Oh...shit. That is both stupefying and petrifying. More and more I feel that there is a new class war coming; and it is not rich vs poor so much as it is governments vs civilians. Really wondering whether this will be shot down or if other governments will follow suit down this road as quickly as possible.<p>Instinct tells me the latter is more likely. I've not been on this Earth long, but where the fuck did all my freedoms go? It's like we're standing on a sandbar watching the tide erode our liberties from under our feet. And shit, it's the ocean. We can't do anything to save our little sandbar.
Holy shit. I'd leave the country and renounce citizenship over something like this.<p>Reading words? Looking at pictures? Watching a video? Felony jail time? <i>Really?</i><p>This is policy that any sane person would resist.
This article is pretty click-baity. It claims to be about reading banned literature in the title, then when you navigate to the site it immediately says the announcement/law is actually about watching videos promoting terrorism.<p>The main body of the article is pretty incoherent and rambling; it never really clearly states what the law is actually about.<p>If you actually go read the linked BBC article[0], you'll find that what's happening is somewhat less alarming than the article would lead you to believe. From what I gather, a politician is attempting to increase the maximum sentence of an existing law from 10 to 15 years, and to apply it to streaming content rather than just downloaded content.<p>There are definitely free speech implications and concerns here, but it's not nearly as dire as the article would imply.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-41479620" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-41479620</a><p>*Also, the subtext of the BBC article
> People who repeatedly view terrorist content online will face up to 15 years in prison, the home secretary has told the Conservative Party conference.
While this is a British concern, a reminder of what the United-States rebels enshrined into their new Constitution:<p>Amendment I<p>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The blog post above adds little to the bbc article that it links to.. in fact the bbc article is clearer about what has changed -- it's not a new law (Terrorism Act 2000), and the change is from 10 years to 15 years, and it now applies to streaming terrorist videos (instead of just downloaded videos).<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-41479620" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-41479620</a><p>This article is also good:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-viewers-of-online-terrorist-material-face-15-years-in-jail" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-v...</a>
Mein Kampf was banned banned banned, no ?<p>Later watered down and now you can buy it.<p>Various Hizb ut-Tahrir / Wahabi literature is banned banned banned.<p>Plenty of books have been banned, contrary to what the author is implying<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_gove...</a>
Way to make something cool - make it illegal. Teens don't care that much about future consequences, but they get to feel tough for doing something illegal.
That is very serious punishment for just watching the videos. Does it mean that government cannot cope with growing terrorist activity and wants to make it easier to put people they don't like to jail without having to prove that they were actually planning something or otherwise related to terrorism?
> A defence of "reasonable excuse" would still be available to academics, journalists or others who may have a legitimate reason to view such material.<p>Reminds me of the bit from
Family Guy when the police bust in to stop an act of prostitution, and the John points to the camera and says that he's filming it, so it's a porno.<p>The cop responds: "As long as you're filming and selling it, it's legal. Enjoy your day."<p>So bizarre.
This is an informative article let down by a deliberately misleading statement: 'As to the government’s definition of terrorism, it has lost all meaning: remember that a peaceful protests are formally classified as “Low-level terrorism” in government training material.'<p>The 'government' early in the sentence refers to the UK government (the subject of the article) but the training material was published by the _US_ government, so it's irrelevant here.<p>It _is_ worrying, though, to see content being banned, and putting the burden of proof ('reasonable excuse') on the viewer, rather than the prosecution.
> A defence of "reasonable excuse" would still be available to academics, journalists or others who may have a legitimate reason to view such material.<p>Subjective definitions in laws and policies is very dangerous. What makes someone an academic? What about a journalist? Somehow I doubt that a self-declaration is sufficient.
This seems like a bad law. I know the government doesn't plan to use it for average Joes surfing the web but even so. I quite often have a look to see what the other side is arguing in conflicts including downloading dabiq (an ISIS mag) and reading Breitbart. It shouldn't be an offence unless you get involved doing or at least supporting terrorism.<p>The government seems to be overreacting to the earlier days when some of the ISIS founders did their organizing and preaching in London.
I know... is this actually leading to scenario, where Alex Jones and Infowars are stamped to be terrorist organisation .. and if you watch any they videos you could be jailed ?<p>- hard to trust our governments really. We as normal poor people seems to be always the loosers and abused.
Would a valid cyber attack be to infect someone's machine, get these videos to play with logs that they played, and then report the person? Seems like the kind of thing that can be done relatively easily at mass scale...
So is it now CIA have to spy everybody then ?
In this crazy world, everybody could be terrorist ?<p>How about search engines, do they have any responsibility in this ?<p>Question: What about the false flags by government.. who's watching them ?
I do hope that companies like Twitter and Youtube take their responsibility.<p>How about 15 years of jailtime for the CEO of a company that facilitates streaming of terrorist propaganda and child-erotic material?