from the most repressive regime on earth after North Korea. And from bloodiest one in last two decades.

Even though they have zero presence in a country.

hn_submit

2 days ago

Apple is surely resisting, but there's a limit to how far they're willing to go. They won't risk losing the entire EU market, for example. Or the Chinese market.

The UK is a minor footnote. They can afford to lose it if push came to shove, but for now they're willing to make conciliatory gestures.

GJim

3 days ago

> "please confirm your age" screen is now mandatory during the iPhone setup in all countries

3 days ago

Is it required to KYC in those countries?

I'm generally okay with "how old are you?" without KYC and changeable later. It just allows apps and websites to display age-appropriate content.

egorfine

3 days ago

someonebaggy

3 days ago

Ok but my phone already asks me for my name, isn't that bad too?

fc417fc802

2 days ago

palmotea

3 days ago

> Faced with a legal order that would have required it to change the security architecture on which ADP depended, Apple found a third option: stop offering the feature that made this dilemma exist in the first place. It reverted affected UK iCloud data to Standard Data Protection, where Apple does hold the keys and can respond to lawful legal procress (except the baseline categories that stay end-to-end encrypted either way). This satisfied the underlying legal requirement without ever building a ‘backdoor’.

Maybe Apple should withdraw all encryption support from all UK government accounts? The Prime Minister can use a Huawei or some chunky thing from a military contractor.

EmbarrassedHelp

2 days ago

The UK is currently demanding that Apple install mandatory OS level client side real time scanning malware on every device, bypassing all security and encryption to monitor everything. Its an insanely evil and completely unacceptable demand.

Apple should withdraw from the UK until the UK government learns to respect encryption and privacy.

KaiserPro

2 days ago

> UK is currently demanding that Apple install mandatory OS level client side real time scanning malware on every device,

it is?

stephbook

2 days ago

Yep, normalize US tech bros punishing a democracy for some laws. What could go wrong? "I never thought the leopard would eat MY face?!"

logicchains

2 days ago

Normalize doing whatever we can do protect rights regardless of how many assholes voted to violate them.

a2fz

2 days ago

- Which party do I vote for to reduce the attacks on encryption?

- Which party do we vote for if we don't want the government to keep pushing digital id?

- Which party is committing to stopping facial recognition trials at London Underground stations?

Conservatives and Labour both push for the same things. With Reform's anti-immigration stance, I wouldn't bet on them finding some magical solution that doesn't involve even more demands for constant identity verification to prove you're allowed to be here.

Since last year, you now can't register a company in the UK without having your face scanned. Face scans are also now a very common requirement to open a bank account, get a tech job, buy a property, rent a property. I don't recall being asked to vote on that?

If you vote Democrat next election, will the US stop taking the fingerprints of every visitor upon entry?

All the political parties are completely apathetic about these sorts of issues.

The notion of democracy is used to justify and legitimise things that people don't get to vote on.

basilikum

2 days ago

Some laws that are fundamentally incompatible with democracy.

kypro

2 days ago

Hasz

3 days ago

A non-trivial reason I bought a fairly closed device (macbook) was that Tim Cook, at least publicly, told the FBI to get bent when asked to create a backdoor. Exactly what I want to see, a fight in court.

I would hope to see Apple pull out of the UK market over this, and certainly to stop selling Apple devices to the UK government and to remove the UK government entities from Apple services.

esskay

2 days ago

They dont really need to pull out, instead on every single piece of marketing material where they talk about anything remotely close to things affected by this they mention that unfortunately they cant give it to UK users due to the governments desire to erode privacy protection, and really hammer home how bad it is.

sdcfgy

3 days ago

I love this. Apple aren't going to pull out of a market. They aren't pulling out of China for example.

Hasz

3 days ago

oh, I know, but I wish they would. You can see what this looks like when someone like CMMG refuses to sell to specific law enforcement agencies based on local law.

selicos

3 days ago

Apple of yesteryear is not the Apple of today.

Think different.

Don't be Evil.

Not likely the case in 2015 Apple nor probably even now, but perhaps a technique for the future or elsewhere to watch out for.

negura

a day ago

Apple choose to maliciously comply; subtly revealing the TCN, giving all UK users notices about what their government demanded of them to encourage public outrage, and push on the correct parts of the UK government that has their interest in mind.

EmbarrassedHelp

2 days ago

> But apple also cannot just stop selling or supporting their product in the UK either.

They can do both of things. There's no law against leaving a country for not respecting human rights like privacy and encryption.

aDyslecticCrow

2 days ago

> There's no law against leaving a country

It may actually be illegal in US law for Apple to leave the UK market for ideological reasons. Public companies are beholden to shareholders and can be sued for not acting in their interest (fiduciary duty, Delaware General Corporation Law). (I loathe these laws, but that's a separate discussion entirely.)

So sure they _can_, but at a cost that strikes the option from the cards entirely.

KaiserPro

2 days ago

> There's no law against leaving a country

No, but there is a cost.

stateofinquiry

3 days ago

It seems you are suggesting that if a private corporation (a foreign one at that) is large enough it should ignore the law of the country its operating in. I don't think you will like the consequences of such a situation, and will charitably assume you have just not thought your message through for even a second before posting it.

PS: If you think the British gov is authoritarian.. well, you might not know what the term means and/or anything about the spectrum of governments operating today or in the past.

RandomGerm4n

2 days ago

If laws aren't transparent and reasonable, you shouldn't necessarily follow them. If I were to sell encryption software that's banned in Kazakhstan, you wouldn't expect me to stop selling to customers there, would you? I see no reason why the United Kingdom should be treated any differently than Kazakhstan in this case.

The British government is certainly not as authoritarian as those in China or Russia, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still terrible and restricts people’s rights. For example, you can be detained for as long as they want if you refuse to unlock your encrypted device.

permalac

2 days ago

You may be confused, so I'll try to illustrate the situation.

Supose you live in USA, your chickens have a list of laws, those laws apply to USA. If you try to sell those chickens in UK or Europe you'll find that your company will not be allowed to operate, and if you continue someone will go to jail.

Maybe digital products have an easy way out, but apple is not digital and they may need to find a way to comply.

epihelix

2 days ago

To be more charitable, I think they're more suggesting that Apple should call the UK's bluff, knowing that democracies have to be accountable to their citizens.

Can Apple afford to lose the UK market? Almost certainly yes -- it's a fairly minor global player. Can the current UK government afford to deal with the massive fallout of banning all Apple products right now? That might be, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, a very courageous move.

ljf

3 days ago

Off topic - but I am not sure that is true in the UK/EU - did it happen elsewhere in the world?:

Before the COVID restrictions, airlines were required to use their allotted spots at least 80% of the time.[6] During the pandemic, the European Commission temporarily suspended Europe's airport slot rule for a short period.[citation needed] Due to travel restrictions, many flights were cancelled or had limited capacity, which made it difficult for airlines to fulfill all the requirements for possessing an airport slot. The suspension of the slot rule was reinstated in October 2021. After the slot rule was reinstated, the rule only required European airlines to use 75% of their flight slots for the winter season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_flight_%28commercial_avi...

autoexec

2 days ago

Yeah, ghost flights had been a thing long before Covid came around, but the length of the pandemic and its impact on air travel forced people to rethink the situation. Having a policy for making exceptions was really long overdue

SXX

3 days ago

AFAIK reverting region to UK wont work. First of all you cant change regions more often than a year (or close to it).

Also if you do revert account to UK you will get a warning that you either need to disable ADP or lose access to iCloud features.

aDyslecticCrow

2 days ago

What does the region even do? why not just stay in france mode?

SXX

2 days ago

Region affects pricing, what payments methods are availanle or accepted and also what apps are available. Some banks, government service apps and few commercial companies limit apps to certain regions.

3 days ago

There are many real concerns for U.K. citizens, from the price of fuel and food, to extreme weather, to constant attacks on infrastructure from undeclared actors.

This is not one. Nobody (within 2%) gives a stuff.

Accacin

2 days ago

You're not British. Probably, you've never been to the UK. Why are you so sure about what we're concerned about?

Most people's concerns are with the cost of living, and housing. Same as most European countries.

Within my friend group, no one cares about Apple because none of us use Apple.

hdgvhicv

2 days ago

Why exactly would you think I’m not British?

gib444

a day ago

[dead]

Jtarii

2 days ago

Less than 1% of the UK's population will care about, or even remember, this in 5 years.

jasonjei

3 days ago

Strange and hypothetical thought: could Bill purchase a US or international model of the iPhone with US or international iCloud account capable of ADP to activate ADP? Would this allow somebody living or working in the UK the ability to use ADP?

SXX

3 days ago

You can just register US Apple account or switch region to US and not bother with UK regulations.

Only disadvantage that you will need to pay fot services via US gift cards as you need US bank cards otherwise.

slopinthebag

2 days ago

Or an international bank account & card like you can obtain with Wise and other services.

SXX

2 days ago

Wise cards are issued in your country of residence. It's very tricky to get US card remotely as UK resident. Only way somewhat accessible to normal people is AMEX global transfer, but even then you need to have ITIN and US bank account.

AFAIK you cant just assign non-US bank card to a billing on US Apple account. At least it was the case before and at least for purpose of switching account region.

Thus you use USD gift cards since they easy to buy.

Cider9986

3 days ago

It's crazy SimpleX is fine being based there. I mean, everything is open, the clients have reproducible builds, but it seems like it may end up being a hassle.

KaiserPro

2 days ago

> where are the task forces shutting down crypto and networks using unregulated and anonymous currency?

https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-thre... for plebs, FCA for banks.

but bitcoin isn't anonymous, each coin and transaction is traceable, so its a terrible tool for money laundering.

bpavuk

a day ago

We live in a world of surveillance. Even if most of that is to market you ads and extract capital it's still degrading and less safe for anyone but the core in group(s).

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

ajsnigrutin

3 days ago

Governments want this the most

You won't be criticizing your boss/mayor/president/local politician/whoever, if you have to do it from an account tied to your own name. Having everyine install a digital ID on their phones (to prove they're old enough to jerk off to pornhub) is the first step, the "real name" policy is the next. The encryption ... well, one of the separate steps inbetween those two.

stuartjohnson12

3 days ago

I don't think you need a huge, wide-ranging conspiracy to end up with a strong anti-privacy movement, even in a state which otherwise tries to defend consumer rights (in varying degrees of competency) for the most part.

I think you can just start with:

1. Campaigning on behalf of a worthy victim, or against a terrible enemy, is a good way to become more socially powerful. Most people are less willing to disagree with you when you do this because it risks introducing motive uncertainty - are you criticising the means because you truly object to the means, or are you criticising the means because you don't support the worthy victim or oppose the terrible enemy? This is a socially disadvantageous position to argue from.

2. Exploited children are worthy victims, and drug traffickers and terrorists are terrible enemies.

3. Therefore, policies that nominally protect children or oppose drug traffickers and terrorists are socially advantageous, and arguing for them is likely to increase your social power.

