The problem with this discussion is that this is a wonk solution for wonkish times. You're trying to thread the needle between various reasonable compromises. Ironically due to social media, that is simply not how politics and lawmaking works any more. Instead it's an emotionally driven fight between various different sorts of moral panic, and the only option is to get people more mad about surveillance than "think of the children".
You might be able to get somewhere by getting a tech company on your side, but they generally also hate adult content and don't mind banning it entirely.
(people are not going to get age verification _banned_ any time soon! That's simply not going to happen!)
If you're expecting me to say that the Trump administration isn't literally fascist, openly evil, and aggressively anti-free-speech, or that plenty of previous administrations in the US haven't done indefensible things (even while being qualitatively better than Trump II), you may have to wait a very long time...
Well, but so is British administration for almost two decades now, it just has a more posh accent and doesn't routinely deport brown people yet.
The language of hate coming straight from the front bench or most important ministers, the harassment of the vulnerable and the utter evisceration of the right to assembly and free speech.
Maybe you heard of the Hyde Park - it has this place called Speaker's corner where free speech open-air public speaking, debate and discussions are allowed. It's dated to 1800's during the protests re: administration.
Sounds wild, right?
And you wouldn't be even half right.
A man holding an empty placard during the protest was threatened with arrest.
Several people were jailed for attending a zoom call (planning a nonviolent protest) for several years each. Almost 100 people were jailed for protesting the Genocide and the illegal proscribing of the protest group.
You read that right: if you were on the protest encouraging a genocide, you would be free to walk the street. If you were to protest killing entire families, targeting health workers and sniping children, you'd end up in prison.
Few years ago a man was detained for shouting "not my king!".
> Almost 100 people were jailed for protesting the Genocide and the illegal proscribing of the protest group.
Several hundred people actually.
To be clear, you could protest the genocide as much as you wanted, what you couldn't do was support the specific group "Palestine Action" who had some members who had committed (IMHO) some property crimes against defence contractors which the government decided to classify as terrorism and proscribe the whole group. When thousands of people continued to support the group, the police continued to arrest them by the hundred. It's a clusterfuck
Thankfully the UK government has recently lost its court battle on the proscription of Palestine Action, though there are ongoing hearings as to what happens next with all the people who were arrested and who are now awaiting a court date on (presumably) terrorism charges.
So this -
> If you were to protest killing entire families, targeting health workers and sniping children, you'd end up in prison.
Is not quite right. Or quite wrong.
The curtailment of the right to protest is worrying in all sorts of places. This specific case is muddied by the direct-action wing of a specific organisation.
Why would I do that? I run an adblocker, I don't want to watch any adverts at all.
(there are perhaps valid questions about UK broadcasting restrictions, but since the internet this has become much, much less important. All the really absurd stuff like Gerry Adams lies in the 20th century)
Broadcasters themselves aren't subject to pre-clearance; obviously, live TV exists.
> the most the government can do is stop you from repeating it and punish you for having done so.
Yes - and, because of this, Clearcast exists with a sort of "TSA pre-clear" role. If Clearcast pass it, it's very unlikely to result in subsequent legal action.
TV stations are in principle free to broadcast unrestricted ads live and deal with the consequences. Obviously, they have no interest in doing that.
On the contrary, the recent developments of America have made it very clear what the problem with "freedom to lie" and "freedom to smear" is. Especially when we're talking about adverts, which aren't exactly an important part of the discourse universe and are a potential vector for fraud.
(wait until the Americans understand what the rules for political TV broadcasts are in the UK, they will absolutely lose their minds. And the spending rules. And how little money is involved in UK elections.)
There's more serious concerns about UK libel law, and things like the proscription of Palestine Action, but generally I would say that if what you have to say is both true and important you can get your message across. Despite the newspapers and broadcasters.
"Use OBS" is one approach that definitely works. If you run the browser inside OBS it also disables hardware acceleration, which may cause some issues but has the advantage of turning DRM support off.
You might be able to get somewhere by getting a tech company on your side, but they generally also hate adult content and don't mind banning it entirely.
(people are not going to get age verification _banned_ any time soon! That's simply not going to happen!)
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