
Theresa May to create new internet controlled and regulated by government - jakub_g
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html?amp
======
paradite
Yesterday's discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374533)

------
moystard
It's crazy how much this country has changed since I moved in the UK in 2010.
I originally moved here because London was a city encouraging tolerance,
freedom and respect for each other. Technology wise, this city was also the
heart of Europe with a great pool of companies and engineers to achieve big
things and counterbalance the hegemony of the Silicon Valley and the US.

Every new proposal these days from the UK government is pushing an
authoritarian government, and the Brexit has given them an excuse for more
populism and isolationism.

As a French man, I moved here because of all these reasons. I had a job in
France, a good situation, but I wanted to discover, meet new people, enlarge
my horizon. Today, I am not sure that London and the UK are the right places
for that.

~~~
GuiA
I'm also French, and moved to the US with similar aspirations right when Obama
got elected. These days, I am starting to have the same disillusions as you; I
feel like these tendencies have been present throughout the western world at
large over the past few years.

I am wondering where in the world I could move to and have good public
services (healthcare, education, transportation, etc), a government that seems
to be truly serving the interests of the people at large, and a rich culture
open to differences & innovation. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
azertyuiop1
It seems to me that France fits the description quite well, doesn't it?

~~~
devcpp
I don't think there's much better out there, these days. Seems like Canada,
continental Western Europe and Scandinavia are the best modern countries.
Maybe I'll also return to France these days, or try Quebec.

------
notliketherest
This is one of the most overtly authoritarian proposals for internet
regulation I've ever heard from a democratic, Western nation. How in the hell
are the people of the UK supporting something like this? As an American who
cherishes liberty and freedom, I'm shocked that anyone could support these
laws in the UK. They are straight up Orwellian...

~~~
rorygreen
As a person from and living in the UK, I'm equally shocked and appalled as
you. Everybody I know is baffled by and vehemently against these ridiculous
proposals. Quite frankly I have no idea who is voting for the Conservatives.
Anybody with half a brain cell and not pushing an evil agenda seems to despise
the Conservative party. (I'm sure there are some reasonable Tory supporters
out there, I've never met them though. I also think in this current
sociopolitical climate it's plain dangerous to vote for the Conservatives,
even if you believe you have good reasons to support them.)

As a country, we've lost faith in politics and I fully expect this to be
demonstrated by a very low turnout for the general election in June. The issue
with this is we currently have no strong enough opposition to the Tories
(thanks to an incredibly effective smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, the
leader of the Labour party, led by the media and perpetuated by the Labour MPs
themselves) so will end up with an even greater Conservative majority and
another 5 years of this dystopian madness. I very much hope I'm proven wrong.

I'd be happy to elaborate on some of these points if you're interested; I have
a few theories about what is currently going on and what has led us here. It
is both very interesting and incredibly upsetting to observe and analyse the
state of politics in this country at the moment.

Edit: I should state that I am not a Labour party supporter, I was just trying
to give a vague overview of the state of our politics at the moment.

~~~
api
I bet you live in a major city.

I live in the USA and would feel this way too about Trump if I didn't know
people who lived in the interior. I live in the Los Angeles metro, which is
one of America's "alpha cities."

London and other major global cities have formed something almost akin to the
science fiction concept of a breakaway civilization. They are their own global
meta-nation. Meanwhile the interior and rural districts of their own host
countries have been in a state of permanent depression for almost two decades
now.

Not saying the conservatives or Trump will fix this. They're political
opportunists riding a wave of dissent. All Trump had to do to get elected was
to style himself the opposite of all the values and ideas popular in global
Urbanity. One of the most insightful comments about Trump I've read was that
his racism was more intended to offend educated white urban coastal liberals
than to offend non-white races.

From what I can see Brexit and this stuff is the same.

It's a "fuck you" vote from the forgotten districts.

Edit: required reading:

[https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/](https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/)

~~~
danaliv
_> London and other major global cities have formed something almost akin to
the science fiction concept of a breakaway civilization. They are their own
global meta-nation. Meanwhile the interior and rural districts…_

Almost, except that cities are utterly dependent on "the interior and rural
districts" for food.

~~~
anigbrowl
No they're not. They can grow their own (and have in times of previous crisis)
and most large cities are built around ports. Also, when was the last time a
rural population laid siege to a city and starved it? Hundreds of years ago.