The means here are disproportionately likely to be done in a concealed way if the underlying policy is not broadly popular, independently of the effects it has on localised politcal arguments. Many people, myself included, don't support every political cause that helps a worthy victim or opposes a terrible enemy.

Social pressure is harder to apply at a distance, so the reality-warping effects of motive uncertainty are less powerful, so it makes sense that it's kept to private pressure groups and lobbying.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

4. Tech activists are rallying against all less-invasive options

vlyan

3 days ago

>So who are the major influencers, and their thoughts, for pushing this?

the governments themselves. left, right, or center, their number one priority is to maintain their power.

it amuses me immeasurably when the useful idiots in the West cheer on the policies of China and Russia. think of the children, think of the terrorists, think of the racists, think of the disinformation, blah blah blah. there are a myriad excuses but only one true goal -- suppression of dissent.

the UK establishment in particular primarily feels threatened by unredacted coverage of the consequences of its immigration policy, which they know gives voters to Reform. not because Reform would reverse that policy -- every "far-right fascist racist nazi" party in Europe had at best slowed the influx, not halted or reversed it -- but simply because someone else would be receiving lobbyists' money, favors, and sinecures after retirement.

2 days ago

This was, obviously, stupid and wrong, but:

* The Police admitted their obvious error and paid £20k in damages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz1qy30v5o

* This bizarre case has nothing to do with "speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy" (root comment).

If you look for examples of the police arresting people for stupid and unjustifiable reasons, you can find them in lots of countries, including the US. For example, here is someone being arrested in Kansas for clapping too loudly during a meeting: https://www.kbtx.com/2026/07/27/teacher-arrested-repeatedly-... It's absolutely right that this sort of thing is reported and it's right for people to be outraged about it. However, I'd be cautious about drawing overly sweeping conclusions about the UK from such cases.

FridayoLeary

2 days ago

Yeah, but in the UK it's systemic and on a national scale.It would be less obnoxious if they were really good at fighting regular crime, but they are atrocious at that.

hex4def6

a day ago

Looks like 1200 people in the last year. 1200 / 350e6 = 3.4 micromorts. By comparison, getting out of bed at age 45 is about 6 micromorts.

The UK have about 13,000 arrests per year over social media etc. Without litigating all 13,000 of them for validity, that's about 185 microliberties.

Birth control is about 1-5 micromorts.

So you're 30x more likely to be arrested for a social media post than death by getting out of bed, and 55x more than being killed by police. And it's in the same range as taking birth control.

Realistically, these are population estimates. Your actual risk of dying by police is highly correlated with the number of violent interactions you have with them. If you're a getaway driver or a bank robber vs SW developer, you probably have significantly different risk profiles.

On the other hand, edgy social media posts are potentially much more diffuse across populations.

foldr

a day ago

>The UK have about 13,000 arrests per year over social media etc.

That's the figure (slightly inflated) for arrests under both the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and Communications Act 2003. That's not reasonably described as arrests for 'social media etc.' It's quite likely the the majority of those arrests have nothing to do with content that people post on social media.

xyzzyz

2 days ago

There are fewer anti police riots in UK, because UK is much more effective at catching and prosecuting rioters than US. In US, rioters enjoy extreme leniency. Only a tiny fraction of 2020 rioters have faced any justice at all.

As for police killings, you are comparing an event that’s extremely unlikely to happen with an event that’s multiple orders of magnitude more likely. Speech offense prosecutions in UK are more common today than political prosecutions were in post Kruschev Soviet Union. The only reason UK has fewer political prisoners than Soviet Union had is that the sentences are shorter and typically non-custodial.

foldr

2 days ago

I could find one news story a week about an outrageous arrest in the US, or in many other countries. You don't give a citation for the 60k figure, but I imagine it's the same one that has to be laboriously debunked every time someone brings social media talking points about the UK to one of these threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830776

Accacin

2 days ago

Your country doesn't make mistakes involving police? Really?

Wasn't there a story about a woman getting put in jail for having spaghetti on a spoon that they thought was drugs? Lost her job?

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2014/09/florida_woman_jailed_s...

Yeah, imagine that. Getting put in jail for a month.

chmod775

2 days ago

Do you think this is some "my country vs your country" competition? It's not. I wasn't trying to wound any national pride either.

Also I'm not from Florida or the US for that matter.

Accacin

a day ago

No one here seriously thinks the UK is faultless or beyond criticism. This isn't about national pride.

But you're just peddling false narratives which are easily disproved, which are rampant especially on right wing news sites. So you might not be right leaning, but people who write and share them generally are.

amiga386

3 days ago

In this particular case, the IT consultant was owed money by a failing business, and he put 1) a picture of the business premises, and 2) pictures of him firing guns, on a website where he was sure the business owner would see it.

That's textbook intimidation, which in certain cases is a crime in the UK, and even some US states. You can also do it offline, for example, by sending a letter to the victim containing a photograph of the front of their house, and a photograph of you firing guns. The implication is pretty straightforward and doesn't even need to be stated: "I have guns and I know where you live. Pay me that money you owe me or I might use them." That implication is still there, for the victim, even if you add surface text like "Hey everyone look at these cool things!"

Only _after_ he was arrested, and the police went looking around his house for guns... did he admit that the pictures were taken overseas, he doesn't actually own the guns. And yet that's what the article leads with, like it was a known fact from the get-go and those silly-billy police knew that but went looking for them in the UK anyway.

This article is a great lesson in how to mislead without saying anything untrue.

His own words in a different article make the reason for the arrest clear:

https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/us-news/british-man-says-he-wa...

> “The arrest was based on two separate social media posts,” he said. “One was the photo of myself with the shotgun, [...] And the second one was my LinkedIn banner at the top of the page.”

> “I used the photo my business partner took on his premises as a header photo on LinkedIn with the intention he would look at that and go, ‘Why’s this guy posting that? I’d better call him and find out rather than dodging me’ as it had done for months,” he said.

EDIT 2: for avoidance of doubt, he did three days in a row of LinkedIn blog posts, where

1) his PFP at the time (shown in the top-right corner) was a picture of the business premises

2) the text of the post talked about the "delinquent client"

3) the post ended with a no-context-given picture of him posing with guns

Example: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

EDIT: and your second example is also dangerously misleading. Jason Arday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Arday) and/or his university reported 2 professors and 1 journalist to the police, pretending their requests for comment on his plagiarism were harrassment. For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech). What spiked the story is that Jason Arday and/or his university got very expensive reputation lawyers Carter-Fuck to send a C&D to the journalist's newspaper, promising expensive litigation if they published the story. That is what spiked the story, not intimidation via false harassment claims. Expensive lawyers making baseless threats work equally well in the US and UK to chill legal speech, it's not a policy issue.

kvuj

3 days ago

> In this particular case, the IT consultant was owed money by a failing business, and he put 1) a picture of the business premises, and 2) pictures of him firing guns, on a website where he was sure the business owner would see it.

From your own link, this was from 2 separate posts. I don't know man, this sounds like an excuse from the company to cause trouble and avoid having to pay the owed money.

Aurornis

3 days ago

Also the “website where he was sure the business owner would see it” is a cheap way to hide the fact that he posted on his on LinkedIn, which he used as his social media network. You can just say LinkedIn. We know what LinkedIn is.

amiga386

3 days ago

I'm glad you know what LinkedIn is.

Now imagine you owe this guy money, he's admitted in public that he put a picture of your business premises at the top of every blog post he makes on LinkedIn in order to get your attention, and his latest blog posts on the LinkedIn website therefore shows YOUR WORKPLACE and HIM SHOOTING GUNS.

Juxtaposition that he admits he wants you to see.

You can read all three blogposts. Note he has switched out the picture of the workplace (top-right PFP):

1. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

> Top of my agenda Today is getting a follow-up email to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regarding my delinquent Client

"delinquent client" and no mention of why there's a picture of him with guns or where it was taken

2. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

> I am disappointed that absolutely nothing has come back from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade (OR his Department) regarding my delinquent Client.. this is concerning as despite continuing to owe me

"delinquent client" who "owes" him and once again, picture of him shooting guns apropos of nothing, nothing explaining where he is, whose guns they are, just him shooting guns. Guess he just likes to shoot guns while talking about his "delinquent client" who "owes" him and he's put a picture of the delinquent client's premises as his PFP.

3. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

> Today I'll be following up on my message to the Yorkshire Post by calling the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regarding my delinquent Client.. it's become necessary given what the Owner of said Client is currently doing. I'm also going to escalate my concerns to North Yorkshire Police, then I'll grab the Popcorn and see where this goes.

And again no-context gun photo to add to the blog post about his delinquent client

Hopefully you can understand why the guy who owes him money would feel intimidated and call the police, and you can see why there appears to be enough evidence to charge the guy for harrassing the ower, and to arrest him so you can establish if he possesses the guns he has posted himself shooting.

Aurornis

3 days ago

I read the posts. He's obviously writing daily updates and posts and includes pictures from his travels.

The photos are obviously target shooting. This is a common sport in many countries.

Your argument is that because he wrote long daily updates about what he was doing and included two unrelated things, that he's implying that the guns are for those offhand remarks?

We get getting farther and farther from the real problem, which is that the UK police have been weaponized to respond to people's social media posts about how they make others feel. That's a ridiculously low bar.

From https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/consultant-arrested-posi...

> However, he said that a police officer later visited his home to warn him that concerns had been raised about the post.

> "I was told to be careful what I say online and I need to understand how it makes people feel," he said.

joe463369

amiga386

3 days ago

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

This is one of three days worth of posts where he talks about his "delinquent client" and ends with a picture of him and guns (with no explanation of why, where or how him and the guns are related to the body text). He put an image of the business owner's premises as his PFP in the top-right corner, which is now a picture of some people sitting in chairs. The business premises, "delinquent client" body text and gun photos appear on the same page.

Further details: https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/12/01/uk-police-arrest-gun-...

ifh-hn

3 days ago

Argh yes, context. I was wondering why the police were doing what they were doing. Police don't randomly do that to someone, there had to be a reason. Context is king.

Aurornis

3 days ago

Read the actual articles the person linked. The comment you’re replying to uses weasel words like saying “put them on a website” to conceal the fact that the “website” was the guy posting different unrelated things on his social media feed.

In the second case, the person involved was weaponizing the police against a journalist who had uncovered something about a completely unqualified university professor who had a fraudulent background story. The police didn’t do it “randomly”. The professor knew how to use the laws to intimidate and silence his critics (when even the GP comment admits).

Even the police later admitted they should not have gone as far as they did.

ifh-hn

3 days ago

I did read the article, and my only takeaway was that it was missing context.

But I agree that the law is being weaponised by bad actors, but irrespective of that the police are duty bound to investigate. They take the blame too. It's one of the few jobs everyone else knows how to do better than the people doing it.

blipvert

2 days ago

Could you elaborate on how he was “completely unqualified”? AIUI his PhD was cleared on any claims of. It being untoward. Maybe something I missed, of course.

amiga386

3 days ago

The website, which is also his social media feed, is LinkedIn. Both the header image (of the ower's premises) and pictures of the owee shooting guns are on the same site. Hence the complaint of intimidation from the ower.

