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Comment by zkmon | Hacker News Reader

A blanket control affecting privacy would be bad. However we need controls that can prevent criminals from hiding behind anonymity and being able to organize massive activities just with a few online posts. These days it is trivial to organize and radicalize the youth into wrong paths overnight using social channels. You just need to say something that aligns with their problems, and most people get consumed by the divisive speech easily.

The effect is already seen how the ability of rioters far exceeds that of the authorities during recent incidents in UK and other places. Something need to be done for this.

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Criminals will just side-step the law and use methods of communication that allow them carry on committing crimes.

If it was possible to outlaw crime we would have no crime already. We had riots in 70s, 80s and 90s too after all.

Meanwhile politicians get to strip the innocent of their privacy, which is very handy for them.

1. They are criminals. Criminals are not bound by laws. 2. Trying to reduce anonymity to go after criminals, simply means giving up anonymity for all but the criminals. See point 1 ... Criminals do not care and will find ways to not get caught. 3. I find the idea of this blanked statement that protesters are criminals insane dangerous and smells of authoritarianism. Peaceful protesters are just that, peaceful. Those that do crimes during protests, are criminals who can be literally caught. 4. The issue of "ability of rioters far exceeds that of the authorities", is more that the authorities do not have their ducks in a row. Blanked mass surveillance is not the solution. 5. Where does it stop? A what point are we running Russia like Max surveillance software on our smartphones, tracking where we go, who we talk too, ... all in the name of catching maybe, some criminals.

> Something need to be done for this.

Its called a better and responsive police force.

> radicalize the youth into wrong paths overnight using social channels

Imaging, that those people who radicalize youth are, ... not using social channel to do so. Wait, ... how did most of the people who ended up going to Syria get radicalized? Most was not via social media, it was with direct contact. Do we ban social contact?

This is just the typical quick fix type of answer. Problem, must be X. No, lets not invest money into police, social councils, case workers, etc...

Thing is, we have seen police getting lazy because, hey, why do investigation work if we can just get free evidence from criminals phones. O, those criminals now encrypted / try to hide data. Ok, so we now need to make it illegal because screw society, we want easier jobs.

No, everybody needs to give up their privacy "for the greater good". You must have something to hide, if you do not let the government read what you wrote, today, yesterday, 10 years ago ...

Have you ever been to China or other countries where saying the wrong thing, can be unpleasant to life changing? Where people learn to not talk what they rally think outside their little family corner. Where corruption is rampant because nobody can protest. Remember, today its your criminal protesters, tomorrow if a government changed into one you do not like, you become the criminal protester.

The right answer is a better funded and accountable police / social structure / help systems. And accountability, to ensure proper policing.

Not step by step removal of privacy.

> No, everybody needs to give up their privacy "for the greater good"

You can bargain (via voting) about how much of the stuff you need to forgo. But you can't have 100% privacy, if the nation has to function.

You don't need to give up any privacy at all, if you don't expect anything from government. But the concept of a nation is hinged upon it's citizens foregoing a bit of privacy, a bit of their income, a bit of their freedom. The nation imposes rules that you need to follow (loss of freedom), asks you to pay up taxes and makes your identity linked to the citizen services.

The nation comes into existences precisely from the things that you forego.

This is just outright wrong. Europe in general has gotten less and less violent over the last decade. Despite evils like the internet, smartphones, and tiktok. I'd argue it has become more difficult to rile up people than it was 40 years ago

You are free to 'argue', but you need to read about how the modern riots are being organized on a massive scale, so that you can correct your argument.

Would love to see some statistics on that.

Petition to force everyone saying "you need to read about XYZ" to provide at least 2 sources where one can actually read about XYZ.

- If you can't provide any sources, it's safe to assume you don't actually know what you're talking about. - If you can, but choose not to, why? This simply weakens your argument. - When you say "you need to read about XYZ", you probably WANT people to read about this, right? So why not point them at least to Wikipedia?

how are modern riots being organized on a massive scale? I'm curious

Respectfuly, that's an impressive load of bullshit.

Two cases in point:

- UK's Farage recently causing riots, destruction of property, arson and bringing harm to non-whites, intentionally, previously being openly supported and amplified by Musk.

- USA's lame duck president Trump causing January 6, 2021 riots ending up in destruction of property and killings of five people (including Capitol police officer)

The perpetrators causing the shit are very well known, their followers do not try to hide themselves, and no amount of mandatory ID when accessing the Internet would stop it.

Oh, and if you think being anonymous makes people nasty, you should stop by some Facebook or Nextdoor forum :)

Can you give an example of what happened in UK that points to this issue?

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