WhatsApp could disappear from UK over privacy concerns, ministers told
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The last bit of legislation they brought in with similar properties led - completely and utterly predictably - to the arresting of peaceful protestors who hadn't even started protesting yet [0]
It was insanely obvious ahead of time that that would happen. And it's insanely obvious ahead of time again what's going to happen with this new legislation too.
It makes me extremely angry how hostile the UK seems to be becoming to its own citizens as well as its overseas friends.
Not everyone in the UK wants to treat everyone like a criminal until proven innocent, nor treat all foreigners as suspicious and unwelcome. Not even a majority now, retrospectively, even wanted to leave the EU.
I increasingly do not recognise our government as one that is in any kind of alignment with my values as a UK citizen or even as just a decent human being.
Edit: And don't even get me started on the crazy rhetoric coming from the National Conservatism event [1]
</rant>
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/06/head-of-uks-...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/16/terms-linke...
A few years pass, and somebody will say "But think of the children (abusers)", or "The terrorists can plot & plan, and we need to read their messages to stop that".
Was there a denial that there would be a problem from mainstream sources? If so, was the cat out of the bag moment followed by 'nuthin burger' from the same sources?
That's what seems to happen in Canada at least.
For example:
> UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called the Public Order Bill “deeply troubling legislation”, after it completed its passage through parliament on Wednesday.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/04/1136107
In fact, the UK category of the UN news feed makes for pretty embarassing reading in general, speaking as a Brit:
Didn't the government just suspend the constitution (that's a thing over there?) because of some peaceful, free-speech protected, protests in the capital and start arbitrary freezing protester's bank accounts?
every single political party in the UK is either for this law, or wants it strengthened. not only that, they're actively criticising the government for being too slow in adopting it.
and in a recent poll a majority want online speech to be regulated: https://inews.co.uk/news/online-safety-freedom-from-abuse-mo...
Labour pledges to toughen ‘weakened and gutted’ online safety bill https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/01/labour-pl...
Lib Dems: "However, does she accept that there are major gaps in this Bill? For instance, gaming is not covered. It is not clear whether things such as virtual reality and the metaverse are going to be covered." https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/munira-wilson/bill/2...
Cross-party support: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/15/online-safety-bi...
Similarly they (Labour) are not taking a strong enough position on honestly recognising the state of Brexit because they don't want to alienate their potential pro-brexit voters, nor are they taking a strong stand on a number of other policies which I think they should be.
The conservatives have lurched so far right that I can't help but feel that Labour is having to move in that direction too just to have a fighting chance of winning the next election. But this makes them not an effective enough opposition at the moment. Their strategy is clearly working - see uptick in pro-brexit votes in recent local elections - but I'm not sure at what cost...
So overall, personally, I'm just extremely disillusioned with all political parties right now. We have to recognise that we brought this on ourselves, collectively - such is the nature of democracy - but that doesn't help alleviate my current sense of despair!
but i am surprised by the liberal democrats. i don't really understand why they keep calling themselves "liberal" when for the past years they have been anything but liberal.
That said, I don't know enough about the UK's political parties to know along what axis the Lib Dems consider themselves to be "liberal".
why would you expect labour to be better?
they are more authoratitian than the Tories
they brought in the Identity Register, the Terrorism Act (90 day detention without charge), the RIP Act (forced decryption), attempted to remove the right to trial by jury and the defence of double jeopardy
along with countless more
Oh no, political parties moving in response to the expressed will of the general public in a democracy. What an outrage! How dare a party in a democratic system change its policy to match voter preferences. Won't someone think of the people that know better??
Consider a very simple model of a two party system, expressing views on one left/right axis. Members of the population vote for the political party that is closest to their views on that axis. Political parties want to win as many votes as possible.
Under that model and those assumptions, if one party moves in a particular direction, the 'correct' behaviour for the other party is to move in that direction also to capture more votes, regardless of what the underlying 'will' of the general voting public is.
They dont care about the people, they are simply occupying the political ground that has been abandoned by the other party.
The SNP motioned to have it repealed, they are still, sadly, a party in the UK.
There was a democratic vote in which a majority wanted to leave. Until such a vote is repeated, this is the current state of things. If there was a majority of people in the UK that wanted to join, there’s nothing stopping them from doing so, the EU would probably happily welcome the UK back, albeit on different terms.
