The key thing about the UK goverment is that they are trying to ban protesting, and if you protest, you get a jail sentence twice as long as a rapist will. Anyone who thinks that 1) criminals will be caught if end to end encryption is ended, and 2) that is the motive of the UK goverment with Priti Patel as home secertary, is deluded.
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UK Government Readies Anti-Encryption Publicity Campaign to 'Keep Children Safe' Online
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We Brits aren't. The Goverment and their patsy's are.
I am (as the name indicates) originally from the UK. Every time I visited after moving to the US I was taken aback by how... influenced the public opinion in the UK is. Scarfolk style propaganda is so close to reality rather than parody and *everywhere*. The Sun and Mail generally points people to vote in percentages of the population that would make Fox News envious.
It does not shock me that they're going to use a "think of the children!" campaign to try and push back on basic digital privacy.
The UK has been months away from going full on V for Vendetta for several years now. It's generally two steps toward it, two steps back. It may be the most easily swayed publics at large in the West, by a wide margin.
It does not shock me that they're going to use a "think of the children!" campaign to try and push back on basic digital privacy.
The UK has been months away from going full on V for Vendetta for several years now. It's generally two steps toward it, two steps back. It may be the most easily swayed publics at large in the West, by a wide margin.
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I've no doubt the clowns at Behavioural Insights Ltd are involved in this. Have a quick read up on them.
BI was a department in the UK government. They once drafted three different letters to send to users of a tax avoidance scheme, to see which letter got the best result (i.e. more people left the scheme and paid the right amount of tax). One worked well, and so HMRC used it going forward. The other two caused distress and mental health issues. They never apologise for the cock ups, or for using the public as guinea pigs in their plans. BI was later spun off from the government, making its staff a ton of money.
We should always be concerned about the safety of our children but, at the risk of starting a firestorm here, it worries me when the government tries to justify new laws on the basis of a risk that is not exactly minimal but is overstated to build support for a hidden governemnt agenda.
As an example consider terrorism, because public data is available. We are told that the security services are forever spotting and breaking up terrorist plots. So let's look at the evidence for this claim, which they hide away (why?) but is there to be found.
Starting with this rather long link https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...and-stop-and-search-great-britain-quarterly-u
and dropping down to this embedded link in that document we find ...
This table tells us that out of 181 arrested for terrorism in the UK (the figure quoted in the press) only 16 were convicted. But if you pursue this rabbit hole it turns out that most of the remaining 16 cases received a sentence of 2 years or less. This is the the sort of sentence that can be received for beating someone up. Suddenly the justification for special action has evaporated.
Returning to the original topic the first link (Sheet A-A.05b) tells us that in the case of Child Abduction there have only been two individuals arrested under the Child Abduction Act over the last 20 years.
If the government wants to force us to use unencrypted communications then please don't lie to us about the reason and just says that 'it makes our job easier'.
As an example consider terrorism, because public data is available. We are told that the security services are forever spotting and breaking up terrorist plots. So let's look at the evidence for this claim, which they hide away (why?) but is there to be found.
Starting with this rather long link https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...and-stop-and-search-great-britain-quarterly-u
and dropping down to this embedded link in that document we find ...
This table tells us that out of 181 arrested for terrorism in the UK (the figure quoted in the press) only 16 were convicted. But if you pursue this rabbit hole it turns out that most of the remaining 16 cases received a sentence of 2 years or less. This is the the sort of sentence that can be received for beating someone up. Suddenly the justification for special action has evaporated.
Returning to the original topic the first link (Sheet A-A.05b) tells us that in the case of Child Abduction there have only been two individuals arrested under the Child Abduction Act over the last 20 years.
If the government wants to force us to use unencrypted communications then please don't lie to us about the reason and just says that 'it makes our job easier'.
If this doesn’t work maybe they can try telling people Santa drowns an elf every time an encrypted message is sent.
The UK public is the worst when it comes to deciding on something favorable for themselves!
Now the interesting thing about these legislation things is we can mostly just ignore them like we do with the rest of the laws here anyway.
Or that’s what we’ve been taught by our political representatives anyway.
Or that’s what we’ve been taught by our political representatives anyway.
My older brothers were born in England in the 70s and I have always been exposed to the classic british culture from birth, especially when I was a kid in the 90s.
Films, Comedy, Music...the lot.