In the second case, once again you repeat your nonsense. The chilling effect the police had, a wrong in and of itself, did not put the journalist off publishing.

You can read the journalist's own words right here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/i-was-reported-...

> Despite the thoroughness of my investigation, THE did not run the story. While I was personally disappointed, I understood; by this point, Arday’s solicitors had been in touch with THE and it was clear that the story could tie the publication up in months of expensive litigation. Even if we were right – and I stand by my reporting – it would have been ruinously expensive.

You want to say POLICE POLICE POLICE were chilling speech here. Bullshit. It was LAWYERS LAWYERS LAWYERS suppressing the story.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

Aurornis

3 days ago

> You want to say POLICE POLICE POLICE were chilling speech here. Bullshit.

You're the only person in this thread using the phrase "chilling speech" and you keep admitting that they did.

Let me quote you on this topic:

> The chilling effect the police had, a wrong in and of itself,

> In the case of the journalist Arday reported in 2025, police again did not arrest or charge him, but they (wrongly, in my opinion) phoned him and asked him not to contact Arday. This had a chilling effect

> For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech).

These are all three your own quotes from this thread. The last quote isn't even accurate because the police DID take action in the form of contacting the journalist and telling him to desist.

amiga386

2 days ago

I am in generally in favour of some sentiments you're expressing, but you're also wrong on the facts. If your facts are wrong, it harms everyone who shares your sentiments because you're arguing with verifiable bullshit.

You're trying to argue that Jason Arday held journalists at bay by reporting them for harrassment, therefore the UK speech laws are bad because they let wrongdoers avoid scrutiny by making harrassment claims against their scrutinisers. That is incorrect. There was only one journalist, and Arday held him off by engaging private lawyers. The harrassment reporting did not stop the journalist.

Arday falsely reported two people for harrassment to the Metropolitan Police, one professor in 2023 and one journalist in 2025. The (Devon and Cornwall) police declined to pursue the 2023 case. The (Metropolitan) police investigated the 2025 case for four months, then decided to take no action (no charge, arrest or caution). The investigating officer phoned the journalist to tell him the case was closed (they can do that). The fact that there had even been an investigation caused a chilling effect:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/i-was-reported-...

> But were my enquiries grounds for a criminal complaint? That was hugely troubling to me as a reporter who specialises in examining issues of research integrity and ethics.

I'd say that even in the professor's case, it could've had a chilling effect. If the police had interviewed anyone related to the professor, there could've been leaks and/or career-stunting rumours.

The officer requested the journalist not contact Arday. That's overreach, and shouldn't have happened.

The head of the Metropolitan police admitted the investigation should not have even been started. That's not the law at fault, that's shoddy policing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rd9y99grzo

But ultimately, it did not "spike the story". That was 100% on the lawsuit. Both things are bad

joenot443

2 days ago

> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

Wait, this is the threat?

I'm bewildered this could be grounds for an arrest. That's pretty scary.

foldr

2 days ago

No, the comment by itself wasn't the threat. Explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831263 Or just look at this post:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash...

It's the combination of the paragraph about the 'delinquent client' and the picture of him pointing a gun which could be construed as an implied threat. I don't know if that would hold up legally, but in any case, no charges were brought in the end.

As to why the police did anything at all, the most likely explanation is that once the 'delinquent client' reported the LinkedIn posts, the Police saw a photo of someone using a shotgun who didn't have a shotgun license. Unaware that the photo was taken outside the UK, they probably decided that the combination of an unlicensed firearm and a possible implied threat was worth investigating.

tigershark

3 days ago

Are you really defending Arday harassing journalists through the police and being overjoyed because just this time the police was not overzealous enough to arrest them (very likely they were fine only thanks to the huge media attention)? Unbelievable.

amiga386

3 days ago

I'm not defending Arday at all. I'm pointing out OP's claims are bullshit. At no point did anyone "spike" stories because Arday called the police on them.

OP appears to claim that involving the police is the way to get journalists off your tail. It isn't, and it didn't deter either the professors or the journalist. The much more effective way to get journalists off your tail, which OP didn't even mention, is lawyers. But that doesn't let OP rage against UK laws so he went with the bullshit claim instead.

There was absolutely zero media attention at the time police processed Arday's complaint against professor David Harris, in 2023. They closed the complaint without taking action. The professor didn't even know he was being investigated. His colleague Martyn Hammersley then went over Arday's head straight to the faculty. So much for the police getting people off your case!

In the case of the journalist Arday reported in 2025, police again did not arrest or charge him, but they (wrongly, in my opinion) phoned him and asked him not to contact Arday. This had a chilling effect and the police had no legal basis to direct him so. Again, this was long before any 2026 media attention.

It wasn't media attention that saved these people, it was that what they did wasn't illegal. The police shouldn't have given Arday's claims as much merit as they did, but no matter what Arday said, there was no evidence of crime there, it was never going any further than that.

Only once the deets about Arday were leaked by Cambridge faculty to Cofnas and he published them, and the media firestorm begain, did the details of the police phoning the journalist become known, and in reaction to that, the head of the police said that was clearly wrong and should not have happened: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rd9y99grzo

Tanjreeve

3 days ago

Well he's dead now in no small part because he was 100% correct that partisan activists amplified by friendly "journalists' would follow the usual playbook of creating a reality distortion field by repeatedly lying and republishing each others half truths and outright lies into a massive gish gallop.

UltraSane

3 days ago

He is dead because he killed himself because his web of lies was unraveling.

Tanjreeve

2 days ago

Same question as always. What were the lies? Because all the ones I've seen were either found to be true or they were exaggerated versions of statements and then attacking that as a lie.

Especially rich to talk about habitual liars when it's a bunch of British press outlets and activists accusing others of being liars.

amiga386

2 days ago

https://gidmk.substack.com/p/the-jason-arday-saga-is-terribl...

> 1 The Racism Of It All: It is not news when white men commit academic misconduct. It gets reported in a handful of stories, there’s a bit of media attention, but everyone quickly forgets about the problems.

> 2 Arday Was Definitely Guilty: The second point is somehow even more frustrating. Yes, Jason Arday was hounded by a society that demands different standards for young Black men than white guys. Yes, the amount of scrutiny he received was obviously connected to the colour of his skin. But also, he definitely did plagiarize. And not just a little bit. His work is riddled with clear, obvious, and extensive theft from other published academic papers.

> You do not need to trust race realists or other unpleasant people. Just download the thesis and check for yourself. It is clear that a significant portion of the thesis was copied directly from other people’s work. This is not in doubt, it’s not in question, and the fact that so many people online are arguing that the plagiarism charges are false because a university said so is deeply depressing. It’s arguably the worst case of plagiarism I’ve ever seen.

> Whatever your thoughts on plagiarism, it’s clear that Arday’s work harmed very few people. As he himself said, “I didn't murder somebody”. If he hadn’t been a Black academic and a poster child for diversity at Cambridge university, we’d probably have never known his name.

You sound like one of the Arday Truthers:

https://archive.is/KkqkY

> For some of Arday’s supporters, acknowledging that any of the media scrutiny was justified has become tantamount to siding with his “killers.” He is instead a martyr—the victim of a “lynching”—and the inconvenient fact of his fabulism must be tidied away from the virtual shrine. This is an emotional position rather than a rational one, and its very indefensibility makes it a greater demonstration of tribal loyalty. Insisting that the academic was completely innocent, in the face of all the evidence, sends a strong social signal that you hate the right-wing media and care about racism.

Step 2: don't read the responses

Job done!

EDIT: I'll give you one set of lies. Is it "exaggerated versions of statements" or you just didn't see them?

If I say I won the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing a cure for cancer, and I have no evidence of either, but I insist I did both and make up a lame excuse as to why you can't see my prize (it's away being washed today) or why you can't find my cure (the journal pretended someone else wrote the article because they're all against me, but trust me mate it was really me who wrote it) am I just making "exaggerated versions of statements" in your view?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/au...

> In a subsequent interview with the Guardian, Arday claimed to have been confronted at his faculty building on two separate occasions by a masked man threatening to harm him if he did not resign, and evading detection both times. On the second occasion Arday said the intruder produced a knife and threatened him with it.

> The Guardian understands that after Arday reported the first intrusion to the university, enhanced CCTV was placed in the faculty and a panic alarm was installed in his office. The professor said he hit the panic alarm during the second confrontation, but that no one responded. It should have triggered an alarm alerting the faculty’s security team, all of whom were present at the time of the alleged incident.

> The intruder was not picked up by CCTV on either occasion and no one in the faculty reported seeing anyone suspicious. Arday did not report either intrusion at the time, telling the Guardian that after the second incident he continued his working day and even conducted a PhD viva for a student less than two hours later.

> He did not inform colleagues that a masked man with a knife was in the faculty building.

> Arday confirmed in an interview with the Guardian that the “mutilated animals sent to his family home” mentioned in the open letter was a severed pig’s head, delivered in a large cardboard box to his parents’ home address in south London. He claimed to have intercepted the package and immediately thrown it away, only telling the police several months later.

> In a subsequent interview he claimed the police investigated, checking with butchers in south London if they had sold a pig, eventually finding one that had sold a “whole hog” on the morning the head was left outside the family home.

> When the Guardian checked those details with the local butchers Arday named, they said no police officer had come in to ask them about a pig. When asked if they were sure, the butcher said “that’s the kind of thing we’d remember”.

> When the details Arday gave about the pig’s head investigation were checked by London’s Metropolitan police, the Guardian was told they were “categorically” incorrect and no investigation had taken place.

> Arday had contacted the Met to lodge a complaint of harassment against Harris after his plagiarism allegations and, because he was based in Plymouth, the case was handed over to Devon and Cornwall police. Correspondence seen by the Guardian confirmed that the force declined to pursue a case against Harris.

> Arday took no photographs of the bullet, the banana, the corrosive substance or the pig’s head. The only other people who saw any of the items were close family members, who told the Guardian Arday had shown them the bullet and the “poison”. Arday could produce no messages from the time in which he discussed any of the items with friends, family, colleagues or the police.

> There are many examples of prominent black figures being intimidated [...] But the abuse and harassment Arday has outlined would be some of the most extreme any academic has been subjected to in the UK. When Arday was asked about his claims by the Guardian, he stood by them. “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me,” he said. “Why would I lie?” He would be jeopardising his career.

pepperoni_pizza

2 days ago

> That's textbook intimidation,

Exactly.

Every time I hear a story of "horrible abuses in UK where people get arrested for talking on the internet" it turns our they intimidated or scammed or bullied someone.

I wonder why people keep lying about it.

Accacin

2 days ago

99.9% of the time I see this claim, it's right-wing Americans or bots trying to make the UK look like a hell-hole. They completely ignore the context surrounding it, and simply prefer to believe the claim.