Honestly, I don't understand the fantasy world people like you live in. You
seem to assume that people who live in cities are helpless kittens or
something.

------
scottmf
I live in London and am looking for anyone in the UK willing to take part in
demonstrations (real and virtual) against these plans (and the UK gov's
hostility towards the internet in general).

I've set up a quick a Facebook page[1] to organize things. Send me a message
through there and I'll respond soon.

Thanks!

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/Protest-against-Theresa-Mays-
plan-t...](https://www.facebook.com/Protest-against-Theresa-Mays-plan-to-
control-the-Internet-274730522936119/)

~~~
nebabyte
Bear in mind the concerns pointed out in this [0] subthread, namely that
parents/citizens might not know (or _want_ to bother learning) enough about
"how the internet works" (or even thinking "having the government handle
protecting our children" is their preference) - my suggestion would be to come
up with analogous restrictions of the freedoms they DO hold dear, and possible
alternatives (e.g. content stratification) that allows them that complacent
hands-off worry-free approach without having to compromise net freedoms. Best
of luck.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14374533)

~~~
anigbrowl
Stop explaining things and go straight for the emotional language. It's good
to have explanations available but if you lead off with them people stop
listening because it's boring. This is something right-wingers understand very
well and left-wingers need to learn.

------
owenversteeg
I've noticed something about the UK: it's the most "compliant" country I've
been to. This isn't always a bad thing: it means that when the rude person in
the movie theater is told off they'll shut up and sit down. But it also means
that when the government tells the population "we're going to surveil you and
control what you read" the vast majority of people don't raise a fuss.

One example of this was when I was photographing some buildings in the UK. I
was stopped by a police officer, and knew my UK rights, and he was shocked
that I refused to stop photographing the buildings (which I was doing
legally.) He eventually conceded, but another time a UK officer did not
concede and threatened to arrest me (again, both times were fully within the
law.)

There's something in the national DNA, I feel. Like I said, being compliant
isn't inherently a good thing or a bad thing: but it does mean that stuff like
this, which is pretty horrifying, will probably pass. I type this comment less
than 100 miles from the UK, but even here in the Netherlands (although our
government is occasionally very disrespectful of privacy) people are more
likely to raise a fuss and stop something like this.

Even in the US, politicians have to be a little bit more careful about their
support of egregious surveillance methods: hide it in an agriculture bill,
disguise it, publicly denounce the surveillance state, etc etc. But Theresa
May literally said "we want to put huge restrictions on what people can post,
share, and publish online" \- direct quote - and nobody's protesting (except a
handful of noble British anti-surveillance organizations fighting a losing
battle.)

~~~
hollander
It's a guess, but I think the whole living-together-on-an-island can explain a
lot. Maybe in the current world with cheap airplane tickets, a tunnel to
Calais, and of course the whole internet thing and globalisation, it may look
like that doesn't matter. But this is in the blood, in the culture, in the
history of the British. It's what I often hear at least.

Living on an island where it's difficult to escape makes it that you have to
find a way to live together. That makes it more important to tolerate
eachother, to live with eachother, and politeness is a way to do that.
Compliance is a way of surviving if you cannot escape.

I've heard that the Dutch are the least compliant. Well maybe the source is
not reliable, the source being Marina Abramovic
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87)),
a performance artist who worked over the world as well as in Amsterdam, and
said that the Dutch were the least cooperative during her performances. I
don't know if that is a compliment, but being a "Hollander" I can relate to
it.

~~~
owenversteeg
> It's a guess, but I think the whole living-together-on-an-island can explain
> a lot.

Hmm, it might. It definitely seems like a pretty compelling argument to me at
least. And I definitely agree, compliance is in the blood, culture, and
history of the British. At the same time I can think of some more noncomplaint
island peoples. I was in Iceland two weeks ago and that comes to mind: they
seemed roughly on par with the Dutch.

I think living on an island is probably one important ingredient in British
compliance. At the same time I think there are a lot of different ways to end
up with a compliant population, for example the Southern US seems to be more
compliant than the North.

------
thegeomaster
This reads like an April Fool's prank.

They say that people should be protected from "harmful content", which somehow
includes _pornography_? Is it the 80s again?

The rhetoric here sounds like it's coming from the distant past, when
government officials were completely out of touch with the way ordinary people
use new technology. Now it just looks like a blatant attempt to score "anti-
terrorism" points and regulate the shit out of an industry in draconian ways,
just for the sake of regulating it (what are the possible motives, besides the
laughable "we don't want to provide safe space for terrorists to communicate"
claim?)

