Every day we get closer to an Orwellian society. The United Kingdom may already be one.

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    US big tech is influencing europe to do the same as the us, and opening them up for absolute power.

    the only way out is to stop being US vassals.

    • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      No. This is a very naive & dated way of thinking about the world of today. We don’t really have distinct borders distinguishing politicians at that level.

      It’s more accurate to say the Davos group is ruling all western nations. What looks like separate world leaders and parties is actually one world-spanning organization of those with power. And what’s worse, they’re all Nazis and technocrats.

      The Nazis learned from WW2. If you invade a country, the people fight back. If you groom and install/bribe your own people into leadership positions, the people just let it happen.

      • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        big US capitalists are the ones ruling western nations (and the third world, through neocolonialism). other western oligarchs might play a role.

        in this case, europe doesn’t have its own big tech that compares to the US’s, and i don’t think they are allowed to.

        i don’t think they are relying on a formal, yearly summit to do so either. the real politics are made behind close doors, and i doubt there’s a public list anywhere of the people coming to agreements on how to direct their power.

        i will agree they are fascists who learned their lesson from nazi mistakes.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          They don’t need their own tech companies. Europe has its own oligarchs. They’re the problem.

          • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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            4 hours ago

            being independent is better, but oligarchs are a real problem aren’t they. we really gotta figure this shit out.

    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      I’m not going to defend the US and it’s tech oligarchs, they are all shit, but the way things are going, the EU and the UK are currently in way worse shape than the US in terms of all this 1984 bullshit.

      No country is safe from this anymore, and we may very well be looking at the worse time to be alive when it comes to privacy, regardless of where you live.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        I highly doubt it’s the worse time. There used to be no concept of privacy you lived in a small town everyone knew everything and you lived in a one room house and familys had on bed for everything. There would have been no privacy at all.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          15 hours ago

          That’s an opinion lol

          We deff have it better now with corpo and goverment replacing family and the hood

        • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Enjoy it. I’m honestly happy to read this. My country has the bad habit of copying all the crappy shit from the US, and none of the good

          • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            mine too, actually. we are currently copying some of their fascists, but this specific way of restricting us doesn’t seem to be on their minds for now.

    • DavidGarcia@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      the only thing that can really stop it IMO is mainstreaming decentralized social media and messaging services.

      You’d need to effectively replace Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Whatsapp etc… The only thing that totally keeps us from 1984 is that all these platforms for now have decided to be relatively free and impartial (compared to how bad it could be). But that could change at any time if the powers that be decide to on a whim. They could completely ban all privacy, pacificsm or any kind of political opposition tomorrow.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        No it won’t stop it. Blood and violence is needed but we are sheep.

      • The Menemen@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        No one in those countries believes that they live in a free, enlightened society…

        But the west always portrayed otself in such a light… Now everyone knows their politics are just as ugly as Chinas, Irans or Russias politics.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          12 hours ago

          I don’t see anyone in US LARPing freedom bullshit since at least covid lol

          Well besides regime whores on tv… But that’s a different story

          But in us unlike china or russia, shit posters don’t get charges or at least not nearly as much for saying stupid shit online. People in russia peope get prison for being anti war.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                8 hours ago

                My comment likewise touches on the fact that people living under western regimes are disappeared in regular course of business. In fact, there’s far more evidence for people disappearing without any reasonable grounds in the west than there are in China.

                • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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                  8 hours ago

                  If this was true, half of Lemmy would be in Gitmo already

                  Does china have a place like reddit or fediverse?

                  Link it up!

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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            16 hours ago

            The distinction with China is in actual human rights like people being able to afford housing, food, and education. People not having to worry about losing their job and ending up on the street or being able to retire in dignity.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    From the fact Britain produced Orwell, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, I figure the UK has always been some shade of “Orwellian”.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Historically, the UK has always been very self assured in their goals and never looked for outside input while disregarding the people that they were upending. Anyone who wasn’t helping them was viewed as an enemy to be controlled, oppressed , or destroyed. If that isn’t a non-political explanation of rightwing authoritarianism, I’m not sure what is.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    We are living in Orwellian society, it’s just the news catching up with reality.

  • inna@lemmings.world
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    1 day ago

    For the age verification is it possible to sign a petition? I think is not too late to join forces… or anything but not letting them go further… as of the chat control probably only contacting the representatives. I really hope lawyers and businessmen try to fight it…

  • lemming@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Have you already written to your members of parliament about chat control, and possibly other matters? Seriously, do it. There is very little you can do, but this might actually help. Slightly. Maybe.

  • JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I’m quite curious to see how it will end in the UK with the porn filters because the people don’t seem to be inclined to use their IDs online, the system is brittle, and non-porn websites are being blocked too.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      As a Brit who has seen the UK government’s ill thought through and unworkable attempts at police state bullshit go through the process a few times now, I’m going to predict: VPN use goes up massively, the government starts talking about banning VPNs without considering that this would break half the internet, then some wealthy business donor has a quiet word to them because businesses need VPNs to function, but they can’t publicly back down because they already called everyone who opposed it a pedo. So they pick one or two VPN companies (whichever ones have the most foreign-sounding names), have the tabloids run a propaganda campaign about how evil they are, then ban them even though they aren’t based in the UK and it makes no difference to anything, then they’ll claim they won and the laws will stay on the books forever but nobody will bother to enforce them and everything will carry on as before.

      • Majestic@lemmy.ml
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        19 hours ago

        then some wealthy business donor has a quiet word to them because businesses need VPNs to function

        A little credit here. They’d rephrase the law to only target VPNs whose purpose is offering as a service to the general public (as opposed to exclusively employees and contractors) the ability to connect to a private network with exit points / the ability to appear as if their traffic originates from outside of the UK.

        On a related matter they could also require know your customer for all VPNs, require all VPNs keep logs available on request for police inspection and those who don’t are banned. All companies keep extensive logs for corporate VPNs so this wouldn’t present any additional burden to private enterprise but would be the end of anonymous VPN services.

        I really don’t think this is more of the spectacle and move on. Not this time. I think Palestine has them spooked because they lost control of the narrative and the best way to seize control of the internet and clamp down on people conveying information they don’t like is starting with things like this.

    • banazir@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      They’re looking to install Nigel Farage as their prime minister. The island is derelict.

      • Tangentism@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Not quite.

        Farage keeps running around saying “Pick me! Pick me!” and the press keep asking “Is farage a viable candidate?” while not offering the same credence to anyone else.

        The British public are “We’re fucking sick of this bollocks from the establishment” and a lot of them are falling for the privately educated ex city trader Farages nonsense that he’s a “man of the people” because all the centrist parties are saying “aren’t immigrants awful?” in an attempt to distract from their own incompetence and quite frankly, the left is 10 years behind in offering a coherent alternative to all the bullshit.

        • Zak@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          a lot of them are falling for the privately educated ex city trader Farages nonsense that he’s a “man of the people”

          This parallels Trump, but I think it’s mostly not that people are really fooled into believing these wealthy politicians are just like them. I think the attraction is more that the current system isn’t working for a lot of people and hasn’t been for a long time. Someone who offers to tear it down can attract a large following even if they don’t have a good proposal for what to replace it with.

          It took a while for me to see that because I find the racist and nationalist beliefs of the likes of Trump, Farage, and the AFD so appalling it’s hard to see anything else.

          • Tangentism@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            Definitely, it’s them playing stupid so centrist liberals will mock them because they can’t help themselves and they use that to say to the genpop “look, I’m just like you and these sneering elites are laughing at me, and by extension you”

            I think the attraction is more that the current system isn’t working for a lot of people and hasn’t been for a long time.

            Exactly. They play the outsider who has the balls but not embroiled in the quagmire, to come and “drain the swamp”

            The perverse hilarity of trump saying this is that he is the 1%, he is the trust fund kid that had everything handed to him on a platter. He literally is the swamp (a corrupt child rapist)

            Farage in the UK went to one of the top schools (Dulwich college) where he was disciplined for singing Hitler youth songs. He got a job in the city through his dad as a commodities broker before going into (disrupting) politics and people seem to believe his shit when he acts like he’s one of the common folk!

            People need their heads banging together falling for that shit!

  • upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 hours ago

    As an American it’s nice to see were not the only ones in a complete downward spiral.

    EDIT: wild that there are users pretending to be butthurt by this obviously joke comment so they can farm upvotes from the tens of users on Lemmy

      • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Also, Americans are subject to supporting this bullshit. If any company in the us (or in the world really) owns or maintains data that the EU qualifies as adult-oriented, they have to either maintain a means of actively prevent EU users or support the filtering and tracking that the EU mandates. If not, they can be fined by the EU, and as long as there is a financial relationship between the us and EU, the fines will be enforced.

        This has global impact.

        I’m curious if more companies will move their hosting to countries that are non compliant with EU regulations and move to accepting payment from cryptocurrency only. I would not be surprised if x-rated content providers were to move to such places.

  • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Not even close to the horrors of an Orwellian society and saying it is is an insult to the characters in those books. It isn’t great though, and it’s heading in a troubling direction

    • Dr. Unabart@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I think the characters in the book will forgive as that’s a work of fiction and they are not real. That’s like saying I insulted Bugs Bunny for having big teeth. We’ll get through this calamity. ✌🏻

    • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      and it’s heading in a troubling direction

      I’d say it’s heading in an orwellian direction…