<story><title>UK government’s plans to regulate the internet are a threat to free speech</title><url>https://freespeechunion.org/why-the-governments-plans-to-regulate-the-internet-are-a-threat-to-free-speech/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>umvi</author><text>&amp;quot;The problem with freedom is that people abuse it and cause harm to others.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Edit: (to be clear, I do not personally believe this, just offering a little insight as to how the &amp;quot;not insignificant majority&amp;quot; think)</text></item><item><author>commandlinefan</author><text>What I’m becoming more painfully aware of with each passing year is that “free speech” is actually (sadly) a very unpopular ideal.  We haven’t really had it in a long time, and we have less of it with each passing year - cheered on by a not insignificant majority.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>john_moscow</author><text>I think, being offended at words is mostly a sign of one&amp;#x27;s own personal insecurity. Can you imagine a successful doctor or a business owner being seriously offended because someone on the Internet called them a bad word? I bet they would respond same way I do when my son calls me a &amp;quot;bad papa&amp;quot; for insisting he finishes lunch before getting a desert.&lt;p&gt;The bigger, &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;much bigger&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; problem is the growing amount of people that feel financially insecure about their lives, have no marketable skills, and plenty of free time. And the media is currently doing its best to direct their rage to unresolvable tribal infighting, rather than self-improvement, and possibly concluding that their misery might have something to do with the rise of monopolies, poorly chosen loan-funded degrees, and a few other very specific things rather than abstract inequality and injustice.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t like where this is headed. Tribal society structure, with elites living in fenced mansions, and hungry plebs literally killing each other over petty tribal disputes is very real. Half of Africa lives like this, Mexican drug cartels do, most Europe did before Enlightenment. And it is mind-boggling to see that this type of society might be coming to the former First World in fewer than a single generation.</text></comment>
<story><title>UK government’s plans to regulate the internet are a threat to free speech</title><url>https://freespeechunion.org/why-the-governments-plans-to-regulate-the-internet-are-a-threat-to-free-speech/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>umvi</author><text>&amp;quot;The problem with freedom is that people abuse it and cause harm to others.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Edit: (to be clear, I do not personally believe this, just offering a little insight as to how the &amp;quot;not insignificant majority&amp;quot; think)</text></item><item><author>commandlinefan</author><text>What I’m becoming more painfully aware of with each passing year is that “free speech” is actually (sadly) a very unpopular ideal.  We haven’t really had it in a long time, and we have less of it with each passing year - cheered on by a not insignificant majority.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>monkeynotes</author><text>The way I see it is it&amp;#x27;s not free speech that is the problem, as such, it&amp;#x27;s that people who used to gossip to a small audience down the pub now have equal platforms to newspapers.&lt;p&gt;The internet has levelled the playing field and now everyone is a politician with an agenda to push. The &amp;#x27;truth&amp;#x27; has been revealed to mean whatever the audience is persuaded and agrees to believe.&lt;p&gt;We are all subject to various cargo cults. What was once limited to political think tanks to guide a nation (propaganda and lies in all) is now in the hands of everyone who can build a significant social following.&lt;p&gt;Free speech needs to be defended to avoid thought police mentality, but it comes with the understanding that we all determine our own realities and without critical thinking one is subject to subversive influence.&lt;p&gt;The internet as a platform is a good candidate for the undoing of our civilization. Popular individualism that is enabled by echo chambers drives polarization and therefore a govt. that is increasingly under threat of irrelevance. As such they must identify and nullify an enemy that has no head to cut off. And so legislation is proposed to cut the means to communicate which drives the dialog underground and toward violence.&lt;p&gt;Humans are starting to lose definition, falling into chaos and struggles for control where there really can be none. Two extremes I can see this going in the direction of are urban guerrilla wars or 1984 Orwellian dystopia. Maybe both, one following the other.</text></comment>