Are people actually supporting this kind of thinking?

~~~
noir_lord
> The rhetoric here sounds like it's coming from the distant past.

May was an authoritarian home secretary who was raised (and is a practising)
Christian (iirc her dad was a vicar).

She's a one-woman Morality Police (in her head at least).

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Ironically her father's former home church is now signed up to the Inclusive
Church movement, a progressive, tolerant movement which is the opposite of her
xenophobic conservatism.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_Church](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_Church)

------
oneplane
This will neither work nor result in the expected results. The lines stating
that online would be governed the same way as offline life, and access to
'bad' materials would be 'just as hard' shows how disconnected from reality
that idea is. Access to violence, hate, porn etc. isn't "harder" offline, and
bullying on playgrounds isn't actually getting "fixed" at the moment, just it
it won't be online.

The whole irony is that if the online rules would be implemented and resulting
in the same things as offline life, the internet would pretty much remain as-
is. Of course, the law and the rules would be allowing for more legal spying
and detaining, as well as controlling official narrative, which would have
nothing to do with online or offline life and is a whole new thing added on
top of the current policy.

I hope that if we can just hold off on the crazy orwellian plans and ideas
long enough for the old cluster of people in high places to die (of old age),
we might actually be able to get the good stuff we created online to actually
start fixing the offline problems in governing. That will never happen with
the old style people in place, and only time will fix that, since they won't
go freely as power is addictive and corrupting (as always).

~~~
coldtea
> _I hope that if we can just hold off on the crazy orwellian plans and ideas
> long enough for the old cluster of people in high places to die (of old
> age)_

The phenomenon has nothing much to do with "age". The old people running stuff
today said the same thing for the "old timers" (Nixon etc) when they were
young, and lots of them were themselves were 60s hippies, rebels,
revolutionaries, etc when they were young.

See how they turned out?

It's not that new generations bring more liberal people, and not even that age
changes you. It's power and interests that come into play. Which young persons
don't have much, in the same way they don't have a seat in the senate. And
when (a few) do, they can be as conservative/exploitive/etc as any 80 year old
politician or CEO, etc.

------
iamben
I'd be curious to see what would happen if Mindgeek (owners of pornhub, etc)
put a banner at the top of their websites for British visitors saying "your
access to pornography is under threat" or similar. I wonder what effect they
would/could have on British voters, based on the sheer amount of traffic they
get (and the fact that a considerable amount of people enjoy how easy it is to
look at porn, whether they admit it or not).

~~~
noir_lord
That's actually a really good idea, it'd also be in there interest to do so
since the UK makes up a good chunk of their users.

We do like our porn.

------
Maken
While I can understand some of the arguments in favour of regulating internet
content, it amazes me people are still talking about pornography like some
ancient demon from which our children must be protected at all costs. Does
anybody still buy that rhetoric in this day and age?

~~~
coldtea
> _Does anybody still buy that rhetoric in this day and age?_

Any parent that doesn't allow their children watching porn?

Any company deeming it NSFW?

Any public establishment (library, cafe, etc) where they will throw you out if
you watch such a thing (but not if you watch, say, SNL skits or cat videos)?

In other words, the majority of society.

~~~
tacomonstrous
It's also considered bad form to poop in public, but that doesn't mean a
majority of society thinks that poop is evil.

~~~
coldtea
This is not about things being evil though, just about things being unwanted
in (some version of a) civilized society.

~~~
sangnoir
This is the same government that blacklisted the types of porn Britons
shouldn't watch: 'vanila' missionary porn is fine (for now), but squirting[1]
or spanking are "unwanted in civilized society", in your words.

1\. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/a-long-list-of-sex-
acts...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/a-long-list-of-sex-acts-just-
got-banned-in-uk-porn-9897174.html)

------
adamnemecek
I've always thought that Theresa May should have more of a say in what I do
online. Who else than Theresa would know what's best for me.

