this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Britain never had free speech and always have been a absolute nanny state. It's a prime example that government overreach does not result in any safety improvements.

[–] WiseScorpio@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

What is this 'could be' business?

[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 15 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

How many whistleblowers and reporters did Bush and Obama charge with the Espionage Act?

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Come on... Things have been getting worse for a while, but this is a huge turning point

[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I’d still like to see the numbers comparatively

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

What are you talking about? What numbers?

Numbers are a tool. This is apples and orange drink, you can't reduce this to numbers

[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago

Whatever the fuck that means

[–] Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 21 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty much every company that matters decided to go full 1984 censorship and surveillance all at the same time. And the governments are more than happy to play along. UK, US, etc. Pretty much all of "the west"

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

They are paving the way for feudalism to replace liberal democracies,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 6 hours ago

Big time.

And thanks for the link! learned a new philosophy tag for the silicon-valley-government-buying-neo-nazi-death-cult.

🌠the more you know (about the enemy) and all that. . .

[–] Corelli_III@midwest.social 76 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

"and america could be next!" they literally have domestic concentration camps in america there is no freedom there

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

But how nice of the headline to imply such things don't exist while pretending to be shocked about other things

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 28 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Hopefully this doesn't devolve into another USA vs UK shit flinging contest. Authoritarianism is on the rise everywhere, Trump and Starmer are both utilising state power to crack down on dissent and opposition. Those of us who are opposed to this shit are on the same side.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 6 hours ago

100%.

Doesn't matter the country.

Do you work for a living?

Do you want to live without fear of governments and corporations breathing down your neck waiting to make an example of you or profit from you?

...Then we should be on the same side. Simple as.

Good-natured jabs aside, of course. ;) Love ya, Brits. <3

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org 108 points 1 day ago (26 children)

Just what the fuck is this timeline? I was born in Russia and spent a good chunk of my life basically idolizing USA, UK, EU, other European countries, English-first countries, etc.

By the time I had the language and professional skills to try and migrate into a probably really good life, suddenly there's a rise of authoritarianism, loss of privacy, rollback to the political right and intolerance and hatred and whatever.

There's still a long way for these nations to go before things are as bad as here, but the differences still are dwindling at an alarming rate and I often find myself wondering if it's gonna be worth the effort if I want to eventually move to someplace that still respects privacy and freedom and is sensible about the Internet and digital technologies.

There's still a lot of perks from knowing English as well as I do, but at this point, I think I'd have to learn German or Swedish or some other northern EU language if I ever make up my mind.

And by the time I'm ready, these countries will roll out some bullshit, too, right?

And then there's Visa and MasterCard telling you what you can and can't purchase because some conservative cesspool wrote some emails - but gamers' emails are ignored...

It's all so demoralising. I miss looking forward to the future with hope and excitement for things.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

There's always Canada, a similarly large yet sparsely populated land with awful winters and bad food, you'll fit right in.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Excuse me, bad food? I'll have you know we have at least 10 flavors of poutine truck at every public event

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 15 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

As someone still in Russia, a bit of the same.

That is, I expected things to get worse, but not "avalanche of shit, cockroaches and rat bones" levels of worse.

Except the idolization part started receding much earlier, when I actually learned English well enough to understand that these are very intolerant societies. Say, where in Russia people disagreeing with you on some key matters would look at you like a fool or just decide to stop this conversation so that neither of you would offend the other, in English-speaking countries, it seems, there was simply no way to survive outside of some echo chamber and God forbid you find none to fit into. But that was like 10-15 years ago, now, of course, in Russia you can get jailed or strongly fined for words.

But I thought there's some deeper wisdom and in those harsher societies people are also somehow better capable to maintain their common freedom and dignity yadda-yadda. In fact that's not what I see.

As a bit of gloating - at least now the "why are you not all revolting against Putin" Western types can be answered with their own regrettable example instead of common sense and logic, these are fine, but an example is more efficient.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

in those harsher societies people are also somehow better capable to maintain their common freedom and dignity

that used to be the case, back in 1960s when the economy was booming and workers were in high demand. they got paid a lot, and if you have money, you can do whatever you want and live a good life, in the US at least.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

At the same time "global economic integration" and "global trade" including outsourcing of production to countries with cheaper labor were sold to the populace as a logical continuation of liberal democracies. Increasing efficiency, thus increasing the level of life. That the level of life also depends on having leverage, and moving critical production outside means reduction of leverage, nobody thought (well, the majority of population didn't think that, bread and circuses).

While this is a system old as humanity, Chinese imperial bureaucracy and Roman one and Assyrian one and Persian one worked like this, to build hierarchical systems. Troops quelling rebellions in one province are from one in the opposite part of the empire. Troops fighting wars in a province are never local, because wars between empires always involve stimuli to change masters. Bureaucrats are too foreign, everything is foreign and not reliant on locals. Even food and drinks are sent from other provinces and tightly guarded - despite that being far more expensive then than now.