No point even arguing with them, it's a lost cause.

chmod775

2 days ago

> 99.9% of the time I see this claim, it's right-wing Americans or bots trying to make the UK look like a hell-hole.

Given you got the nationality wrong 2/3 times in this comment section and they weren't bot accounts either, you might want to adjust that number.

You got the political lean wrong at least once as well. This might be the time to adjust your worldview. Empirically it doesn't seem to mesh with reality.

Accacin

a day ago

Use less Americanisms if you don't want to appear American. Either way, not British. And not a bot? That clears it up then.

chmod775

a day ago

> Use less Americanisms if you don't want to appear American.

Until this exchange, I hadn't realised I would be doing anyone a favour. I'll have a think about it.

IslandRebel

2 days ago

I've seen the posts myself now and there wasn't any intimidation.

What seems to happen on these stories that anything that might be construed as a threat will be, to pretend there isn't a problem with the speech and online laws in the UK.

It very tiring to have people like those on this thread pretend there isn't a huge problem.

Aurornis

3 days ago

Your own quote clearly says it was “two separate social media posts”. The article I linked clearly says he was arrested for one count of stalking and another account of suspicion of possession of a firearm:

> A week later, on August 23, the officers returned and arrested him on suspicion of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and another allegation of stalking related to a photograph of a house that appeared on his social media.

You’re trying hard to link the two as “textbook intimidation” but the firearm post that triggered this was just a vacation photo and post about his vacation.

You’re being misleading by saying he “posted them to a website” without explaining that what you mean by “website” is that he posted them on his personal social media.

> For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech).

Incorrect to say the police “took no action”. They contacted the journalist and instructed him to desist. The police later admitted it was a mistake to pursue the case. It says all of this in the link you used:

> Arday made a complaint about Grove to the Metropolitan Police, alleging harassment that was affecting his mental health; the police asked Grove to desist from further contact with Arday.[80] Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, later said that the complaint about Grove should not have been taken forward.[81]

It’s confusing that you’re trying to claim the police “took no action” when they admitted fault for following through with the complaint and they told the reporter to desist.

> Expensive lawyers making baseless threats work equally well in the US and UK to chill legal speech, it's not a policy issue.

If the expensive lawyers are equal in the UK and US, then that’s not the important point of this story. It’s the part about him engaging the police and the police following through with it.

3 days ago

“Getting the police involved” is a lot less exciting in the UK compared to the US. Our police don’t have a nasty habit of getting scared in the dark and shooting anything that moves. Mostly because most officers in the UK don’t carry firearms, and the UK often struggles to recruit officers into firearms units because officers just don’t want to mess with guns.

As a result getting the police involved is often little more than a slightly awkward chat at the front door where the officers politely ask you to stop being arsehole, but everyone knows the police are a bit limited in what they can actual do. Either because no crime has actually been committed, or because they don’t really have the time to properly investigate even if a crime had been committed.

Actually getting arrested takes some effort. The police really don’t want to deal with all the paperwork and mess that comes afterwards if they can avoid it.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

> arrested on... another [count] of suspicion of possession of a firearm:

That's not how it works. You get arrested on suspicion, the cops figure out if you actually did it or not, once they know you did it they charge you with counts of actual offences (not suspicions).

Aurornis

3 days ago

> > arrested on... another [count] of suspicion of possession of a firearm:

> That's not how it works. You get arrested on suspicion, the cops figure out if you actually did it or not, once they know you did it they charge you with counts of actual offences (not suspicions).

Isn’t that literally what the quote, which was from the article, says? It didn’t contain the word “count”. You added that. The quote says he was arrested on suspicion.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

"account" appears to be a simple autocorrect typo of "count" since the other half of the sentence is about "count"

Aurornis

3 days ago

No, I'm saying the word "count" doesn't appear in the quote in the article.

This is the quote from the article:

> > A week later, on August 23, the officers returned and arrested him on suspicion of possessing a firearm

You falsely added "[count]" to the quote and then argued about the count, which isn't in the quote.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

3 days ago

UK is substantially more democratic than the US.

- We just changed our PM, despite his party having a historic majority.

- Parliament routinely rebels against the government, and backbenchers have a lot of say about the business of government.

- We have a number of upstart parties; they might be populist, but at least it's not a two-party-forever system.

- We had a coalition government just a few years ago.

- We changed our constitution a few months ago (abolishing hereditary peers) and it was just another news among many.

- We ejected one of the previous PMs for having a party during a lockdown, with a massive scandal before that when the PM accepted a gift of some wallpaper.

Compare and contrast to the ossified and corrupt American system, where the president is openly enriching himself and his family and friends, and there's nothing threatening the presidency. The last amendment was passed half a century ago, and there's zero hope for reform.

Democracy is a living, breathing system of government, not a number of checkboxes like "can I shoot a gun for fun" or "can I call someone N-word online". It's important to see the forest for the trees.

4ndrewl

3 days ago

> We ejected one of the previous PMs for having a party during a lockdown

Weirdly that never happened, but that's how many people remember it.

He was ejected because he lost the support of his ministers (most of who resigned over a period of a few weeks) after he had made them to go out and lie to the public on his behalf in the case of Chris Pincher MP.

dgroshev

3 days ago

To be entirely fair, that was a combination of many things (Pincher, wallpaper, partygate, covid deaths, covid deals, brexit, etc). The ministers are also MPs, and they want to be reelected. By that point it was clear that the partygate is not going away, so they needed a scapegoat.

The point still stands though. A populist PM who did a tiny bit of mismanagement and corruption (relative to his current peer in the US) was forced to resign. Trump isn't.

tomp

3 days ago

> - We just changed our PM

non-democratically. there was no election. the ruling party simply made a decision itself. Just like in China.

dgroshev

3 days ago

A representative democracy is still a democracy.

The ruling party has changed just two years ago. Hardly China, is it

AlexandrB

3 days ago

I don't get why you're making excuses for this stuff. Trump is one kind of bad, but almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters. And these are usually the folks that claim to be defenders of democracy. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

dgroshev

3 days ago

> almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters

In this country, the government with a vast majority couldn't even withdraw a small cash payment from better off pensioners without a rebellion from their own MPs.

Those generalising takes are entirely disconnected from the political reality of the UK outside of twitter.

tavavex

2 days ago

They're making excuses for this stuff because the wording used around it in this comment thread has been quite hysterical. For all the problems plaguing modern democracies, leadership elections are not one of them. In representative democracies, the leader of the party isn't god like how a president is in non-parliamentary systems. The role has some additional powers, but it doesn't get its own branch of government. Most importantly, party leaders are still MPs who were democratically elected by their constituents - the party leader designation is an internal role. You can even affect it by becoming a party member in most cases. This is incredibly mundane stuff that has existed for decades to centuries, so people here immediately jumping in to talk about China or say that this is somehow worse than Trump just seems like enraged flailing in an attempt to portray many other democracies not being exactly like the US as horrific injustice.

RobotToaster

3 days ago

The electoral college would throw up equally weird results if the US didn't have a fully two-party system. (How's that working out?)

sippingabonedry

3 days ago

You left a few items off the list, for instance:

- We can't beat off to porn anymore without a VPN, because our nanny government has blocked it.

- Our government sends hilarious fines to foreign websites when it disapproves of their moderation.

OkayPhysicist

3 days ago

That's not necessarily evidence of undemocratic processes. One of the big downsides of democracy is that it gives the absolute knuckledraggers the same vote as anybody else. It seems to me like the UK has the same problem as the US: they have a revealed preference for autocratic policies, because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing.

PorciiVorbesc

3 days ago

>because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing.

Well yes. Precisely because the government was "doing nothing" while issues that plagued the voting population like migration, wealth disparity and affordability crisis were constantly growing for the past ~15 years until it reached breaking point.

Hence why people affected by this are now voting to give the new extremist parties a chance at the helm, because just voting more "doing nothing" by the parties who stood by and enabled this, just guarantees the same issues aggravating. So then what else do you expect to happen at the elections?

pocksuppet

2 days ago

Can you elaborate on "migration" being an "issue that plagues the voting population"?

PorciiVorbesc

2 days ago

What of that was unclear to you?

A lot of voters disliked the effects migration had on their country, being also one of the reason why they voted for Brexit, and why the vote far right parties right now.

someonebaggy

2 days ago

I expect a variety of more extremist parties - some offering to kick out the immigrants, others offering to delete all regulations and let the free market prevail, others offering to delete billionaire wealth. Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party and the extreme right ban-immigrants party both won sizeable shares (in fact the extreme left party won a plurality)

PorciiVorbesc

2 days ago

>Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party

And how is Berlin planning to seize the wealth of billionaires?

Because I've seen this play out before, where every supposed promise to tax the billionaires, just ends up as another tax burden on the working class high earners and entrepreneurs who already pay the highest tax rates and are the furthest thing possible from billionaires, but still gets political support from the unwashed masses since it's entirely envy driven.

someonebaggy

2 days ago

How is the ban immigrants party going to ban immigrants? How is the delete regulations party going to delete regulations? Last time the extreme left party had any power, it set a city law saying rent couldn't be higher than a certain amount, but the landlords sued the city government in federal court, and won because apparently there is a constitutional right for landlords to collect as much money as possible.

MadrasThorn

3 days ago

UK does not have freedom of expression.

Both the UK and the US fail in rule of law regarding "all citizens and leaders must be equal before the law, supported by strong anti-corruption measures."

UK has stated separation of powers but the crown reportedly nudged Starmer to step down. The king is the one that can formally appoint government following elections.

Prince Andrew had and other royals have control over military forces in the UK, canada, australia, nz, ect. You can hem and haw all you want but the crown has constitutional and ceremonial control over the armed forces.

The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment.

The king also gives royal assent to bills passed by parliment.

Black spider memos

The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad.

every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants.

spiralpolitik

3 days ago

The UK constitutional system is built around mutually assured destruction. If one part doesn't follow convention, the whole system will collapse and everyone loses.

Yes, the monarch can in theory override the government by blocking legislation, but won't because one time a monarch did that, he ended up with his head cut off. If a monarch ever did that in modern times, Britain would quickly be a republic.

Everyone follows convention and stays in their lane and doesn't rock the boat. The last time a bill didn't get royal assent was in 1708. It simply hasn't happened since.

'The kings speech' is written by the government usually based on the manifesto they were elected on. The monarch just reads it. The monarch's role in modern times is to advise the prime minister and act as continuity advisor across governments. While the monarch may offer commentary on legislation, they won't block it, and the government is free to ignore it.

Same with the armed forces. It's ministers that control the army not the monarch. In modern Britain, the monarch's role is purely ceremonial. The monarch cannot order the armed forces into conflict.

Usually legislation gets blocked in the House Of Lords (the unelected chamber) which is why a lot constitutional reform is focused on cleaning that up, but it's game of inches because neither party wants to lose influence.