~~~
m0nty
Paul Dacre?

~~~
noir_lord
Is there a difference? Ones the monkey the other the organ grinder, I leave it
to you to decide which is which.

------
MarkMMullin
This is horrendous - the entire point of the Internet is that it doesn't care,
it's an inter-network, and it's only goal is to keep the packets flowing, at
least when our dear leaders STFU. As someone in and out of machine learning -
here's an example - I can litter the downtown with cameras, feed them into an
ML cluster and if a child wanders off, it's mere seconds to find them again.
Or, as in the great state of Connecticut, I can be so goddamn deranged that I
want to put guns on drones, and believe semi-autonomous is a fine opening
position. The problem is no matter how impressive the feat in ML, the systems
involved have zero understanding of the outcome as a value judgement and they
aren't going to gain one for a very long time. Do not teach machines to kill
because they have absolutely no understanding of the difference between a
beneficial act and a hostile act, they just reduce the error between where
they're at and where you told them to be at. Going back to the internet you do
not ever ever do this, because then what you are creating is a global censor.
Happily for the moment such efforts are both localized and porous but this
gaggle of idiots shrieking about terrorists and pedophiles need to SFTU and
learn something, before they hatch something much worse.

~~~
ygaf
Put the drone soapbox away.

~~~
MarkMMullin
Actually I like drones - my point is that no matter how smart it appears,
software's still a pretty simple system doing what you told it to do. With
what May wants, she will hatch a world where she can put you anywhere (video +
ML to implant you), or hell just post online in your id, she can sign it and
make it legal in a lot jurisdictions (because she poked a big fat hole in the
crypto we use) and then she can use it as a big club on you - she can also
control what you see on the internet, meaning she can easily make sure you see
only what she wants you to see - and how long do you think that set of tricks
really stays secret with 'her' \- my point is it's hard enough to get this
right, I think at the end of the day Arthur C. Clarke once again had the
essence of it - let the 'smart' machine (I rate the internet as a very smart
machine) do it's job, keep that job straightforward, the side effects are
potentially horrendous.

~~~
anigbrowl
You will grow old and die while you are waiting for the general population to
learn moral reasoning and com e to its senses.

Hackers need to understand that political fights are not won by logic and
persuasion _because most people don 't like thinking._ Most people want to
have a Good Time when they're young, then Settle Down, Raise Kids, and retire
to enjoy a Quiet Life. For the majority of people political issues are an
unwelcome distraction from that unchallenging life script and trying to get
them all fired up and thinking like you do is guaranteed to be a waste of
time.

~~~
ygaf
Yes, these posts aren't connecting with the general populace because the truth
is too inconvenient, not because they suffer from any incoherency.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's part of it, but it's also a failure of communication. We need to do a
better job of appealing to people's emotions as well as their reason.

~~~
ygaf
I was trying to be sarcastic. Even the OP's second post, is half very
insightful (as to May and the future) half irrelevant tangent about machines.

------
lossolo
It's funny when people that do not have any idea about technology wants to
regulate Internet. Someone can just use application developed in other
country, what they will do ? block the site on ISP level? People will link to
thousands other sites that will have binaries of this application on
facebook/twitter/any other site.

They can't even handle piracy and they think that they can control whole
Internet? When I hear that kind of proposals I always have this picture in my
mind:

[https://torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1.jpg](https://torrentfreak.com/images/blocktpb1.jpg)

~~~
wyck
The technology exists to firewall entire countries, afterall the ISP's connect
to the larger "pipes", this has already happened in several countries. Sure
you could probably tunnel a connection but the average person certainly can't,
this fractures the internet.

------
mschuster91
As much as I'd like to say "hey Brits, come on and move to Germany as long as
you still can", our own government is going way down the authoritarian route,
too.

Not that extreme as in the UK, yes, but still - our secret services and the
police got awarded the right to automatically access our ID card photography.
What this means is that e.g. at demonstrations they can pull up a camera van
and have everyone identified in real time - as any form of masking is
forbidden by law since the RAF days.

When you're on social support, government may access your entire bank account
data including transactions, at will and use everything they find to make your
life even more miserable than it already is.

When you're a refugee, immigration offices are now allowed and equipped to
forensically examine your cell phone to determine "if you tell the truth",
plus you have your fingerprints and biometric photos taken.

First they came for the jobless, then the refugees, ... the path which many
countries these days are going is a very dark one and I am not sure if
democratic processes will allow a push back or if it will need massive civil
unrest.

~~~
MichaelGG
>When you're a refugee, immigration offices are now allowed and equipped to
forensically examine your cell phone to determine "if you tell the truth",
plus you have your fingerprints and biometric photos taken.

