But the parent point was that no British media could be critical of government policy. Picking an example that isn’t, on one area, doesn’t prove their point.

[Edit] Granted though, the bbc isn’t merciless - that’s more the newspapers

The ranking isn’t published by the newspaper - it’s by the research and insights B2B company of the overall group. Regardless of what assumptions you have about the newspaper (elite, yes, but I’m unclear on why you think fierce liberalism is likely to mean they don’t really value democracy), the B2B unit sells data - they’re as likely to skew this ranking as they are at which countries are better at rail infrastructure. Perhaps their definition of democracy is indeed flawed though - no need to speculate, go read their methodology.

> If you think Britain and Russia or China are equivalent in terms of government overreach, you need to find new sources of information.

Uh... you are making his point. People from way more authoritarian countries don't necessarily feel like they are living in an authoritarian country. Therefore whether or not it "feels" like you are living in one isn't a reliable measure.

Maybe the rankings arent accurate.

"Nobody I know is talking about censorship" is a certified HN banger.

They’re talking about British hate speech laws. They think other countries have universal free speech and they absolutely do not, but for some reason they think Britain goes too far. Although “think” is probably too generous - they’re parroting talking points.

The UK has a censorship bureau, ofcom. The example that comes up most here is 4chan, which the UK is currently trying to ban because they refuse to do age verification. If you read the threads here you will see other stories. One that sticks out to me is someone who was talking about their struggles running a forum about depression. They live in canada and were contacted by ofcom demanding the forum add age verification, cant totally remember the reason but it was something about kids being able to access talk about depression. Ofcom said that if he doesnt add age verification to his forum he will be arrested if he ever enters the UK. He even blocked uk IPs but they said that wasnt enough. We can quibble about whether age verification is a form of censorship, I think it clearly is, if only because it is a large regulatory hurdle that stops people from hosting forums because its too much regulatory work.

The UK also has a very broad definition of hate speech that many users here detest.

> Nobody I know in real life is talking about censorship or free speech in the UK

Yeah because free speech has never really been a core value in the UK

My dear friend, please start with the online safety act, and continue with the recent developments regarding age verification and/or device scanning on all operating systems to check for nudity. No, nobody is talking about it here, but we should be.