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Comment by uni_baconcat | Hacker News Reader

This is not how authorities work.

They need to prove people guilty, not flag all “suspicious activity” then let people prove they are innocent.

This isn't how the UK works. There is a vast ecosystem of pre-crime authorities and the police are able to investigate things which aren't crimes and add "non-crime" incidents to your criminal record. It may not surprise you to learn that almost all of the cases in which this is used are "social" crimes. In cases of actual crime, custodial sentences are sometimes not applied at all...again, usually for reasons of social order.

Ironically, I also can't read most of the screenshots because all sharing sites are blocked in the UK because of the threat image sharing represents to the social order.

All sharing sites are not blocked, postimg and Reddit image hosting and Flickr and many more are not blocked.

The uk didn’t block sharing sites because of a threat to the social order, sharing sites blocked uk viewers because they don’t want to comply with uk laws like “don’t gather children’s personal data”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo

The outcome is the purpose.

"don't gather children's personal data"...wut?

i love commenting on this stuff to get an insight into the mindset of people who support this...strident ignorance.

I'm pretty sure it was in protest of a law saying they'd have to check everyone's ID. The BBC, being incredibly biased, obviously won't report this correctly.

Imgur were found to be in breach of the data collection laws before any "you must check IDs" laws were even discussed in parliament, let alone passed, where the guidance was pretty much "Don't get caught actively selling data you already know is from children". And even the punishment was pretty much writing a document of "we'll try not to do it quite so obviously next time", but they refused to do even that.

The "implied" link between their fines, them rejecting UK connections, and any new laws is very much a PR thing from imgur.

All the breathless online reporting seems to miss just how toothless the law was, and they still failed at following it.

Like I think the new verification laws are an unworkable mess at best, written by people with an idea similar to believing they could "ban one specific species of fish from UK territorial waters" by throwing the odd grenade in, but they're rather unrelated to what imgur actually did.

I haven’t followed this case at all but how do you know which data is from children if you don’t do some kind of verification?

No, they blocked the UK because it was either that or open themselves up to £18m in fine liability thanks to the Online Safety Act[0]. Social media sites which are unable or unwilling to operate strict, full-time content moderation have all blocked the UK because the alternative is being held punitively liable for abuse by bad actors. Pretty much a no brainer. (And that's without even getting into the quagmire of legitimate, consenting, age-gated adult content.)

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023

But get your car stolen in the UK and the police won't do a thing. Even if you know where it is via a tracker. Nothing. Outright refuse to take any action.

This isn't true – why did you come here and choose to lie about this?

This actually is how authorities work. If you do anything unusual at all, you are flagged as suspicious. You will find yourself being denied services without explanation. There is no appeal process.

Not where I live. If it's happening where you live then it's a sign you need to start protesting/organizing/get involved in politics/using whatever skills you have to improve matters before they get worse.

This happened in the UK, specifically, and from what we've all seen it's definitely sliding in a bad direction over the past decade. But it's also not in any way so far gone that you can't take action. If you're sitting here on HN complaining and yet doing nothing else, you're a part of the problem. Stop being complacent, take action before it's too late. You won't get thrown in jail for getting involved in politics there (yes, you'll find some specific examples of that happening but if you look deeper they'll all unravel and show there was a deeper reason that's being misrepresented, usually by tabloids/social media).

If you show up to a protest then you automatically get put on a police database via facial recognition.

Or arrested if peacefully protesting because the UK govt named a organization a terrorist org.

It shouldn't be about what they call you, it should be about your actions. Neonazis must be allowed to peacefully protest.

Pretty sure the courts ruled it wasn't. But they're still arresting people for saying "I support Palestinian Action" in public.

In Queensland, Australia. Saying from a flow streaming of water to a large salty tidal body of water lands you a criminal record. Just the words. Same in Berlin.

Btw in Germany the courts ruled that From the river to the sea as parole itself is not unlawful. The arrested person got acquitted.

Hamas and its symbols are illegal however.

"The process is the punishment".

Didn't they also arrest a guy for writing some random Arabic on a flag because Hamas also has a flag written in Arabic?

Idk did they? Who knows man a lot of stuff is said on the internet that might’ve or might’ve not happened

The least goated take. While it is good to give the benefit of doubt where it is due, there is a line where it starts to taste like shoe leather.

So the goated take in your opinion would be to just believe that a guy in Germany was arrested for writing random Arabic letters that kinda look like the Hamas logo without any proof or sources because it fits a certain narrative?

I’m not saying it’s impossibleb but there should be some evidence for such a strong claim

No, you see; that is why your take is so ungoated. You know it is not an impossible claim, you also have access to internet, but you opt for benefit of the doubt. As I said, there is a line between fair benefit of the doubt and the taste of shoe leather.

Yea I did 5 minutes research on google and nothing turned up. If it’s such an outrageous case it should be easy to find - so your point is that I should invest hours trying to prove some claim that some rando typed on here while taking a shit.

Nah bro a goat like me has much better things to do.

If you make outrageous claims the burden of proof is on you and not the people you’re talking to.

You don't have to prove anything, but given the staggering amount of evidence to support such event as likely, you opt to dismiss it without evidence. Like I said, shoe leather.

Since there is such a staggering amount of evidence around, care to provide even a single piece?

Evidence for what?

That in Germany “they also arrest a guy for writing some random Arabic on a flag because Hamas also has a flag written in Arabic” - that was what I didn’t believe initially, and what you called me a bootlicker for lmao

Yes.

Have you seen how bank work with Anti Money Laundering?

Not sure if you've read the news during the past couple of months but things are no longer normal

watchlists existed for decades

Which watchlist was it again for using alternative operating systems?

are you implying watchlists for other reasons are any more reasonable?

Reread my question, it's pretty straightforward with no such implication.

Well they're secret, so it's impossible to know unless you're under NDA with a security clearance.

That's in countries that have a constitution, a Bill of Rights that can't be revoked by a simple vote of the legislature, separation of powers and the rule of law. None of which applies to the UK.

3 of those factors are nothing more than bits of paper. Everything hinges on separation of powers, and the one you omitted: a thoroughly established sense of democracy. If either of those fails, any report to the authorities is a threat.

The UK has a constitution.

There is a whole set of things that can be done to you before you are proven guilty (detained, arrested, refused service, denied boarding, visit from the police, interrogated, etc..)

Guilty until proven innocent, and the process itself is the punishment. This is the post-truth world.

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