... What's wrong with inspecting their stories and taking biometrics? Just
believing people that are obviously in their 20s claiming to be teens is one
reason people are becoming anti immigration. Just cause someone shows up in
the EU cause their country sucks doesn't mean they should just be let in
without any scrutiny. ProTip: Most people in such countries would prefer to
live in the EU/Canada/US.

Blindly believing and letting in anyone damages efforts to admit people who
actually are at risk.

Coming in as a refugee is declaring your country of origin has totally failed
and you're availing of the mercy of others, of which you might never be able
to repay. Getting scanned to make sure you're not gaming the system seems like
a trivial price to pay.

~~~
mschuster91
> ... What's wrong with inspecting their stories and taking biometrics?

"inspecting their stories" in this case is violating their human right to
privacy. Taking biometric photos is fine if used only (!) for checking of
multiple applications, but not to submit them to the police databases - as
this puts refugees under a general suspicion of being future criminals.

> Getting scanned to make sure you're not gaming the system seems like a
> trivial price to pay.

The issue is: it's easy to break the dam in regard to human rights for
refugees following your line of thought. When measures like this are enacted
for refugees, usually no one cares until politicians say "we already have this
for refugees/homeless/jobless/other bottom group, so why not extend it to
soccer fans/left wing people/the general population". And by the time the
"expansion racket" has arrived at "the general population" there is no more
real resistance.

This is why weakening of human rights is something that should result in
jailtime for the politicians involved.

~~~
MichaelGG
So what's your proposal to deal with people arriving under false pretences?
Also you say refugee but let's admit a lot is simply economic migrants.
Reminds me of the woman in Guatemala that tried to get refugees status due to
being a woman in Guatemala. Ya, it sucks, but you're no more at risk than the
other 100M people in the area.

~~~
mschuster91
> So what's your proposal to deal with people arriving under false pretences?

No one except the far right cares for the maybe couple thousands of "fake
refugees" that are bound to be in the millions of people fleeing war and
poverty (which is often enough caused by Europe in the first place!). We don't
ban driving or drinking because a few drunk people cause chaos. We can afford
to house a couple thousand of "economic migrants" as long as we can clear up
billions of euros in a week to rescue banks, imo.

> Also you say refugee but let's admit a lot is simply economic migrants.

And who causes said economic migrants? Mostly the European policy of dumping
excess milk, food and clothing to Africa which destroys local industry there
as well as European countries robbing the African coasts of fishes (esp.
Somalia has been hit hard by this). To turn them away is pure double morality.
We Europeans are the cause of the misery, so why should we ignore the
consequences?

------
mcphage
Step 1. Make a new, secure internet so that terrorists can't operate secretly.

Step 2. Make terrorists use that internet.

Hmm... I'm detecting a problem with this plan...

~~~
hxegon
Nah bruh it'll work just give me authority over your online rights

~~~
mcphage
Later: Well, that didn't work.

------
awinter-py
> If elected, Theresa May will "take steps to protect the reliability and
> objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy"

> 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.

> 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.

~~~
runeks
Why regulate just the internet? It's just one way to transfer information.

Surely, if we want to assure the "reliability and objectivity of information",
we must also control publishers, including newspapers and independent
journalists.

After all, how can government be sure that only correct information spreads
unless it has complete control over it?

------
glitcher
Terrorists have also been known to hide weapons underneath their clothes. Does
this mean it should be law that everyone walk around naked so that terrorists
have "no safe place" to hide things underneath their garments?

------
kobeya
I'm thankful Hong Kong is now part of China so they can keep their fair and
open Internet.

What a weird world we live in.

~~~
solotronics
internet in HK is different from mainland China internet

~~~
kobeya
Yes... my comment wouldn't make much sense if that wasn't the case.

------
w3news
The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/#](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/#)

------
azinman2
I know this is the independent, but is this for real? It sounds like a prank,
straight out of the movie Brazil especially with the whole terrorist
motivation. And in the U.K.?!

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The headline claims that Theresa May "wants to create a new internet" but
there's nothing in the story to actually back up that claim. A "new internet"
would involve new infrastructure, ISPs, DNS servers, hosting companies etc.
which seems pretty far fetched.

Of course, that doesn't detract from the (potentially very scary) reality of
the situation.

------
Spare_account
How do these proposals compare with the regulations imposed on print and
television media in the UK?

