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Comment by CommanderData | Hacker News Reader

I hate our government but the media has a massive part to play in propping them up.

All the tech companies should stand together and be ready to block access to their services. Imagine if the UK was left without access to just WhatsApp, let alone iMessage etc. It's not irresponsible or unsafe, there's always SMS for which the govenment has full control over.

Also I don't think any of these companies should fear an competitors. Why? These services are so ingrained a few weeks if not months of protest will not change anything. When the govnement finally succumbs restoration will be easy and the numbers will go back to normal quickly.

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I watched an interview with David Yelland, former editor of the Sun, recently where he said that the news media in the UK is more or less run by the same minority class of people who typically work as spads[1]. That would follow your point that the media props them up, because it is a homogenous and tight knit community now between media and politics.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/19/spads-speci...

Agree - a UK without WhatsApp would be a UK in revolt. Literally everyone I know from teens to oldies organises their lives on it. Lack of WhatsApp would be enough to drag our sorry apathetic lazy non-protesting arses out onto the street

It absolutely wouldn’t. Just because we use a lot of something doesn’t mean we care about it. We are extremely politically apathetic.

You need targeted messages on social media and savvy campaigns to get people irate. Eg “campaigners stopping a pregnant mother getting to hospital”. That’s what gets people foaming at the mouth. Even then that’s usually just limited to angry replies on social media

It’s also illegal to peacefully protest now

People protest when it affects them personally, and aside from the air we breathe it’s hard to think of anything more critical than WhatsApp. Losing it would be a bigger shitstorm than Truss, IMO. And the media all rely on WhatsApp so the real knives would be out.

I agree and platforms explaining why access has been blocked. It needs to be politicised perhaps EFF can get involved with a page explaining it and steps for action (emailing MPs, those that voted for it etc). We are supposed to be a democracy after all right?

This govenment is nutorious for it's u-turns. I would be happy to see another in this case.

FB, Apple and Microsoft need to start this campaign ASAP.

The EFF are very US focused and I feel they often pay lip service elsewhere. It's disappointing and why I stopped donating.

As another commenter said, nobody in the UK is going to protest over this. As a downbeaten kingdom (in my opinion), we have no fight left in most of us. People will sigh and move to another app en masse.

The issue I have with all of this is that we think a law is going to make people who break the law not break the law.

The only people who this affects is people who everyday people chatting to their family.

The ones this is claimed to be fighting don't, by and large, use WhatsApp and the like, so will make no difference to how they operate. The one off they catch who does naively use it, does not justify surveilling the entire UK.

There could be public executions of children caught for stealing candies and nobody would go protest in the UK. There's nobody with less backbone than the Brits.

Sadly, this is spot on.

The effort Brits spend arguing and bickering. It's just laziness because it's easier to talk yourself into acceptance.

I admire the French for collective physical action.

Suppose WhatsApp added an insecure mode, required UK users to use it, marked it prominently as "inspected by UK government and law enforcement" and refused to allow UK users to communicate with non-UK users by popping up a nag screen every time they tried.

It would probably get warped into a point of national pride.

Well it would probably keep the pedos out.

"Our government does such a good job of protecting us. Why can't the rest of the world be more like us?"

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