UK Government Moves Aggressively To Censor & Control The Internet

[Jonas]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-19...l-internet

UK Government Moves Aggressively To Censor & Control The Internet
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, May 19, 2017 10:15 PM


The following dystopian excerpts come from today’s UK Independent article titled, Theresa May to Create New Internet that Would Be Controlled and Regulated by Government:

Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

“Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it states. “We disagree.” Thanks for clearing that up.

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

The plans will allow Britain to become “the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet”, the manifesto claims.

It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers’ browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read.

The government now appears to be launching a similarly radical change in the way that social networks and internet companies work. While much of the internet is currently controlled by private businesses like Google and Facebook, Theresa May intends to allow government to decide what is and isn’t published, the manifesto suggests.

The manifesto even suggests that the government might stop search engines like Google from directing people to pornographic websites. “We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm,” the Conservatives write. “Other sources of harm.” Can’t wait to see the ever-expanding government definition of that.

Perhaps most unusually they would be forced to help controversial government schemes like its Prevent strategy, by promoting counter-extremist narratives.

The manifesto also proposes that internet companies will have to pay a levy, like the one currently paid by gambling firms. Just like with gambling, that money will be used to pay for advertising schemes to tell people about the dangers of the internet, in particular being used to “support awareness and preventative activity to counter internet harms”, according to the manifesto.

The Conservatives will also seek to regulate the kind of news that is posted online and how companies are paid for it. If elected, Theresa May will “take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy” – and crack down on Facebook and Google to ensure that news companies get enough advertising money.

If internet companies refuse to comply with the rulings – a suggestion that some have already made about the powers in the Investigatory Powers Act – then there will be a strict and strong set of ways to punish them.
Given how willing tech companies have been to comply with government spying in the past, it’ll be interesting to see how they respond to this dangerous, authoritarian power grab.

[Mortblanc]

How the companies respond is not the issue.

How the public responds is the issue.

The companies exist to make a profit, not to create government policy.

If the companies wanted to create change all they would have to do is shut down Google, Bing and all the other search engines for 2 hours on Monday afternoon, one of the most productive segments of the work week, and show what censorship might really be like.

[LAC]

Whenever a government complains about another government's censorship, it's a fair bet that is exactly what they are planning to do themselves.

[Straight Shooter]

More like the lengths they will go to ...to hide truth and stifle decent ...as MB points out....its what the people do about it...if awake just say NO......and for us in the UK that means vote for anyone bar the conservatives .....even a dead chicken would be better than the illusion of choice ....there is no choice ....sad but true.

[LAC]

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/censorship

[sethorly]

Unfortunately there are evil ideologies out there, notably the Salafist ideology but also other far-right ideologies, that need to be censored in my view. As always, such 'government' would need checks and balances. In the ideal world we wouldn't need such restrictions, but the world isn't yet close enough to that ideal.

[LAC]

(21 May 2017, 10:15)sethorly Wrote: Unfortunately there are evil ideologies out there, notably the Salafist ideology but also other far-right ideologies, that need to be censored in my view. As always, such 'government' would need checks and balances. In the ideal world we wouldn't need such restrictions, but the world isn't yet close enough to that ideal.

True sethorly, but one does not need to use a hammer to crack a nut. If something threatens to do harm or incites others to do harm there are already laws to deal with that. Most other things can and should be up for debate in a free society. It is often more dangerous to suppress discussion as it usually leads to building resentment on the part of those being suppressed, thereby unwittingly contributing to a feeling of victimhood which can be further exploited for political/social gain.

[Skean Dhude]

There is no need for censorship. As pointed out there are already laws in place to curb those abuses.

The issue with censorship is that if we had censorship laws in place Trump, Brexit, UKIP and the like would have been subject to those laws. How do you think that would work out.

Everything government touches it screws up. Do you really think censorship would be any different.

[Mortblanc]

You guys are acting like censorship was not already in place and you could do something to stop it!

My view is that when the media chooses what they will report, how it will be presented, only good photos will be presented of some people and only bad photos of others, that bad crime statistics will only be printed when it meets the media standards and the statistics that are presented prove only what the media believes,

Then there is already extreme censorship in place and the government is not to blame, but the media outlets, editors and reporters.

The media outlets world wide are self censored to present their own version of "reality" and they have been since the first picture was scribed into the wall of a pyramid. The entire world knows that the UK has Labor and Tory media outlets that present the view as their party wishes it to be presented. It is the same all over the world no matter what the presentation source happens to be, print or digital.

And all the search engines already censor your searches and limit the information you receive. We already had that little tussle during our elections over here last year.

[Skean Dhude]

MB, The difference is that people can, and do, report alternative views and people are reading those views. Once May has had her way these people will be silenced by the power of the state.