Regulations imposed by a well meaning government can presumably be used for
good. Hate speech is already banned in the UK, has that been abused by the
organisations that enforce those rules?

It seems conceivable to me that while tighter regulations on the Internet
_could be_ abused by a malicious government, they _might not be_. The govt
might just use the powers to stamp out a bit of extremist material here and
there.

~~~
hyperdunc
Any good intentions behind a power grab are largely irrelevant. Just because a
government may not seem so bad right now, there's no guarantee things will
stay that way. History is littered with examples of rapid-onset tyranny.

------
sgt101
Most people - 90%+ didn't have access to a free internet until early 2000's
(for practical purposes), encryption was hardly ever used by private citizens
until GSM came in in the 80's, and then it was totally back doored - by law
and standard.

Did we live in a dictatorship?

Democracy and a free society seemed to exist then, and before. Perhaps they
were healthier in the 1990's than in the last few years?

~~~
rz2k
Are those serious questions?

~~~
sgt101
Well - polemical and rhetorical... but I think people forget that there was a
time before the internet as we know it now.

------
sscarduzio
Makes me giggle when people try to enforce policies about the internet without
knowing anything about internet.

~~~
gaius
Makes me giggle when people think "the Internet" can do a damn thing about
people with direct physical access to the submarine cables who buy servers and
storage by the acre...

------
wodencafe
What could they possibly be thinking?

Nobody wants this, except the gov't.

~~~
kobeya
I believe you answered your own question.

------
djklanac
US citizens should contact their representatives to indicate that this is not
ok:

Facebook.com/townhall

If you'd like a bit of boilerplate, here's a message I sent to my senator in
Georgia:

"Senator Perdue. I came across a troubling proposal by our U.K. allies to
censor internet communications. This reminds me of our own net neutrality
debate here in the US. What is your stance on regulating the internet?

For your reference: [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html")

I'm also open to any constructive comments that could make this message more
effective.

~~~
mxschumacher
better to call, emails will generally not get you far

------
libeclipse
If you want to make an impact, consider donating to The Open Rights Group:
[https://www.openrightsgroup.org/donate/](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/donate/)

------
hoschicz
The laws would also force technology companies to delete anything that a
person posted when they were under 18.

What? I can't believe this thinking finds some voters! Don't they see how
impossible that is to achieve?

------
mjsweet
How about a government controlled and regulated by the intenet?

------
DrNuke
Can't see the scandal, we are being eaten alive daily by big corps for profit
and surrendering them our entire national and supranational infrstructures, so
govs should really try and get control back. Do you really think Zuckerberg,
Brin, Bezos, Microsoft and Cook are better than May & co.? That said, the
other extreme is North Korea, so we know what to expect, eventually.

~~~
ryanx435
each of those companies/CEO's you listed control a subset of sites on the
internet.

May wants to control the entirety of sites on the internet.

if you can't see the difference, than I don't know what to say to you.

------
Keyframe
I quite don't understand what's going on in UK. How is this downward spiral
possible in this day and age? In UK of all places.

~~~
Boothroid
Thankfully we will have control of our borders again soon, and so the spiral
can be halted.

~~~
hyperdunc
That's not going to stop authoritarian elements within the country from
screwing with basic freedoms.

------
pishpash
Now let us see how much the Western world truly believes in its own professed
creed of openness, or whether its people have merely been cowardly hypocrites
taking comfort in the privilege of never having to confront the true diversity
of the human world.

------
msmm
As a someone who lived in abusive relationship with a control freak this
manifesto scares me.

------
moomin
If anyone was still under the impression that Brexit was going to lead to a
more international Britain rather than be carte blanche for every dumb idea a
politician has might want to start paying attention.

------
Banthum
This is one reason why I oppose multiculturalism.

Incompatible cultures in close proximity inevitably create civil conflict
(e.g. terrorism, etc). This gives authorities an excuse to take more and more
control over individuals' interactions with the excuse of trying to prevent
that conflict.

In a culturally-unified Britain, May would have no excuse at all to try this
Orwellian crap. See also: Patriot Act.

>"The plans are in keeping with the Tories' commitment that the online world
must be regulated as strongly as the offline one, and that the same rules
should apply in both."

I agree! It should be regulated the same way. Since the online world is _pure
speech_ , it should barely be regulated at all aside from direct threats and
incitement to violence.

