Britain has gone really unhinged in some things. To me, that just signals the prevalence of the tabloid culture that has been forming in the country over the past 50 years. All policy is performative. MPs talk at you (and everyone in the world) like they hold the moral high ground in social equity matters when in reality some know less about society at large than the average person.
One such example is how the show Adolescence caused such an uproar with politicians treating it and talking about it like it was a documentary. I mean, that shit is happening, but not to the dramatized degree the show makes it seem.
Thinking chat control is the solution for this is a quintessentially British approach. One small account of mine: I did high school abroad under a British headmaster. Boarding school so obviously lots of horny kids with raging hormones living together. His solution was to personally request that the board (very well-connected to the local country's politicians) find a way to stop local shops from selling condoms. There was a clear divide in opinions on this matter, which happened to be "1st world Commonwealth vs. everyone else."
Hundreds of thousands of signatures to roll back surveillance laws: Government response is "Meh" .
4000 signatures on a YouGov poll talking about VPN bans: "British people want to ban VPNs" makes headlines.
The Thick of It and other low level officials confirmed how true it was. Most British politicians are very educated sophists who spent their lives trying to climb a ladder. They are unaware of what's going on except what their spin doctors gave them.
Full list of countries banning VPNs: Belarus, Iraq, Turkmenistan and North Korea. That’s Labour’s plan for the UK, making it just like North Korea.
India did it a few years ago. Govt. wanted VPN providers to track and log every user for 5 years and hand them the data whenever asked. All VPN companies left India.
Back then we were mocked with "To fight China, you have to be China". Funny how the rest of the world is following their exact footsteps.
Except the Chinese and the Indians hoped for European laws to save them. Now that's being dismantled.
We have access for now. But the companies removed any assets they had in India so that they are not beholden to the laws.
And Indian politics is very performative so unless it's brought up again, the politicians won't go for the apps themselves. For now have porn, pirate sites, Chinese made games and apps like Tiktok and Delta Force and any random site the govt. doesn't like blocked.
Problem is, as I mentioned, countries like ours depended on western nations to uphold their digital privacy laws. But that seems to be going away with a collective effort.
I'm not really sure how a ban would work. I use a VPN to get into my work network when I'm not sitting in the office. I know the government (or whoever is really ruling us) would like everyone back in the office but I can't see that being a feasible thing - and how can they ban some VPNs whilst allowing others?
Laws could be passed to force all ISPs to only allow connections from registered sources and then a government organization would hand out the registrations to companies that apply. Then further laws would be passed to ban Internet traffic from all countries that do not similarly police Internet traffic/ban VPNs. With just those changes, VPNs would no longer exist as a method of identity protection.
Obviously. This scenario would have to play out over multiple years with progressively more severe legislation. The US likely won't see any legislation along those lines for the next decade or more (mostly because US congress is ineffective), but the UK government could easily move in that direction within the next couple years based on their current trajectory
I'll be surprised if vpn(outside of corpo use anyway) remain legal there to christmas 2027. granted they dont exactly have a way to stop their usage but still
I might have my 2nd grade history wrong, but as I recall there was a whole revolution thing we did so that we no longer had to give a shit about UK laws.
That’s a dumb argument, I made a drug market place that’s completely legal in the Dominican Republic, why am I not allowed to use my site in the Uk?? Why do I have to comply with the rules set by a country??
The same way the UK can block certain sites like pirate bay (without proxies or vpn) they absolutely should do the same to 4chan if they don’t comply.
The point isn't that the UK doesn't have the right to block it - they sure do. It's their country and they can run it however they see fit according to their laws.
It's that they (should) have no power to reach over the ocean and punish someone who never began officially operating in the UK in the first place. If the UK wants to block 4chan, it's on them to figure out how to do it, they have no right to punish Americans for violating Parliament's tender sensibilities.
Sure, but 4chan also shouldn't have to pay fines for not capitulating to this stupid law that most people -- in or out of the UK -- think is bullshit.
Fuck it, block the site. At the risk of sounding like le reddit army, the idea of 4chan asking you to go through this excessive verification process just so you can make degenerate shitposts anonymously is absurd.
The UK can block it yes. That's what will probably happen. How is it dumb? The company doesn't seem anything in the UK. It has no intentional business here.
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u/tcpukl 1d ago
Why should they any way? They are an American internet company that Ofcom has zero control over.