this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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VPN subscriptions in the UK will be a lucrative market then for people wanting access to, let's see, Wikipedia...
I'm interested to know what the Signal President meant when she said she's much more optimistic about working with the government than she originally was.
The thing is it obviously does come from good intentions, and it's very rare you'll find me saying that about something to do with the Tories. But it's so obviously the wrong approach and yet here we are. Thanks for nothing. Yet again.
They are using the "good intentions" as cover for their ever expanding surveillance state. It is absolutely not the intention of this bill to provide "safety" for the citizens. It's to make sure that the citizens don't get too uppity and threaten their masters.
The original intent - to stop kids accessing harmful content on big tech media sites was the sole original intent. That's now morphed into the legislative tool for mass surveillance that's just been passed. That original intent wasn't a Tory idea as such, but two researchers. The addition of more and more draconian elements most definitely was from the Tories. Including the red Tory currently leading the Labour party.
I feel since she took over, Signal has been on a steady downward trajectory. Increasing the barriers to use, more centralization instead of federation, and the stupid fucking Stories feature.
Which barriers to use has Signal implemented? How is the App more centralized now than before, and have they ever expressed interest in federating their service before under Moxie? And how is implementing an optional feature that a lot of people like an argument for an assumed “downward trajectory”?
SMS support - signal went from being a one stop shop for messaging to yet another standalone messaging app that suffers from a lack of network effect unlike its competitors. The all in one approach was it's single greatest asset in getting people onto the platform.
There were desires to open up the platform prior, now it almost entirely forces you onto Signal exclusively and any discussion of other clients is expressely forbidden in its official support channels AND in it's unofficial (yet run by foundation members) channels like it's reddit sub
And yes, hopping on a shitty bandwagon of features its competitors have is a massive waste of dev hours and indicative of its downward trajectory
Completely irrelevant to any point you made previously.
This article from Moxie himself in 2016 shows they had no intention of expanding/implementing federation at all. This was way before the current President took over.
The fact that you don't differentiate between objective degradations of a service and implementing a feature you don't care about because you are not the target audience for it just show that you don't argue in good faith but just want to push an agenda.
Ironic if most UK users just start using VPNs to access content no longer available in UK.
Probably means she’s believing what they told her!
As for the Tories I think this is the ideal extension to their snoopers charter.
I've been using a VPN, blockers, all sorts in the UK to disguise some of my online activity from Google and other companies so if I'm just doing the same thing to avoid the government there's not much difference.
The fact that I still use Google products is a lapse and due to laziness on my part...
Of course it could be a vote winner for Starmer at the next election to say he'll repeal it on free speech grounds of he played it right. But then the opposition could spin it as him not wanting to protect children online so he probably won't have the guts to risk it.
Starmer's a big fan of this bill. He in fact proposed adding VPN's to the list of tech.
Hmm surely vpn companies would have to start logging heavily now. It should be possible to have a backdoor by design. All I can trust is tor I think