So today in a western country all the digital products are made mostly in other countries, all the electronics are made mostly in other countries, much of the food and much of the clothes and much of everything. And this is treated like the good free western way of life. The further from WWII, the less everybody feared such a situation.

While the firmer is integration, the harder it's to leave it, and the harder it's to leave, the less meaningful any freedom is - your vote matters only for the bosses in you part, and they have the combined power of the bosses to deceive you, to misdirect your vote, or to plainly steal it, or to go around it.

Historically integration built empires.

The USSR, a recent example of an honest attempt at autarky, which is often used as an example of who tries autarky and why, didn't really try. It's the other way around actually, in 20s it was rather democratic, in 30s it was basically buying foreign technologies and machinery for gold and grain for everything (that's the Stalin's industrialization), in 40s too (war and all), and the only parts of its history where it really was trying to do autarky significantly enough was during the Thaw and Brezhnev, and while that didn't work so well, that's also the most democratic period of its history.

But at the same time high autarky degree means lower level of life. I've been excited with Trotskyism once, despite most of time being a ancap. Because, well, it involves direct democracy and mass participation in all political activity, and no career bureaucrats and politicians, the need for that is substantiated by any limited minority of politicians or bureaucrats being possible to covertly threaten, blackmail, buy, groom, etc.

I don't subscribe to their "democratic planning of the economy using modern means of computation" thing - I agree it's possible if Amazon is doing just that on scale far bigger than needed for a government in one country, don't get me wrong, and that demands fewer resources than all this "AI research around", but there's inherent degeneracy in such a planning system because, as a specific example, you don't know you have to design and produce a good that would be in high demand but isn't already produced.

I think Trotskyism in many of its parts is still very good, actual participation not only is beneficial for the system, it also gives the populace the psychological understanding that politics is not about casting your vote once or twice for the guys who frighten you less. Feeling of holding the wheel. Personal responsibility and ability to change things for good. These are important exactly to compensate worse level of life (locally worse, because good level of life combined with tyranny eventually becomes worse too) emotionally, because otherwise it'll be impossible to institute a political system nobody wants.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 18 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

And then there’s Visa and MasterCard telling you what you can and can’t purchase because some conservative cesspool wrote some emails

They didn't just write emails, they actually picked up the phone and called them, non stop. They made it into a problem that couldn't be ignored. Gamers haven't done that, unfortunately.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 34 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

what's happening is our current system right now is in the process of failing. it's dying, it didn't work and it can no longer sustain itself. Someone once said something along the lines of "When the current system fails, the next one will consist of whatever ideas are left"

So what ideas are left? the ideas of the far right, just like far right ideas are ALWAYS left when a system is about to die. So all these governments, all these wealthy individuals, all these people that have the most to gain are are going start backing the new up coming system. We're seeing it in real time.

But this has happened time and time again. We're a collectively dumb species and love watching repeats. it's always the same song and dance "well lets go this way, sure it didn't work out last time but I don't believe it'll happen to us THIS time".

So it's not so much "what the fuck is this timeline" but rather "well it's our generations turn for bullshit". And it always skips a generation. So the boomers didn't experience it, but their parents did, and now it's our turn. Hopefully our children or our Kids children will be smarter than boomers but...we as humans sure do love watching reruns.

i believe that "far-right" sentiments are a natural defense mechanism against a perceived threat.

if your tribe is in danger, you start kicking the foreigners out, you start going back culturally to what you perceive as "safe",

it's literally like if a windows computer fails to boot properly 3 times in a row, it re-boots into "safe mode", which is a locked-down, dumbed-down, simplified version of the actual os. we are the computer. if people experience hardships too often throughout their daily lifes, they start "dumbing down" and "rebooting into safe mode". just that that safe mode causes more hardships for everyone else. and that's where we're at right now.

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[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 42 points 22 hours ago

That was lost a while ago, but it's nice more people are noticing that it's getting worse.

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 25 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

Uh, America had free speech? First I'm hearing about it.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

With a president meddling in both universities and media free speech, there is no way to seriously say USA has free speech.
But even before these issues freedom of speech was very challenged in USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

[–] bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip 9 points 16 hours ago

If you're wealthy enough, you can do whatever you want.

Freedom™

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[–] Jocker@sh.itjust.works 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

What's happening in Britain, thought current government was a good one?

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 18 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Labour is centrist and they desperately want to exert more control. English are sheep, so no one will protest daddy government.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 5 hours ago

Someone call up the fine people of France and ask for lessons on how it's done!

(Heck, we North American should, too...)

[–] teuniac_@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

Supposedly centrist. They're curious whether being populist right wing on some issues will win over Reform UK voters. It's just that they're so curious and are doing this so often that they're well on their way into morphing into a right wing party.

so no one will protest daddy government.

Yea this is a problem..

[–] obbeel@mander.xyz 12 points 20 hours ago

Very information heavy article. I appreciate that.

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