Because of that, I learned to speak British English years before the national average (some people know very little English here, even in adult life) and it kickstarted my ongoing love for the British Language.
I live in southern Europe, however 99.9% of my life is in English, and the only occasions in which I use my native language is when I speak to parents and friends; everything else is in English (including my thoughts most of the time).
When I was in my early teens I became obsessed with British music and in my late teens I fell in love with cassic british comedy, my favourite show being Only Fools and Horses.
I was so fascinated with the classic British culture of tolerance and free thought but with time, since the new millenium I'd say, I started seeing a decline and Britain actually lost what is was famous for.
In british culture freedom of speech and press was such a trademark and it pains me to see Great Britain as the example of the opposite today...
Repression, Control (camera and surveillance everywhere), Censorship, Propaganda...
Especially London; I used to love the city in the late 90s, but with each subsequent visit it lost some of its appeal to me, up until 2015, which is the last time I went there.
London is a very dangerous and oppressive place these days (In my super humble opinion) and I lost any interest in moving there, while it was my dream 20 years ago.
UK citizens are right to be very suspcious of law enforcement because when the London bombings happened, the UK law authourites pushed the government for more rights to help protect against acts of terrorism but cricts warned the UK public that the system would be abused and they were right. The UK government introduced Terrorism acts which the police said they would not abuse but what did the UK public see? time and time again the use of terrorism law being used against citizens for non-terrorism related crimes but if the police said it was terrorism related it could allow the police to act swifter in getting the crime resolved and the person sent to prison.
Now we have the same police authourities saying they want end to end encryption to end because it would allow better protection of UK children. Given what the police have done with terrorism laws, it stands to reason that they will abuse what ever power they are given dealing with end to end encryption meaning it will go well beyond the scope of just protecting UK children.
Sadly, this publicity stunt will get the ear of rightwing rag the Daily Mail. Look forward to plenty of completely biased coverage. They want to regulate *everything under the sun* apart from business.
At times perhaps, but no more than others. We didn't at least put V chips into our TVs...
If that is true, and I too have read that it happened, I'd like to see a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice charge, or two.
The idea that self-deleting messages were actually mandated in some circumstances shows that the intention was to avoid scrutiny.
I understand that argument and I doubt anyone on this forum is in favor of child abuse. Just about everyone agrees it's a problem that needs attention.
The problem with the proposed solution is that the price we'll pay for ending E2E encryption is much steeper than the problem it solves and it invites other types of abuse with it.
Outlawing E2E encryption so police can more easily catch child abusers is like saying we should outlaw cars because tens of thousands of innocent people die every year in traffic accidents.
E2E encryption is a technology, a tool, that can be used for both good and evil - just like any other tool, including the internet.
So you’d rather “stick with the devil you know”? Without any disrespect with the exception of the Iraq war and PFI funding Labour did a hell of a lot better than the more than decade of Tory bliss we’ve had. National Debt? Higher, policing? Worse, NHS? Worse, education? Local school can’t even buy books now as an ‘academy’. Child poverty? Yep up. Tax? Up! The only thing they’ve done better is not poking as many foreign bears with sticks.
Noble, wonderful goal to work towards: protecting our children. However, it feels largely disingenuous when governments won't do the very basic things to protect children (or citizens/legal residents of any age) when it doesn't support their stakeholders' agenda but suddenly, when it supports the needs of a surveillance state, protecting children suddenly becomes the most important and noble goal.
If the UK (or any other developed nation's government) truly cared "about the children" and their exploitation, we could start with showing that concern for starving, hungry, marginalized children struggling to grow due to malnutrition both in the UK and abroad, the endless wars whose victims are children unable to eat, get an education, or be left parentless because of drone strikes on entire villages that have killed innocents every day.
But, suddenly, instead, we're supposed to believe that giving the Home Office authority to review every message "for the children's safety" is actually the agenda?
Nah, not buying it.
If the UK (or any other developed nation's government) truly cared "about the children" and their exploitation, we could start with showing that concern for starving, hungry, marginalized children struggling to grow due to malnutrition both in the UK and abroad, the endless wars whose victims are children unable to eat, get an education, or be left parentless because of drone strikes on entire villages that have killed innocents every day.
But, suddenly, instead, we're supposed to believe that giving the Home Office authority to review every message "for the children's safety" is actually the agenda?
Nah, not buying it.