How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale.
Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?
As far as I can see is a lie the website has made up. None of their links include the word subversion. Subversion is not part of British law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion#United_Kingdom
Is there some reality to this or is the website just making stuff up to object to some things they dislike?
Not because of being afraid of government censorship, but because of the sheer futility of fighting peoples faith and outmoded ideas of how our market place of ideas works.
Counter speech, is NOT working. "the best ideas rise to the top" is untrue. We don't have an information economy, we have a content economy. Its the equivalent of the junk food era, just for content.
Governments around the world are going to enact speech controls. Voters are clamoring for it. Its going to eventually be a disaster.
I also do not think that there is going to be any effective opposition, if people keep showing up to battle lines drawn in the 90s and 2000s.
If you want a market place of ideas, you have to figure out how to ensure its a FAIR market place. Not a place where you pit regular folk against corporate PR teams, information teams, and behemoths of all kinds.
And for those holding out hope for decentralized solutions (Mastodon, Bluesky): These have a chance, but there is no solution to moderation labour and costs.
Then, mainly because of this, the group Palestinan Action was classified as a terrorist group. Since the thousands of people have been arrested in the UK for support of terrorism, for holding signs that say "I support Palestinian Action" and the like.
Is it because I mentioned the entity name?
Here is the comment:
"It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel.
It’s truly shameful to see such developments."
Funny that nobody mentions that these things are not actually coming from government, but were lobbied by asset managers and big corporations.
This is text book fascism (marriage of big corporations and government).
Nobody voted for this.
It really does feel like a hopeless situation. In one camp the woolly liberals being fuzzy as ever thinking if only everyone could sing happily together everything will be great (again?), and on the other those wanting to open pandora's box of fascist delights, without any sight of quite what is inside before you get to the bottom, somehow believing nothing in there will turn on them in the process.
But knowing the UK, they'll probably use it to jail people who post mean things on twitter.
Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel.
It’s truly shameful to see such developments.
Now, the British government are arresting her citizens for "unapproved" social media posts done.
How quickly that their government are devolving.