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- Hacker News
- Only Brits?
Privacy shouldnt be privilege or for tech-savvy only.
Freedom of speech cant be regulated without being lost.
- Obviously no, not only Brits, but the Brits are the ones under discussion because they're the ones being actively threatened with ChatControl laws.
Speech is regulated widely in many ways. There is no country with absolute freedom of speech.
by jdiff - Unless Brits are ready to rise up and topple their government, this poll means nothing.
- They can rise up on occasion; The Guardian news outlet frequently linked here on HN was founded following the Peterloo Massacre (1812).
That sacrifice didn't see fruit for two decades until the Reform Act 1832 opened the franchise to allow more the right to vote.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre
by defrost - To all of us, British or otherwise, who're posting our rabbit-holing Democracy and Brexit comments, a moment of cutting light relief. Enjoy some "Yes, Prime Minister".by IndySun
- In theory yes, in practice no.
In theory everybody supports healthy eating, in practice most people are overweight or obese.
In theory everybody thinks exercising, energy conservation, caring for the environment is good, in practice almost no one does it.
In theory everybody thinks studying and reading good books is a good thing, in practice most people just want to switch off their brains in front of the television or social media.
Most people lie mostly to themselves. Politicians and marketers know this, that's why they only tell people the lies they want to hear.
by diego_moita - GCHQ has done it's job of obfuscating it's existence pretty well, for most Brits to still think they've had any privacy at all for the last few decades.by DrMandalay
- That’s tinfoil hat nonsense. Of course there is privacy, otherwise those agencies wouldn’t be constantly lobbying for more invasive surveillance powers. What would be the point of that, if they could already read everything?by p-e-w
- A few people mention EU. Let me remind you:
> European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy, Framing Mass Surveillance as “Lawful Access”
https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-b...
- How much of this has been approved by the parliament?by inigyou
- (2025)by fsflover
- A long time ago I walked into a public library to get a library card, already my ID in hand. Staff looked at me aghast "why would we need an ID for a card, that'd be ridiculous!". I feel Brits take privacy quite seriously.by janpeuker
- And yet, they voted for the governments that killed privacy and established surveillance in public, because they love privacy so much.by 7bit
- Well, they would have loved to stop migration and voted in droves for brexit for that. Cant have that though, democracy or not, can vote for any party, but cant have that result they all promise before the vote closes and never deliver once the vote is in.by 21asdffdsa12
- Not only the Brits. Take a look at this, especially the charts, and compare it to what us Europeans are getting - that's democracy for you.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-07/seven-ou...
by bsian - FWIW, Brexit was never, ever, ever about stopping migration.
It was about right wing elites deciding which migrants they wanted, and at best about regaining control of that policy from the EU. It was sold in a racist and bigoted way.
The reason we have less control over illegal migration is exactly Brexit, which, as people were warned at the time, torpedoed our actually cushioned position with respect to "first safe country" asylum rules, and meant we had no cross-border agreements with France.
The "Brexit" that people thought they were getting was always in their own mind because it had no definition. It was an imaginary victory which only has downsides, just as was pointed out.
by dofm - Absurd to suggest that anyone voting for Brexit knew what they were voting for - by design of the pro-Brexit shysters.by jen20
- Almost as if democracy isn't real and all statecraft is driven by intra-elite conflicts.
- The sad thing of course was that the people coming across on boats or clinging to the underside of lorries etc are not EU citizens arriving legally. Plus it's not like EU is the only source of migration (hellow commonwealth).
I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc. We saw it with Trump's election, we saw it with Brexit. We'll probably see it with a reform majority in the UK parliament next election too.
There are global trends that the PM of the UK cannot change, but we live in a world of instant gratification so if the current PM can't make things change literally overnight, people are angry and annoyed.
Go read the comments section on any UK newspaper (left or right, tabloid or broadsheet) and the comments are really eye-opening (recommend doing this to at least get a flawed and partial cross section of what the vibe is). People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers. Might explain why we've had so many PMs these past few years.
by mattlondon - I am not convinced they do, they keep voting to give away their privacy every year.
- First past the post isn't a genuine democracy.by RobotToaster
- Is there really a good party with only the "right" things in their manifesto?
Democracy usually does not come with À la carte options.
by devsda - No, they don't. Turnout in the UK has dropped significantly because it doesn't matter who you vote for, the outcome is the same.
- They just don’t read past the headline and the headline usually involves paedophiles.by badgersnake
- Every political party in the UK supports things like the Digital Rights Act. So what is a person to do?by alt227
- I can't imagine this is at top of mind for many voters, or even in mind at all. People are more concerned with things like the cost of living, immigration and things like local planning law.by dkdbejwi383
- As a Brit I've never been asked to vote on that. If you are talking about the general election it's not a main issue compared to other things on the ballot.by tim333
- That’s the weakness of most modern “democracies”: people vote once every few years for one or other party who then do largely whatever they want, outside of some immutable manifesto commitments (which are often flexible anyway).
So no, people don’t vote for such things - they vote for parties who turn out to do such things at some point.
by mft_ - Generally speaking the more important an issue is, the less it is allowed to be affected by democratic processes. That's why Brexit was such a big upset, it bucked the trend (the management miscalculated, nobody expected the result and would not have put it to referendum otherwise).by HPsquared
- Yep, for once we had actual direct democracy in this country, they won't make that mistake againby ifwinterco