While the constitutional system may make it seem like the monarch has a lot of hard power, in reality they have none, and since the civil war can't do anything without the approval of Parliament.

someonebaggy

2 days ago

Last time I'm aware the monarch did something, it was the firing of the entire Australian parliament and calling a snap election. Which is quite a sensible thing to do if parliament is completely jammed, and since it was reasonably sensible and popular in the situation it happened, nothing happened to the monarch. (Imagine if someone had the power to do that to Congress! Maybe they'd actually do stuff again, and we'd have to rename them to Progress)

This is an alright use of a monarch IMO.

spiralpolitik

2 days ago

Yes. This fits with the UK monarch's modern role which is to ensure continuity of government.

The UK example would be if the UK government lost a vote of confidence, the monarch might ask the opposition parties to see if they could form a government that could pass a vote of confidence to avoid a general election. Although parliamentary math makes such a scenario unlikely in practice.

On the UK end I don't think the monarch can sack the Prime Minister. While the UK monarch could strongly suggest to a Prime Minister that it's time to resign. Usually when a Prime Minister gets to that point, it's usually the end of the road and they won't last much longer anyway even if they pushed forward.

The monarch has a lot of soft power which under the modern system is usually deployed to ensure continuity of government rather than in a controlling manner.

(The Australia, Canada, etc constitutions gives the monarch different powers than the UK and it's usually delegated to whoever is the governor for that nation)

avianlyric

3 days ago

Yeah, I don’t think you have any understanding of how the crown interacts with the rest of the UK government.

There are some oddities, but the idea that the crown could actually exercise any of their powers, without causing a constitutional crisis, and UK rapidly becoming a republic, is farcical.

> The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment.

You’re aware that the kings speech is written by the government, not the crown. It’s how the government lays out its parliamentary agenda to parliament, the civil service and the country at large. Heck there’s a whole ritual around the crown having to beg permission to enter the commons etc to emphasise the point that crown enters and speaks at the pleasure of the commons.

> The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad.

No, the king is given instructions by the foreign office on what he’s expected to help with. Every trip and meeting the king does is checked and cleared by the uk government, and they can and have vetoed trips before.

> every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants.

You should watch the Jonny English movies, they’re a great documentary on how this could happen.

dgroshev

3 days ago

What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country?

If it's the former, then indeed the US has more of it.

If it's the latter, the UK has three new major parties with very different policies that openly and vocally oppose Labour, Conservatives, and Libdems. Mainstream media regularly broadcasts their views. I might strongly disagree with those views, but these parties are clearly freely operating political organisations. How is the US doing with viable non-Dem and non-Republican parties?

I won't comment on your Crown conspiracy theories.

zer00eyz

3 days ago

> What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country?

What is the difference between the two? Because you're going to make a cultural argument and NOT a legal one. The C-word is one you throw around (and the Aussies to) but would cause an American woman be pretty upset. You seem perfectly fine with its use, but we frown on both terms socially but they are strictly legal.

Defamation VS political speech would be a better comparison, and I could make the argument that Americans being more lenient are better off with our freedoms.

dgroshev

3 days ago

Being as charitable as possible: there is a lot of difference between

- swear words

- slurs

- speech enabling political organising

…which is not a matter of "upset".

OkayPhysicist

3 days ago

From your list of purposes about freedom of expression, you're missing "the ability to criticize powerful individuals". If you cannot prove, in a court of law, that your statements are 100% true, you can absolutely lose your shirt in a defamation suit in the UK. It's so egregious that the US had to pass a law specifically shielding American free speech from the UK's libel laws. (to their credit, in 2013 they improved their laws substantially, such that you can no longer be found liable for provably true statements)

In the US, in contrast, you can say pretty much anything, as long as it plausibly enough true that the plaintiff can't prove you don't believe it. "Donald Trump is a child rapist" is an example of speech that would not be protected in UK courts. Sure, I can point at all his visits to Epstein's Island, and his running child pageant shows, and complaints made against him to establish that it's not unreasonable to believe it, but I cannot prove in a court of law that he did it. So in the UK, he would win a defamation suit against me. On the flip side, here in the States that is quite safe to say in a public forum. It's quite difficult to prove a negative, and even if they passed that bar, they would then need to prove to a court that I did not believe that statement.

TheOtherHobbes

3 days ago

That's government theatre, not democracy.

Here's the reality: https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/2102527889556291773

And also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_plot_allegations

dgroshev

3 days ago

Calling big changes in power, substantive shifts in policy, and constitutional changes "government theatre" to then link to "Flying_Rodent" on twitter as "reality" is just comically unselfaware.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

2 days ago

What would the argument even be here? That the UK can never be a democracy because of what Henry VIII did in the 16th century?

zer00eyz

2 days ago

No.

But processes that exist to preserve democracy that arent governed by that democracy are problematic. Saying the "king would never do..." when a king has makes the argument silly.

The UK is not alone in this - a great example is the filibuster in the us (a senate rule).

foldr

2 days ago

Hmm, so your argument actually is that a politically motivated prosecution in the 16th century that occurred before the UK even existed, before constitutional democracies were much of a thing, and that couldn't occur under present UK constitutional arrangements, is proof that the UK at present is not a democracy. I'm not sure if you're in a position to call other people's argument's "silly".

drnick1

2 days ago

And yet, you were ordered to stay home during coronavirus and threatened with fines if you did not comply. Also, the Internet is censored by your ISPs, you increasingly need to prove your age/identity to do anything online, and it isn't clear for how long you will be able to work around that with VPNs. Apart from that, the UK truly looks like a democratic paradise.

AlexandrB

3 days ago

> We just changed our PM, despite his party having a historic majority.

Yeah? The country got to vote for the PM? I don't recall there being a national election. Having a bunch of party insiders replace the leader who won an election with an unelected one is the opposite of democracy.

dgroshev

3 days ago

We have a representative democracy, not a direct one.

I invite you to consider the rest of the points, too.

AlexandrB

> to me, democracy is really about giving the masses enough feeling of agency, because the alternatives are either revolution and/or disengagement / low productivity / low creativity, and both are "bad for business" i.e. cannot compete with democracies.

I'll pick this one because it is the easiest to refute (but the others are wrong, too). What form of government was predominant during the most creative and productive periods in recent history, namely the industrial revolution and the Italian Rennaissance?

You even mention China yourself, but do not update your priors.

throwawayqqq11

3 days ago

You cannot compare these eras, where one offers a zeitgeist of scientific progress and opportunity and the other of global scale problems met with ignorance and stagnation.

The tides will turn in china, once that positive notion gets suffocated by misaligned elites.

vkou

3 days ago

The magic of democracy isn't that it promises good governance, the magic of it is that it provides a clear avenue for a peaceful transfer of power that is exercised every few years.

Most functioning democracies require more than 51% of a senate and six justices and a criminal head of state to completely unravel.

MrBuddyCasino

3 days ago

> The magic of democracy isn't that it promises good governance, the magic of it is that it provides a clear avenue for a peaceful transfer of power that is exercised every few years.

We are currently witnessing the dismantling of this illusion. The reason western governments increasingly engage in lawfare against the opposition is that for the first time since the post-WWII order, they are threatened by a real regime change.

vkou

3 days ago

> for the first time since the post-WWII order, they are threatened by a real regime change.

It's only new if you are blind to post-WWII history.

In the western world alone, there was no shortage of incredibly vicious fights with communist/socialist groups in in post-war Europe (Most prominently in Italy and Greece), to say nothing of the various domestic decolonisation movements (The British and French governments were scared shitless of them), secessionist movements in Quebec, Spain, that entire thing in North Ireland (the understatement of the century), the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US, collapse of prominent dictatorships in Portugal and Spain...

State-threatening social upheaval is nothing new, we just have a particularly shitty flavour of it right now, as fascism and fascist-adjacent movements are currently waxing.

MrBuddyCasino

2 days ago

You are mixing every western conflict you've heard of in one big bucket, stir vigorously and call it an argument. What do wars of religion (which happen under most forms of government, except perhaps communism) have to do with democracy?

What is "the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US" if not a continuation of the leftist politics that Roosevelt started? What has the authoritarian Franco regime got to do with "democracy"?

None of this makes any sense.

vkou

2 days ago

Most of the events I've listed cannot be described as 'one side wins and makes the other illegal'. Many of them ended with compromises, or partial success, or complete success, but the losers were not banished from public life. (They just held on to coalitions of waning influence. Some of them are resurging.)

> What is "the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US" if not a continuation of the leftist politics that Roosevelt started

The CRM was bottom-up, with personalities like Malcolm X and MLK both scaring the shit out of the government, due to their ability to mobilize millions of people.

Did they win and make the other side illegal? No.

Did the dipshits they fought win and make them illegal? I'd say no to that, as well.

MrBuddyCasino

2 days ago

> Did they win and make the other side illegal? No.

That is exactly what they did. The Civil Rights Act usurped the constitution.

vkou

2 days ago

That is a ridiculous definition of 'made the other side illegal'. There's no shortage of vermin actively working to undermine and dismantle it, and none of them are going to prison.

pocksuppet

2 days ago

Fascism is, and always has been, how capitalism defends itself from socialism. When the population starts getting the idea that the people who rules us (billionaires) are bad people or have too much power, the rulers defend themselves by redirecting it at one or more scapegoat groups instead (like Skaia in Homestuck, to make a particularly silly analogy). Often, this works. This is what happened in Germany.

The word "fasces" as in "bundle of sticks" refers to to the elites putting aside their individual differences and banding together to protect their class. They have no problem doing class consciousness.

smolder

3 days ago

The problem is not democracy, it's corruption fueled by sociopaths who insist on controlling everything and buy politicians. The problem with everything in society is that many people are fundamentally broken. Plenty of people aren't broken and can get along without committing crimes or plotting to take over the world.

MrBuddyCasino

2 days ago

So man‘s fallen nature rules out any form of good governance then? What a weird argument.

smolder

20 hours ago

In the US, at least, good governance has been subverted, the political machine is bought, the free press is like a caged animal, and so on. The pillars of democracy have crumbled under the weight of kleptocracy.

fragilerock

3 days ago

> they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy.

This is completely false and comes from a commonly misrepresented statistic; '30 arrests a day' is plainly the arrests made under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 which includes things like online stalking and harassment. I hope you're just mistaken and not willfully implying that those issues are merely offensive to the prevailing political orthodoxy.

468854259853

2 days ago

[flagged]

gib444

3 days ago

You can't argue with data that doesn't exist, either. The arrests are not broken down, so nobody really knows. Both sides can argue their opinion

You can argue it's highly improbable that all arrests are over 'hurty words online', definitely – but anyone claiming zero arrests seems improbable too.

