One click and you're out: UK makes it an offence to view terrorist propaganda even once

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

Oh well. There goes my plan of shopping on-line for a new garden axe at Homebase then.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist - and Mandela (either of them) couildn't be described as whiter than white....

Yes, I know ;-)

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

The hypocrisy of lauding Mandela's terrorism these days shows up how truly farcical our systems of government (not to mention 'political speak') have become. That Mandela was a terrorist is indisputable even though his reasons were very laudable. The same type of doublespeak occurred over China when it was accepted into the world's trading system. Justifying that a 'wrong' is actually acceptable in certain circumstances by hiding the fact under a carpet is totally unacceptable as, amongst other things, it belies the true politics of the situation.

If these people genuinely hold such contradictory beliefs without seemingly any question (which I strongly suspect), then it show us how fundamentally vulnerable our governance is.

Funny isn't it that governments and bureaucrats who are in power today never seem to consider that the power they wield has its roots in terrorism. For instance, the established governments of the day would have considered their opponents (who were ultimately the winners), in the English Civil War*, the French Revolution and the American War of independence, as terrorists. (Whether they were freedom fighters or terrorists depends on which side of the fence one stands, and in almost every case, no side had or has a complete mandate with respect to virtue or what's right—grey is everywhere and that matters if one has the morals to think about it.)

I'm certainly not lauding revolution even if justifiable as means of achieving change as it's nearly always bloody and brutal but it raises the serious issue of how people achieve change when implacable governments and bureaucrats refuse to bend to the will of the people or to yield power (you only have to look at Venezuela today to see what I mean).

Unfortunately these days our so-called democratic governments are moving towards bureaucratic totalitarianism as a means of control rather than solving problems at the grass roots—just because it's hard doesn't mean the authoritarian option is acceptable.

* I'm aware this example needs expansion and justification but that's for another time.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

whereas back in the day they were calling him a terrorist

Well yes, because Mandela WAS a terrorist; he cofounded the MK FFS. They killed at least 130 people, most of whom were civillians, and most of whom were black! Whatever he became later in life he became after he was a terrorist.

This leftist revision of history in order to lionise those they adore is as demented as it is dangerous.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

A little off-topic, it seems that it was fashionable to be anti-apartheid yet it is now the fashion to say nothing against what South Africa got in apartheid's place - a good example is the rolling blackouts this last week courtesy of the bankrupt state power corporation and the ANC "liberators" that has further damaged the ailing economy.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

It's only a matter of time before the definition of terrorism becomes "anything in opposition to the policies of the current government."

And that is the hallmark of a country going down the path to oppression of the people. Here in the US the free flow of news and information is part of our society and government but that's starting to change subtilely with the cry of "fake news".

Whatever happened to having an "informed" public? Censorship never works except to oppress those who seek knowledge about what is happening in the world, city, country, etc.

1984 is NOT an instruction manual as governments now believe.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

That's... simply not true. There are numerous examples of governments that have banned terrorism without the definition expanding in the way you say is inevitable, at least not in any timeframe that's visible yet.

The UK passed its first "prevention of terrorism" act in 1974, and yet somehow it's still legal to campaign and even protest against government policies.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

'It's only a matter of time before the definition of terrorism becomes "anything in opposition to the policies of the current government."'

Yes - that happened about 20 years ago.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

This is how anti terror laws are already used to deny people indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and visas.

Re: Standard political process

Just like the laws on speeding, set the speed limit lower than the speed of most traffic and leave the enforcement to the discretion of the plod.

If we don't like you we can always find something to charge you with.

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with".

- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

(And please don't read this quotation as endorsement on my part of anything else Ms Rand may have said or suggested).

Re: Goodbye Youtube?

This is how the yet-to-be-implemented anti-pornography law came to be implemented. Someone in the Civil Service asked for an excuse to snoop, and the politicians went and ran with it until they had a de-facto internet censorship law. The fact that nobody in their right mind will sign up to the Government Age Proof List and will instead get a VPN account is why quite a lot of spooks will even now be quietly crying into their beer.

Time was when VPNs were the province of business people, professional paranoids and a vanishingly small number of actually dangerous terrorists. Separating business from interesting was a relatively simple task.

Now that we've got a censorship law in place, the pool of VPNs goes wanker, wanker, wanker... and so ad infinitum; you don't make searching for a needle in a haystack easier by adding a few teratonnes of hay onto the stack. Here we have the reality of modern law-making; utterly ineffective at the stated aim, and massively counter-productive since it makes other necessary espionage so very much more difficult.