~~~
ygaf
That is a profound point although you're only going to get downvoted for the
first point. My analogy of the web is that internet websites are street
establishments, and at least two parties (ISP / the website owners) have you
on CCTV. The website (and your ISP if they analyse traffic) have internal CCTV
of your activity, other parties only have footage that you walked into the
establishment and spent X time there. But I'm digressing. I should be free to
walk into places.

------
codecamper
Too bad this headline doesn't say "Create a New Government, controlled &
regulated by the Internet". Transpose two words & it really reads better.

------
wnevets
Is anyone really surprised that pro-brexit politicians would want something
like this?

------
kyriakos
Its like these are the first steps before V for Vendetta's plot...

------
tzakrajs
Theresa May is very basic and very prude. Colour me unsurprised.

------
libeclipse
What the actual fuck.

This is legitimately worse than SOPA.

------
gragas
It's actually disgusting to me the people like Theresa May can come to these
conclusions and think "this seems like a good idea"

------
pmarreck
Thanks for making us look good, UK.

\- united statesians

------
IsaacL
The headline sounds sensationalised. Below are the relevant sections from the
Conservative Party Manifesto ([https://s3.eu-
west-2.amazonaws.com/manifesto2017/Manifesto20...](https://s3.eu-
west-2.amazonaws.com/manifesto2017/Manifesto2017.pdf)).

 _" The safest place to be online

In harnessing the digital revolution, we must take steps to protect the
vulnerable and give people confidence to use the internet without fear of
abuse, criminality or exposure to horrific content. Our starting point is that
online rules should reflect those that govern our lives offline. It should be
as unacceptable to bully online as it is in the playground, as difficult to
groom a young child on the internet as it is in a community, as hard for
children to access violent and degrading pornography online as it is in the
high street, and as difficult to commit a crime digitally as it is physically.

Where technology can find a solution, we will pursue it. We will work with
industry to introduce new protections for minors, from images of pornography,
violence, and other age-inappropriate content not just on social media but in
app stores and content sites as well. We will put a responsibility on industry
not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or
other sources of harm. We will make clear the responsibility of platforms to
enable the reporting of inappropriate, bullying, harmful or illegal content,
with take-down on a comply-or-explain basis.

We will continue to push the internet companies to deliver on their
commitments to develop technical tools to identify and remove terrorist
propaganda, to help smaller companies build their capabilities and to provide
support for civil society organisations to promote alternative and counter-
narratives. In addition, we do not believe that there should be a safe space
for terrorists to be able to communicate online and will work to prevent them
from having this capability.

We will educate today’s young people in the harms of the internet and how best
to combat them, introducing comprehensive Relationships and Sex Education in
all primary and secondary schools to ensure that children learn about the
risks of the internet, including cyberbullying and online grooming.

Where we believe people need more protections to keep them safe, we will act
to protect them. We will give people new rights to ensure they are in control
of their own data, including the ability to require major social media
platforms to delete information held about them at the age of 18, the ability
to access and export personal data, and an expectation that personal data held
should be stored in a secure way. To create a sound ethical framework for how
data is used, we will institute an expert Data Use and Ethics Commission to
advise regulators and parliament on the nature of data use and how best to
prevent its abuse. The Commission will help us to develop the principles and
rules that will give people confidence that their data is being handled
properly. Alongside this commission, we will bring forward a new data
protection law, fit for our new data age, to ensure the very best standards
for the safe, flexible and dynamic use of data and enshrining our global
leadership in the ethical and proportionate regulation of data. We will put
the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care on a statutory footing
to ensure data security standards are properly enforced."_

\-----

I don't know how the data regulations mentioned at the end compare with the
EU's Data Protection Directive
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive)),
which is already part of UK law.

It's also interesting to compare the comments in this thread with the recent
thread about the EU's fines for Facebook
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13219828](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13219828)),
where the EU was praised for protecting consumer rights.

I am genuinely undecided on this issue. I'm basically pro-freedom and pro-
capitalist in politics, so Theresa's May's anti-market and authoritarian
policies have made me much less likely to vote Conservative. Still, I think
the right to privacy is an essential part of the right to liberty, so there's
some justification for the government regulating the use of personal data.

------
alando46
What a waste of energy.

------
marcusarmstrong
This is terrifying.

------
Animats
The UK leadership seems determined to follow the path laid out by Orwell in
"1984". They already have the camera system. Now comes the Ministry of Truth.

The US has its own problems, but they're different ones.