I do also feel it's quite convenient that the lack of breakdown allows people to clap back with accusations of encouraging stalking and harassment.

fragilerock

3 days ago

No one is encouraging you to argue with data that doesn't exist and no one is claiming that no arrests are being made over political speech online. I don't disagree with your third paragraph but it seems clear to me that my original statement stands and it's quite suspicious that you responded it to with these strawmen.

gib444

2 days ago

3 days ago

This is wrong. The BBC were reporting on it in detail both online and on TV news. I know this because I was actually working on contract for them at the time.

What we have is a lot of people changing the narrative since to discredit the BBC and divide everyone further.

makingstuffs

3 days ago

The BBC started reporting after the riots were in full swing and social media was already awash with information.

The point at which the BBC started reporting was the same as all other major news outlets: after the point that they just looked daft for not reporting it.

I know this as my videos of the riots took my little blog from 50 - 100 views a day to thousands per minute…

foldr

2 days ago

For anyone reading, this is entirely false. As sdcfgy says, these events were reported as usual in the news of the day.

Quarrelsome

3 days ago

Mark Duggan was a gangster, so people trying to frame it as some sort of execution seemed to not understand that the police were seemingly doing their job. Chris Kaba's death also resulted in protests and demonstrations despite the evidence[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1ydQg9NbsQ

gadders

3 days ago

You can get arrested for making a joke that might offend someone in a private whatsapp group. Doesn't even have to be political.

I think this is the link where the chap asks for legal advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1vxkcic/poli...

amiga386

3 days ago

Reddit often contains completely made up but believeable bullshit, so I wouldn't cite anything you see there. Every single post or comment could be a creative writing exercise to gain karma or sow discord.

However, if you want hard evidence what that post was claiming, I can give you a real citation from 2018:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46106224

> A house linked to an "offensive" video showing a model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire has been searched by police. Six men [...] were arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and have been released under investigation. A video shared on social media shows a cardboard model of the tower being set alight by a laughing crowd.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46112026

> Can I be offensive in my own home?

> Basically, yes. [...] if you make offensive comments in your home and they are recorded and posted online, it might be possible that you could be prosecuted.

amiga386

2 days ago

And in case you wondered what happened next, one of the six men charged went on to be tried in 2019, was found not guilty, and was acquitted.

However, the CPS appealed against his acquittal, and it was quashed in 2021: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58054431

He was retried in 2022, where this time he pled guilty and was given ultimately a minor slap on the wrist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61160971

Ultimately, everyone is happy:

- people who saw the video and were offended by it are happy "something was done"

- the CPS is happy because they gott'im

- the courts are happy because they got paid double

- the guy accused of offending people is happy this multi-year ordeal where the CPS won't stop hounding him until he confesses his guilt is finally over

- MPs are happy they didn't need to change any laws no matter how unreasonable they were

All good, right?

Are we also going to spend years prosecuting someone who mockingly reenacts the sinking of the Titanic? Or is that somehow water under the bridge?

jodrellblank

a day ago

What is this country coming to when you can't post a social media video laughing at families from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, and Syria, burning to death while saying "all the little ninjas getting it"?

It's political correctness gone mad.

> "By 2017, Grenfell Tower housed a remarkably diverse community. Up to 600 people lived in the building’s 120 flats, representing a rich tapestry of nationalities, ethnicities, and generations. Residents hailed from countries including the UK, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, and Syria, among others." - https://grenfell.soton.ac.uk/week-1-who-lived-in-the-tower/

> "The Grenfell Tower fire inquiry "must not ignore" the impact of race and poverty on the disaster, a lawyer representing survivors has said. .. The inquiry returned this week after a four-month break due to coronavirus. "The Grenfell fire did not happen in a vacuum," said Mr Thomas in his opening statement. "A majority of the Grenfell residents who died were people of colour."""" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53320082

amiga386

a day ago

Yes, the video is offensive, racist drivel. But I respectfully put to you that the crux of the issue is not about what was said, no matter how awful it was; it's whether the state should have a role in controlling what private individuals share amongst one another.

The people in the video didn't upload it to a social media platform like Youtube, they wanted to keep it private to their friends. It would also have been taken down by the likes of Youtube. The only reason this case got to where it did is because the video ultimately reached a wide audience virally by people forwarding it on, and that enough of that audience didn't like it and wanted someone "done" for it, and the state obliged. But nasty, mean, dark, sick, racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynist and all other -ist jokes are told day-in, day-out, between people who like that sort of humour, no matter how much other morally righteous "right side of history" people want that not to happen. You can't stop them. You can only go after scapegoats if such things breach their usual boundaries.

Over 1,500 people died at sea when the Titanic sank, including black, Chinese, Jewish, Turkish, etc. passengers. It was an dreadful fate for each person, and it caused much grief for the victims' families and friends. I'm still going to joke about it, though. "How do you think the unthinkable? With an itheberg."

jodrellblank

15 hours ago

> "whether the state should have a role in controlling what private individuals share amongst one another."

The state has a century long history of answering that in the positive; under the Criminal Law Act 1977 a person agreeing with another person to do a crime is guilty of conspiracy to commit that crime[1]; section 5 talks about "the offence of conspiracy at common law" which it replaces, including when it does/doesn't apply to "conduct which tends to corrupt public morals or outrages public decency".Further back, the Offenses Against The Person act of 1861 says that encouraging, soliciting, or proposing to any person to murder another person is a misdemanour punishable by imprisonment for life[2].

AFAIK the UK doesn't ban the classic film The Towering Inferno which is about people dying in a burning tower block. The Titanic has no remaining survivors to be offended where the video here was <2 years after the Grenfell Tower fire, and your joke about the Titanic isn't mocking the dying, it's mocking the builder's hubris. So it's more about the "outraging public decency" part.

Even the most free-speechy places have arguments about what free speech is acceptable (classic example: yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre) and have ideas about free speech, with consequences.

I would rather the UK government had put that effort into earlier holding the tower management company to fixing the problems reported by the fire brigade and the Grenfell Action Group in the years before the fire, and knocking the Council for trying it silence that group for repeatedly reporting fire problems, and of course for the excellent business decisions to save money by using flammable cladding.

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1977/45/section/1

[2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/section/...

someonebaggy

3 days ago

Since Reddit is now login-walled, can you share what it says?

gadders

3 days ago

Does this work?

----

Police have arrested and questioned 3 of my mates from our private WhatsApp group chat. They're asking to speak to me too, but I'm working abroad.

They've all been arrested and had interviews under s127 of the Communications Act.

There's 4 of us in a group chat on WhatsApp where we chat and also make some edgy jokes and stuff. We're two white, an Indian and a black guy who studied at uni together.

All three of them have been arrested and interviewed today. I don't know anyrhing more than this. This info comes from their gf and fiance.

I'm working abroad but I have received a WhatsApp message and attempted call from a UK officer who identified himself wanting to speak to me about an ongoing enquiry into a reported issue.

My mate's fiance says it was reported by another guy's ex who he dumped 4 weeks ago. I'm inclined to believe that as the officer's message said he was acting on a report.

The thing is, we shared a lot of edgy jokes beteen us - but it was literally just the 4 of us in a private fucking chat. Some of the jokes we made were racisr, but they were all banter directed at each other. Others were just taking the piss out of the major news events like saying "Who needs people flying planes when our own shitty buildings just burn themselves down?" about Grenfell.

It's crass, but it's literally just us talking shit in private. These messages arent public or anything.

I can't get through to any of the guys. Is this something the police are actually going to try and prosecute?!

At this point should I just not come home? I'm dual Austrian-British and Austria doesn't extradite to the UK.

PorciiVorbesc

3 days ago

> I'm dual Austrian-British

How so? Since Austria doesn't (typically) allow dual citizenship.

> Austria doesn't extradite to the UK.

With what guarantee? In 2013 Austria forced the landing of the plane of the Bolivian president on orders from the US because they had intelligence Snowden might be on board.

So if you think Austria will hesitate to ship your ass to the UK if you piss off the wrong elites, just because there's no official bi-lateral extradition agreement, you're kidding yourself. If needed, they'll just make up a spin story that you're some major child molester or something, to justify their actions in the media and reassure the public on why the violation of your rights was justified and they'll never ever do it again to anyone else as long as they behave, pinky promise wink-wink. In short, the people with guns can break the rules at will with little to no accountability.

sdcfgy

3 days ago

I think this is mostly being misrepresented.

There is speech and there are consequences for speech.

If I incite or state that I am going to commit violence, stalking, rape or murder, should I face consequences? Yes. That's what is happening.

There are outlying cases which will be used to discredit this perspective but reality is there are a hell of a lot of very not nice people out there making active threats and inciting hatred and violence.

And everyone gets their day in court.

maxehmookau

3 days ago

> The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post.

Pretty sure she called for the murder, by arson, of asylum seekers although the article missed that bit out.

crimsoneer

3 days ago

Sigh, this is an absolute bullshit figure and people need to stop parroting it - it's 30 arrests under the mal comms act which might include for example, phoning your ex girfriend to say you're coming to stab her. Or phoning in a bomb threat via telephone. Or any number of pretty terrible things it's perfectly reasonable to get nicked for. Or posting on Facebook telling everyone we should set the local migrant hotel on fire. These are not political prisoners.

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...

rich_sasha

3 days ago

I’d say it is a very low quality article. There is very little detail about what the offending speech actually includes. For example:

> The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post.

What did she say? The article does not elucidate.

Inciting violence for example is not legal. I believe spaces around abortion clinics are also to be free from demonstrations. US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE.

The low point might be quoting Elon Musk. This is true in any context, but in particular here. The scandal is real, but none of it is about people being arrested for non-politically-correct speech.

There’s plenty of otherwise real stuff to poke the UK about.

ljf

3 days ago

I don't have time to dig up her post - but she was calling on people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers - she had around 10,000 followers, and her post was read 300,000 times: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yl7p4l11po

Quarrelsome

3 days ago

oh and in court she rested her entire defence on the tragic death of one of her children a decade prior. However her device had been confiscated and her WhatsApp messages to a friend included "if I end up in court I'll play the mental health card".

ctjr

3 days ago

I am disappointed in most reporting on this case. I wish they would include what she actually said. Here is the full tweet:

> Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it

[0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Connolly...

user

3 days ago

[deleted]

mschuster91

3 days ago

31 months for that is ridiculously low, especially with the rising prevalence of stochastic terrorism.

2 days ago

> context

A guy Hasan didn't like got shot in the neck during a public debate. A pair of Jewish embassy workers were gunned down while walking to a museum. A health insurance company CEO was shot outside of a hotel. I could go on.

In the UK there was an attempted murder when someone attacked a protestor burning a Koran, but luckily the UK authorities convicted the victim of the attack with "asking for it"[1] so justice was served.

[1] https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-muslim-man-spared-jail-tu...

ozlikethewizard

2 days ago

3 days ago

UK abortion clinic laws go a lot further than banning demonstrations.

1. Holding up a sign offering help to any women being coerced into an abortion is illegal. 2. Standing silently on the road near one can be illegal. 3. parking a car with a bumper sticker near one can be illegal.

The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white. On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).

> What did she say? The article does not elucidate.

