The UK government is basically testing the waters of what it can get away with and also normalising the notion that they could even bother/dare to ask for this to be done in the first place.
It is about shifting the Overton Window for the normies. Especially, over time. For example, the first people to be cancelled or removed from social media years ago, like almost 10 years ago, it was done with some bad fanfare, and the people who did it, Twitter, etc… I remember said that they did it even despite some internal strife over the notion of censorship. Now, people can get cancelled on a dime and no one really cares all that much.
If you told someone 20 years ago that you should pay ca$h out of your own pocketas to get a corporate microphone that listens to you, your family, your children, constantly so it can play songs for you and tell you the weather and gives some other conveniences, 99% people would say that you would have to be fucking insane to do that. Being such a breach of damn common sense and reasonable privacy. Look at people now. Shifting the Overton Window over timr works for fun, control and profit.
Of course, if the US does not play along, then UK’s bill goes nowhere outside the UK, or maybe they will try it with weaker geopolitical countries. But governments do this type of thing all the time, under a, “We will push until someone else finally pushes back,” mentality.
If the UK really wanted to go after 4Chan, they could contact the FBI or whoever in the USA that could serve relevant via proper channels. This has always been available to them, but this is not about that, it is about censorship and control. Obviously.
The UK government is basically testing the waters of what it can get away with and also normalising the notion that they could even bother/dare to ask for this to be done in the first place.
It is about shifting the Overton Window for the normies. Especially, over time. For example, the first people to be cancelled or removed from social media years ago, like almost 10 years ago, it was done with some bad fanfare, and the people who did it, Twitter, etc… I remember said that they did it even despite some internal strife over the notion of censorship. Now, people can get cancelled on a dime and no one really cares all that much.
If you told someone 20 years ago that you should pay ca$h out of your own pocketas to get a corporate microphone that listens to you, your family, your children, constantly so it can play songs for you and tell you the weather and gives some other conveniences, 99% people would say that you would have to be fucking insane to do that. Being such a breach of damn common sense and reasonable privacy. Look at people now. Shifting the Overton Window over timr works for fun, control and profit.
Of course, if the US does not play along, then UK’s bill goes nowhere outside the UK, or maybe they will try it with weaker geopolitical countries. But governments do this type of thing all the time, under a, “We will push until someone else finally pushes back,” mentality.
If the UK really wanted to go after 4Chan, they could contact the FBI or whoever in the USA that could serve relevant via proper channels. This has always been available to them, but this is not about that, it is about censorship and control. Obviously.