You can hate your government all you want, but this is what the majority wanted and supposedly currently wants.
Putting something like that to a vote was itself insane and stupid.
Somehow this feels like that XKCD alt text[1] "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express."
If the best thing anyone can say in defense of Brexit is that it was "a democratic vote", that is an implicit concession that there is nothing else worth saying in its favour. There were 100 people on the bus, only 30 bothered to vote, 16 of those voted to drive the bus off a cliff and kill everyone, and now you are compelled to agree with that course of action because "it was a democratic vote"[2] and anything else would be anti-Democratic and therefore bad. It's pretty clear that there was a lot wrong with the vote (it was said to be non-binding then was treated as binding, for example, which may have affected how many people bothered to vote), and the media around it - claims made which have not panned out and the people who made the claims are not being held accountable for their misrepresentation, or the messaging around "control of borders" which (a) we already had, and (b) post-Brexit has more immigration not less, in fact record high levels[3], and etc.
[2] see also https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-... where internet communities drive the bus off the cliff and die due to fear of being called "intolerant".
You don’t think it’s weird that a majority were in favour of “a democratic vote” and a majority were in favour of the coronation of a new unelected monarch? Or the difference between a Democratic vote and having rules “pushed on us” by Europe’s votes? Or how people in London are closer to Calais than they are to Glasgow and do more trade to Europe but some how see it as us/them?)
(And you are even agreeing that we all got screwed over - but you are somehow blaming a guy from 7 years ago who didn't get elected, rather than the Conservative government in power whose demonstrated behaviour is screwing the ordinary people over and over, decade after decade).
Why would I argue about that? I'm not British. I don't make their decisions, and UK being/not-being in EU has zero effect on me. Devaluing the democratic process will have an effect on me. I kinda want my vote to not be entirely ignored if there's ever a popular referendum in my country (a non-zero possibility due to.. reasons, but the likely issues aren't related to the EU).
>You don’t think it’s weird that a majority were in favour of “a democratic vote” and a majority were in favour of the coronation of a new unelected monarch
The monarch has zero power.
>you are somehow blaming a guy from 7 years ago
I did follow the news. There was an option for the parliament to declare a new government without elections 4 years ago, which could have dramatically shifted from Brexit. This required Corbyn to vote for a compromise candidate to PM since Tory rebels would have never voted for him personally. Guess what happened? He said me or stay with Boris, and the UK ended with the 2020 elections and Boris.
You're happy to join in trying to close down the thread by dumping on the losers, why would you stop at arguing about it?
> "Devaluing the democratic process will have an effect on me."
Unless it involves the monarchy? Or all the other non-democratically run things like the civil service, companies, charities, the courts, etc. which are organised with a single CEO/leader/judge/hierarchy giving orders top down instead of democratically voting. And why would it be "devaluing the democratic process" if the vote had been arranged to require a supermajority instead of a simple majority, for example?
> "The monarch has zero power."
The monarch has power in a self-fulfilling way because they are famous and people listen to what they say; the monarch is Head of the Church of England and has power that way. The Monarch controls enormous wealth - estimated close to half a billion for the monarch and 88 billion for the combined UK royal family and has power and influence that way. They have power through networking with powerful people and organisations such as heading up the Commonwealth of Nations or weekly secret and private meetings with the Prime Minister. Even on a day to day basis the monarch is outside the law when it comes to not needing a passport or driving license and "civil and criminal proceedings cannot be taken against the Sovereign as a person" - are these things not devaluing what it means to live in a democracy, for you? That some people by birth have sovereign immunity to criminal procedings?
> "There was an option for the parliament to declare a new government without elections 4 years ago, which could have dramatically shifted from Brexit. This required Corbyn to vote for a compromise candidate to PM since Tory rebels would have never voted for him personally. Guess what happened? He said me or stay with Boris, and the UK ended with the 2020 elections and Boris."
Hang on, why aren't you blaming the "Tory rebels" for not voting for Corbyn, instead of blaming Corbyn? Why aren't you blaming the Tory government for not stepping down, instead of blaming Corbyn for not stepping down? Why aren't you blaming the Tory government for fucking things up, instead of blaming Corbyn for not saving the day?
Because a few of the arguments basically devolve to things that would affect me as explained above? I did get carried away...
>are these things not devaluing what it means to live in a democracy, for you?