She called for hotels housing asylum seekers to be burned. I think she is a nasty racist but I also think the sentence was excessive and I am not convinced it was a serious incitement to violence (and that was not what she was convicted of).

> US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE.

Not American, and I entirely support the right of anyone to make unkind comments about anyone else. You are right that many people apply different standards to their own side, but right wing Americans are are from alone in that.

Quarrelsome

3 days ago

I also think it was excessive but the judges sentencing remarks[0] add some context. The primary issue is that the categorisation of the offence was high, but she could have done a better job of showing remorse. She didn't clock that they'd be able to read her WhatsApp messages.

[0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/R-v-Lucy...

gadders

3 days ago

>>The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white.

They only care when the rapists are coming from outside the UK, and being protected by the authorities.

>>On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).

I think that is called picking your sample carefully. No-one is worried about EG the Chinese or the French.

TheOtherHobbes

3 days ago

Musk and his ilk care about dog whistle topics that can be used to trigger people into supporting them.

The emphasis on 'rape gangs', 'immigrants' and 'asylum seekers' isn't just objectively untrue, it's cynically manipulative. It's fundamentally a toxic and calculated form of marketing and branding.

And also a cynical distraction from - for example - the Epstein story and Musk's appearances in it.

There was a lot of this around Brexit. Many supporters voted to 'stop them coming over here'.

The government then ramped up immigration - a lot. For some reason the press failed to report this.

graemep

a day ago

Brexit was about stopping unskilled EU immigration. The leaders of both the official leave campaigns said they wanted more skilled immigration. Farage said Indian doctors in the NHS in the 70s as an example of the sort of immigration he wanted.

someonebaggy

3 days ago

I would have thought immigration was mainly a factor of the immigrants, not the government. Do people not support free movement? In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.

tancop

2 days ago

> In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.

The last time it worked like that was in the 1970s. You can travel and move anywhere you want but you can't legally work, rent a state owned apartment, get social benefits or send you kids to public school unless you get a stamp from the local authorities. It's the same as migrant workers anywhere else.

Of course it's corrupt and unfair and they should stop doing it but "can't leave your area" is a big exaggeration.

IslandRebel

3 days ago

The British Government has be consistently violating people's rights for decades and probably well before that.

Recently I saw a clip on GB News where one of their analyst said that anyone that opposes a war and/or conscription with Russia will need to put in prison. The show host, Jacob Rees Mogg and Lord Redwood saw nothing wrong with the statements.

None of these people have been in the armed forces and are too old to be called up for conscription.

RobotToaster

3 days ago

> and probably well before that.

319 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days to be exact.

IslandRebel

3 days ago

Why would I or anyone else care about the exact duration? It doesn't add anything.

Generally this applies to all governments anyway. The British state is just the most blatant at it currently, as they are losing control.

Accacin

2 days ago

Unfortunately, linking one bad article does not make something true. The number you quote includes threatening phone calls, abusive text messages, and general harassment including domestic violence. Four in five arrests did not result in a charge. You also don't hear about the ones that are charged, because they're less entertaining to read about in the news.

- private WhatsApp chats between friends

- standing still in public with hands folded in prayer

Be careful when you give sharp tools to the golem.

Quarrelsome

3 days ago

[flagged]

ImJamal

2 days ago

> Don't whitewash this shit. You know full well what we're talking about is specifically going to a place that you know you're not allowed to be in, doing a protest you're not allowed to do. Playing with the line is still taking the piss and the UK believe in the spirit of the law to avoid all this mucking about with the specification. Otherwise I can block traffic all day and make up some bullshit excuse as to how I'm somehow innocent. These are feeble excuses that Palestine in Action would be proud of.

I don't think you know what happened. At least one case was a person standing quietly outside on a public sidewalk while not impeding traffic or people walking.

At best you can say it is loitering.

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

within the range of an abortion clinic. The UK has the spirit of the law. We don't tolerate people dicking about with the definition.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is the campaign director of 40 Days for Life Birmingham, which organises prayer vigils near abortion clinics, and a leader of March for Life UK.

She wasn't just "standing and praying". There's significant context.

ImJamal

2 days ago

First, she was not, at the time of arrest, holding a prayer vigil. She was by herself.

Second, if it was a legitimate arrest why was she was paid out by the government for a settlement?

Also, this has happened to multiple people who haven't organized prayer vigils in the past, not that it would matter if they had.

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

[flagged]

ImJamal

2 days ago

[flagged]

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

She was literally campaigning against abortion near an abortion clinic which she knows is against the law. Criminals who have self-respect don't fucking live-stream their crimes and then act like a victim when they get arrested.

Its not a thought crime, its a crime crime.

ImJamal

2 days ago

I don't care if it is against the law. The conversation was about free speech. I'll even give you that she was protesting. All that does is proves my point. If you are not allowed to protest quietly while not impeding anybody then you do not have free speech.

Second, it clearly wasn't against the law because they dropped the charges and gave her a settlement.

Third, just because something is against the law doesn't mean that you shouldn't have the right to say it. The law does not dictate morality.

If the parliament passed a law saying you cannot criticize them, would you say well it is the law and as such it isn't a violation of free speech? Would you call somebody doing that a criminal?

Fourth, the police literally said "You’ve said you’ve been engaging in prayer, which is the offense.". Meaning the offense was literally her thinking. If you are not allowed to have wrong think then there is clearly thought crimes.

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

She has free speech. If she wants to write an article, post a comment, write to her mp, she runs a few campaign groups, she can organise a march, she can talk freely about her opinion. Nobody stops her doing those things, she has free speech. What she doesn't have is the right to harass people who are trying to get an abortion. She has an effective restraining order from abortion clinics that she is violating as part of her campaigning.

Why don't you see the difference between free speech and harassment? Your stance undermines free speech by giving it zero responsibility. These are rights hard won by our ancestors and you cheapen them by pretending they're all about some cheap technicality that permits toxic groups to intimidate other people.

ImJamal

2 days ago

like_any_other2

2 days ago

[dead]

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

[flagged]

dang

2 days ago

You broke the site guidelines extremely badly in this thread. We ban accounts that do that. I'm not going to ban you right now because (unlike the other account) you don't seem to been doing it in other threads lately. But please make a point of not doing it again, because (if I go back far enough) you do have a history of getting warned and banned (and unbanned) here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

> because (if I go back far enough) you do have a history of getting warned and banned (and unbanned) here.

Unless I'm missing something, that was once, like a decade ago or something, a testy conversation about history. I was shadow banned for ages and then some mod noticed my comments were good quality and restored me. So that seems like a bit of an uncharitable read given the age of my account and my average comment score.

I appreciate I was far off the mark here and I appreciate the warning. This particular subject is very triggering for me given the impact in my nation of American money influencing our politics. I'll try my best to be better but its hard.

dang

2 days ago

Yes, it was many years ago. That's a fair point. I didn't consider the timestamps.

etcetcetcetceta

2 days ago

[flagged]

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

[flagged]

weatherlite

3 days ago

> Hate speech and incitement to racial/religious hatred or violence are crimes here

Unless it's hate speech against "Zionists" and/or Jews , then it's tolerated, often celebrated. Not all hate speech is created equal.

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

Shallow dredge of people arrested for anti-semitism in the UK:

* 19 May 2026 - John Haynes - Arrested after incidents of threatening behaviour; convicted of racially aggravated harassment involving antisemitic abuse and threats.

* 9 May 2026 - Dylan Ossei - Arrested after shouting threats at Jewish people in Enfield and assaulting a man; pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, fear of violence, and harassment.

* 7 May 2026 - Adam Bedoui - Arrested after filming and verbally abusing a Jewish man in Hackney for social media; pleaded guilty.

* 7 May 2026 - Abdelkader Bousloub - Arrested in the same Hackney incident; pleaded guilty to a religiously aggravated public order offence.

* 6 May 2026 - Wayne Kelly - Arrested after shouting antisemitic abuse and threats at Jewish men walking to a synagogue in Salford; pleaded guilty.

* 1 May 2026 - Unnamed 57-year-old man - Arrested on suspicion of threatening a Jewish man while using racially offensive language in London; police reported he was released on bail.

* 23 April 2026 - Shafiq Rahman - Arrested after shouting antisemitic abuse and threatening a Jewish man in Slough; pleaded guilty to offences involving words, assault, and damage.

* 5 April 2026 - Munir Saleh - Arrested after reports of shouting antisemitic abuse and spitting at people in London; charged with aggravated threatening behaviour and assault offences.

* 24 March 2026 - Jean Charles Tavius - Arrested after reports of shouting antisemitic abuse and throwing a rock at a moving car; charged with threatening behaviour and damage offences.

* By 23 December 2025 - Unnamed 28-year-old woman - Arrested on suspicion of an aggravated public order offence over alleged antisemitic comments in a Manchester protest speech. The police announcement did not report a conviction.

* 3 October 2025 - Aiden Stanley - Arrested over a social media post about Jewish people following the Manchester synagogue attack; pleaded guilty to sending a grossly offensive message.

* September 2025 - Thomas Webster - Arrested over social media posts that included antisemitic messages; pleaded guilty to offences involving material intended to stir up hatred.

* July 2024 - Lee Cole - Arrested after investigators found antisemitic and other hateful social media posts; pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred offences.

* 3 April 2024 - Damion Bennett - Arrested over antisemitic videos posted on Gab; pleaded guilty to distributing recordings intended to stir up racial hatred.

* March 2024 - Zakir Hussain - Arrested after police linked him to an X account posting antisemitic comments and support for proscribed groups; pleaded guilty to public order and terrorism offences.

* November 2023 - Elliot Jackson - Arrested following reports of antisemitic social media messages; pleaded guilty to malicious communications.

* February 2023 - Robert Taylor - Arrested following an investigation involving verbal abuse of Jewish people, antisemitic material, and other conduct; pleaded guilty to public order and terrorism offences.

* February 2022 - Jaden Milne - Arrested over a conference speech containing antisemitic and other hateful material; pleaded guilty to public order and aggravated behaviour offences.

* 12 October 2021 - Oliver Riley - Arrested after posting extremist material, including antisemitic content, online; later admitted communications and terrorism offences.

> Not all hate speech is created equal.

This victim cosplay is rancid btw. It's painfully transparent. It's ugly to listen to two awful sides claiming the other is the _real_ problem and how their side is so victimised. These are the mannerisms of teenagers in social care. Please develop some level of responsibility and self-respect.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

user

3 days ago

[deleted]

nullbio

2 days ago

https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-...

So this is normal in your eyes?

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

reading fox news to understand the uk is not normal at all. You should seek help or better sources than "entertainment news".

nullbio

2 days ago

[flagged]

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

Yeah I know the source. Its the Torygraph. Once a mighty broadsheet but these days they print any old shit to get those boomer clicks and make them all upset. Tell them the world is falling apart to soften the blow of impending death. You're treating hospice fare as actual news you spanner.