Ultimately a democracy can contain single persons having a lot of unearned wealth and occasional meetings with the PM. If not, there are way bigger fish to fry (in the UK case: Murdoch for example). It would have been fine if the UK wanted a supermajority, but I wonder if membership was a politically survivable possibility if vote went the same way.
>Hang on, why aren't you blaming the...
I was describing the sequence of events. The Tories locked themselves into supporting Brexit once Cameron resigned, so the only possible alternative path came from the opposition. There were several opportunities to change course, but the opposition bungled it up over and over even when the had the votes. In my country, it's obvious that when parliament has the votes for an alternative coalition, your duty is to compromise to get the government out, not hold on for PM post.
If that's too politically charged, the same effect happens when there's a shark attack. Never mind it almost never happens, world-wide, and has negligible impact on the human population, but when an attack occurs suddenly there's an outcry to spend millions on patrols, shark hunts, whatever. Millions that could have been spent on much more pressing needs, like feeding malnourished kids or researching a Covid vaccine. And putting pressure on wildlife that is already under pressure. It's always a poor decision, but it plays to the voters.
Who can read this riddle?
Lile I get when people are racist, i get when they immigrants, but now we ahve MPs bragging that they swam in Sewage. How does that happen???
What I would criticise him on is that a) the dream of the ratchet of progress making things better and better for future generations isn't working, b) it's backsliding, c) it's backsliding under his government's governance.
>Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
>There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.=
> Eschew flamebait. [...]. Omit internet tropes.
King: It goes well!, We're winning!
Peasant: So why are we so poor?
King: You're losing
[some cartoon, long forgotten the source for it]
Why not simply vote with your feet and move to SV. There are a lot of Brits here, and a lot looking to move here. It's the only way it will change.
The above statement is absurd right? I'm legitimately asking because I feel as though I must be missing something. Maybe it will stop a few folks and that is the victory? I think the new entries learning that the technology is working might be more numerous than the people who get stopped. Pedos read news don't they?
I don't believe at all that the means justify the ends, and I think the ends in this case will be only a very minor bother for criminals. But there is some logic to this concept.
Totally agree. This is partly what makes me so frustrated with this sort of legislation, because the technical arguments and assumptions that they base a lot of their legislative discussions on don't seem to make any sense at all.
Unfortunately, banning something from the App Store and the Google Play Store is enough to stop most people from using it. Wrongthinkers might move to Telegram, but they still need to use mainstream platforms to get new recruits.
[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Unencrypted and on-the-public-record political party and government communications will worry MPs more than it worries "terrorists and paedos".
Lots of governments do.
The "news" is that on 17 April 2023, the heads of WhatsApp, Signal and other companies published an open letter questioning "the Government's stated intention to protect end-to-end encryption and respect the human right to privacy" [2], and on 27 April 2023, a member of the House of Lords said that "services such as WhatsApp will potentially leave the UK" [3] if the Bill is passed. The debate is actually pretty informed and a refreshing antidote to the cynicism about democracy expressed elsewhere, until you recall that the House of Lords is not that democratic.
[1]: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
[2]: https://blog.whatsapp.com/an-open-letter
[3]: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-04-27/debates/AC7C7...
Obviously on Android there's sideloading, even on iOS to a lesser extent, but I think the idea is that if there's any technical hurdle required to overcome this limitation, then the bad people will be less likely to use the workarounds. Obviously some percentage of criminals will do these workarounds, and I suspect the lawmakers even know that, but I think the idea is that any percentage reduction of criminals being able hide stuff is positive.
To be 100% clear, I think this is a very bad proposal; I think E2E encryption is important and should be protected, not threatened, I'm just saying that the rationale isn't completely incompetent.
Repos like F-Droid will keep hosting them.
Forbidding installing apps from non-official sources is obviously bad and I don't think most people want it.
Whoa, how would they do that? Or is that just a british MP not knowing what he's talking about?
[0]: https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~dstefan/pubs/smith:2018:browser.pdf
The only government doing the right thing on this front is France. They contribute and host their own Matrix instance for government use.
If you see countries like India, Brasil, Nigeria... They pretty much replaced their telephone infrastructure with Whatsapp. Like it or not, the telephone infra gives law enforcement access to all metadata, in some cases without a warrant, and allow wiretap with a warrant. Whatsapp gives both these powers to US agencies and not local ones. And thats what the UK have a problem with.
Source?