I've been extremely invested in the British press since around 1992, so this experience of having someone not-British with seemingly limited understanding of its press telling me "you're too dumb" when discussing it, is quite amusing.

I have long considered what people think is "intelligence" is simply an appreciation for understanding how wrong they might be about their first impressions and a willingness to check themselves. This conversation is quite the re-enforcement of this idea. The strength of your conviction is inversely proportional to your level of knowledge on this matter.

nullbio

2 days ago

[flagged]

devilsdata

2 days ago

3 days ago

2 days ago

Yes, and perfect law enforcement is much worse than society than spotty law enforcement, because spotty law enforcement is how all societal progress got made.

Imagine if we jailed every gay person the moment they had a gay thought. How legal do you think being gay would be now?

djha-skin

3 days ago

I mean, in terms of property damage, the Boston Tea Party was a pretty big deal. Probably in arson territory in today's dollars.

_verandaguy

3 days ago

This comment is remarkable in its lack of nuance. There's a huge spectrum of, let's call it, aggressive speech, ranging from trying to organize against an oppressive figure or class, to just punching down against people and groups who have either done nothing to the author of that speech which warrants an aggressive response, or where the target of that speech is already a victim.

My opinion is that free-speech absolutism is a policy position that causes much more harm than good, and which erodes social cohesion. There should be perpetual debate about where we as a society accept where the line is between speech which is allowed and that which is disallowed.

And to wit, on the tea party analogy: how's that working for the US now?

etcetcetcetceta

2 days ago

>There's a huge spectrum of, let's call it, aggressive speech, ranging from…

Why do you talk like that?

Are you one of the redditors that has been invading this heterodox environment.

>There's a spectrum of aggressive speech, ranging from

Is sufficient and much less cringe.

wooger

3 days ago

I'd argue that nothing is "inarguable"

StrLght

3 days ago

And I'd argue that human dignity shall be inviolable

ThrowawayTestr

3 days ago

Define dignity

testfrequency

3 days ago

2 days ago

Why not? If shouting “fire” causes no harm, what’s the issue? And if it causes harm, isn’t that adequately served by civil lawsuits? Not everything on earth needs to be a criminal matter.

someonebaggy

2 days ago

You reckon a lot of crimes should be torts instead, eh? Which ones?

iamnothere

I'm not actually. How did you get "arrested for tweets" from my post where I said it was a video of a 20-something year old having a debate with someone at a pub?

I'll take that as confirmation that it happens all the time though - since this was evidently not an isolated case, as you have pointed out.

failbuffer

2 days ago

Unpopular opinion: your right to free speech includes the right to advocate for violence, so long as it's not imminent (as in inciting a riot).

That includes your right to support Hamas or Israel, your right to support abortion, your right to support defensive gun use, your right... well actually your right to support a lot of things given how readily innocuous things are described by opponents as "violence" or "assault".

Fortunately in the U.S. this is recognized under Brandenburg v. Ohio.

DavidNielsen

3 days ago

On TERF island, I seriously doubt that.

Quarrelsome

3 days ago

[flagged]

nullbio

2 days ago

[flagged]

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

You said:

> Considering they arrest people for saying "there are only two genders"

I invite you to come try that out. You'll be fine unless you're a complete penis about it. What you should probably clock is that Graham Linehan doxxes and harasses people online with his followers brigading. If you recall the bail conditions when he got arrested was that he had to stop posting on twitter for its duration. THAT'S the headline issue, he's a publisher with a big audience. He's not just saying it at the back of a pub, and he's one of those obsessives that posts about it all the time.

Do you see the difference between what you said and what he gets in trouble for? Reducing it to just saying "there are only two genders" is taking harassment, brigading and doxxing and putting it in a nice frock so you can pretend its a victim.

I've lived in my country for decades and have added nuance to this subject. What gives you the confidence that makes you think you're better informed about my nation that I am?

nullbio

2 days ago

The fact that you're quite clearly either ill-informed, or blinded by your own biases. I'm not sure why you keep mentioning this Graham person when I had never mentioned them. Seems like you're trying to reframe using a cherry-picked example.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-...

Do you think someone should be arrested for sharing a meme that says f** Hamas? Or did you not know about this?

It's common knowledge that the UK is arresting people on the daily for harmless things that no one actually cares about. Should someone go to jail for saying "fuck serial killers"? Is that a hate crime too?

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

> Do you think someone should be arrested for sharing a meme that says f* Hamas?

If you had an idea about our laws you'd realise that's not the problematic part. The issue is under the Equalities Act 2010 religion and ethnicity are protected characteristics. So its the "fuck Islam" and "fuck off to a Muslim country..." that is problematic here.

FYI using Fox News to try to understand the UK is like trying to run air traffic control with a Fischer-Price chatter telephone. Stating that I am ill-informed or blinded by bias when citing a yank source (who by their own definition are "entertainment news") as opposed to a serious broadcaster from the UK is quite the look.

nullbio

2 days ago

You didn't answer the question.

Do you not know how media works in the 21st century? They're republishing from UK sources. It was just the first hit on the SERPs because they have better SEO. Go find the original sources if you really want to. The point is that your country is putting people in prison for the dumbest reasons, and you apparently see no issue with it.

Quarrelsome

2 days ago

> You didn't answer the question.

Maybe don't use a source from the 1960s then. Victim cosplay is gross, so its no surprise I don't respond to it. Find me a contemporary source if you want to compare apples to apples. You want me to respond with some mostly irrelevant reference to ancient Greece or something? Cleon probably has a couple of tangential quotes we could explore.

Anybody that is worth listening to doesn't focus on the Hamas part like that source does. They focus on the parts that violate the Equalities Act 2010 because they know what they're talking about.

nullbio

2 days ago

[flagged]

tomhow

2 days ago

Please stop this. We've asked you before to observe the guidelines. HN is only a place where anyone wants to participate because others make the effort to keep the standards up rather than drag them down. We have to ban accounts that continue to act as though the standards don't apply to them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nullbio

21 hours ago

I'm sorry Tom. They were clearly trying to get a rise out of me, but I shouldn't have bitten. I'll refrain from engaging in the future.

> HN is only a place where anyone wants to participate because others make the effort to keep the standards up

Point well taken.

tomhow

6 hours ago

Appreciated!

DiogenesKynikos

If they were able, why would the UK government, or any other government, not also be able?

decoy4986

2 days ago

Barbing

3 days ago

> they dont have automatic detection

I thought they at least used something complex to attempt to prevent non-EU users using third-party app stores. I also recall a legitimate EU user is not allowed to travel abroad too long before losing access to those stores.

SXX

3 days ago

Might be in case of moving region to EU there are something like this, but to move it to US all you need is US gift card.

What Google does is completely different - they enforce local regulations on your accounts just if you keep using them within specific region for too long. Though Google dont actually change billing region or Google Play region.

cedws

2 days ago

I moved my Apple account region to Spain and used a Banco Santander bank account to fund it. Banco Santander allows UK citizens to open a bank account.

ofou

3 days ago

The UK is becoming 1984.

3 days ago

I think the person you're replying to was talking about the UK, not the US.

iamnothere

3 days ago

3 days ago

The Apple-vs-FBI narrative is constructed fiction. Sure, they didn't make a custom firmware to dump the phone's contents, but that's irrelevant. Everything relevant to the investigation on that phone was in the non-E2EE iCloud Backup, which the FBI got from Apple long before, via normal search warrant means. Apple likely either got an FAA702 order (aka PRISM, aka the "backdoor" that Tim Apple says doesn't exist - it allows the USG to access anyone's iCloud data immediately, with no warrant (it's not an encryption backdoor, just an access backdoor)) or a standard search warrant and most probably turned over everything they had in iCloud instantly, just as they do constantly when receiving a search warrant or FAA702 order. (As I mentioned, the FAA702 order fulfillment is likely instantaneous/automated, which amounts to direct access to the storage servers.)

The whole "Apple won't do what the USG wants" story is farce, engineered specifically to protect Apple's brand image. Following the Snowden drop when we all learned that the USG has unfettered realtime access to everything in iCloud without a warrant via FAA702, Apple had a major fucking crisis on its hands, along with a lot of other companies. (If you think the CIA can't read any object in S3, you simply don't understand how the world works. Note also that AWS has built a custom, one-off, airgapped AWS region ON PREM for the CIA. https://aws.amazon.com/federal/us-intelligence-community/ )

Those CEOs all went to DC and sat down with Obama and talked it out. The official cover story was something like "Obama wants help with healthcare.gov".

> The top leaders from the world’s biggest technology companies pressed their case for reform of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance operations at a meeting with President Obama on Tuesday, resisting attempts by the White House to portray the encounter as a wide-ranging discussion of broader priorities.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-ceo-meeting-with-obama-... (includes photo)

It is very likely that this media plan was discussed and agreed upon in those meetings. Otherwise, nobody sane in any government in Europe would ever buy an iPhone (or let their citizens do same), given that the USG can read all their photos and messages and emails and contacts in iCloud instantly and without a warrant.

(China of course requires Apple run the iCloud servers for Chinese users in China via a joint venture with a CCP-operated company, which preserves the same realtime full access to all iCloud/iMessage data in China for the CCP as PRISM does for the USG.)

Don't believe the marketing hype.

alt227

3 days ago

Heres a favourite of mine. Apple & Google were/still are syphoning off all mobile device push messages to US government. They flat out denied it for years until it got leaked from another source, as soon as it was out in the open they admitted and said they were doing it all along but weren't allowed to tell anybody due to government NDAs.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...

There’s a general regression towards fascist and right wing ideologies in the last few years and I don’t want to be up against a wall one day because someone did something with ignorant best intent.

p-e-w

3 days ago

> There’s a general regression towards fascist and right wing ideologies in the last few years

The “fascist” part (authoritarian/totalitarian tendencies) came long before the resurgence of the right, but most people seem to approve of those methods as long as they target those they dislike, so I won’t be shedding any tears for them when it’s their turn at last.

georgespencer

3 days ago

hughw

3 days ago

If you didn't want it before, you probably never will. It comes with a convenience cost and the risk you may permanently lose access to your iCloud stuff if you lose your password. With the normal level of privacy, Apple is there to help you or your loved ones get access to your stuff. Most people need that much more than they need inviolable privacy.

Barbing

3 days ago

I’m rolling the dice myself. No ADP here. If I were a political activist (US) I’d definitely need it.

I guess if I lose my phone on a trip, I wanna be able to walk into an Apple store and restore it from their cloud copy that the feds have backed up & pored over by LLMs too. (not sure that’s done in realtime for 100% of the population, but tokens will be cheap enough eventually - they have their pre-LLM solution too)

I think I keep Signal data mostly out of the cloud though, declining to use their latest features. Hidden notifications too. Is it only personal family updates, yes, but the principle makes me feel good.

coldtea

3 days ago

Maliciousness.

varispeed

3 days ago

Since Epstein is no more, the governments became crazy about going after people's private data, perhaps hoping to find some spice. Like some politicians lost their source.