3/19/2026 at 7:52:33 PM
Ofcom is currently threatening a Canadian forum that exists to help people with depression. Ofcom claims that geoblocking blocking the UK is "insufficient":> I've also gone back to Ofcom explicitly telling them the UK was now geoblocked (twice now) and I received a response that this was insufficient.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1rk690v/i_ru...
Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.
by EmbarrassedHelp
3/20/2026 at 5:58:55 AM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.How silly of them. Obviously, only the US jurisdiction can do that.
by pwdisswordfishy
3/20/2026 at 6:24:05 AM
Ofcom could do it too if they had like 25 aircraft carriers and 2 of the 3 largest air forces on the planet, the best intel network, the most advanced tools, the backing of a $25T economy, the…by kulahan
3/20/2026 at 6:34:09 AM
Might makes right I guess.by nehal3m
3/20/2026 at 6:53:52 AM
US is losing a war on washing, hardly fear inducinghttps://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2026/03/18/bloc...
by hdgvhicv
3/20/2026 at 3:11:11 PM
Toilets are nice to have, but not REQUIRED when you are on a ship. Tongue in cheekby catlikesshrimp
3/20/2026 at 12:17:10 PM
Ireland doesn't have a military.by yostrovs
3/20/2026 at 6:14:46 PM
They have ~8k troops.by Mr_Bees69
3/20/2026 at 7:05:32 PM
Exactly. 0.23% of GDP. It exists only to be able to say that it exists. But it's not in NATO. The Irish will protect themselves if things go bad.by yostrovs
3/20/2026 at 8:26:12 AM
As much as I dislike the results of that, the opposite would be worse.by nslsm
3/20/2026 at 9:07:24 AM
The opposite? Literally any justification would be "opposite". Any justification is better than no justification!by danlitt
3/20/2026 at 9:23:57 AM
The rule of law is worse than might makes right? Or what do you perceive as the opposite of "might makes right?"by wongarsu
3/20/2026 at 1:52:37 PM
What is stopping you from breaking a given law if there is zero chance you'll be jailed or killed for doing so?by pc86
3/20/2026 at 2:01:37 PM
Social ostracism, loss of voting rights, loss of licensing, loss of ability to volunteer for some of your children's activities, loss of job opportunities because your name is on a docket or list of sexual offenders, higher insurance rates, loss of rental options, possible difficulty obtaining a passport or getting a visa, potentially being dropped from certain bank activities during due diligence, etcBeing jailed with some books and lots of time to work out sounds nice sometime, especially during times when home life is toddlers or baby screaming at you and waking you 24/7 and all your time is spent tending to others' needs so you have no personal agency anyway, the rest does not.
by mothballed
3/20/2026 at 3:03:20 PM
All of those other things (except maybe social ostracism), are also backed up by the force of the state and it's honestly kind of concerning you don't see that.Even debanking only happens because the banks themselves face fines from the state, which if unpaid leads to loss of licensure, after which continued operation leads to... jail. You only need a passport because if you try to push through security without one, you're going to jail. I'm sure if I wanted to waste my time I could follow the thread on all the other ones too.
Social ostracism is a good point. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule?
by pc86
3/20/2026 at 3:08:55 PM
I absolutely agree with you in substance. My main point is I think jailing is way overused and of usually of dubious value. It's extremely expensive, harms the victims (they literally have to pay taxes to pay for the aggressors), of dubious value in most cases, functions as criminal university, does little rehabilitation.Of course it needn't be a centralized state per se. Somalis for example use 'xeer' law which is a scalable legal system that starts peer to peer and appealable upwards, mostly based on restitution/fines and ostracizing those who do not pay (eventually to the point, they could become 'outlaws' that have no protection from crime themselves).
I think restitution based legal system is ideal, but of course that would flip on its head the current system where the state ousts the victim and becomes the victim themselves and deprives the victim of restitution instead turning it into a big cronyism money making machine for themselves at the expense of everyone else. It would also mean the end of most 'victimless' crime, and god knows the wailing and nashing of teeth that would come when you couldn't prosecute someone for smoking a left handed cigarette because there is no victim to prosecute the case [or on behalf of].
by mothballed
3/20/2026 at 3:08:49 PM
Your moral compass?by nehal3m
3/20/2026 at 12:41:18 PM
Rule of law is always implicitly backed by might makes right. The law is in control of the military and police after all.by bluefirebrand
3/20/2026 at 1:50:41 PM
Ideologically maybe not, but practically speaking, of course. Your government can only enforce its laws against you because if you resist you get put in a cage forever or they kill you. At the end of the day, that's the reason.by pc86
3/20/2026 at 11:33:14 AM
Always has.by bheadmaster
3/20/2026 at 9:11:42 AM
Now apply your critique to Ofcom.by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 10:10:44 AM
Gladly. In practice it’s true, but that doesn’t make it morally justified.by nehal3m
3/20/2026 at 7:26:54 AM
That has been true throughout history.by PixyMisa
3/20/2026 at 6:57:09 AM
Picture an astronaut holding a gun: always has been.by exe34
3/20/2026 at 2:02:36 PM
The cooperation of allies is more powerful than all of that, and the US is woodchipping their allies as fast as possible. Their power will disappear astonishingly quickly.by gilrain
3/20/2026 at 8:06:07 AM
Speaking as a New Zealander, this is correct. Having the FBI raid Dotcom was quite the show.by lostlogin
3/20/2026 at 1:09:17 PM
Well, someone operating a business refusing to pay fines in the UK might want to avoid traveling to the UK.Not a big loss, but something to keep in mind. There is a risk the UK has long memory.
by jopsen
3/20/2026 at 4:39:54 PM
Well, I already don't travel to countries where police are regularly not paid... not to mention countries where people are jailed for memes and what I consider free speech issues... so UK has been out for a few years as far as I'm concerned.by tracker1
3/20/2026 at 1:54:03 PM
[flagged]by pc86
3/20/2026 at 8:10:43 AM
Good news/bad news, our current leaders are far too incompetent to successfully plan and execute a regime change operation. Bad news is they're stupid enough to try anyway and have a lot of weapons.by solid_fuel
3/20/2026 at 9:13:13 AM
They don't need to change a regime. Just cut off a major ally of China and Russia.by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 11:09:40 AM
The Iran war was one of the biggest economic boons Russia could hope for; the disruption of oil and gas exports from Middle East with the associated spike in global prices brought Russian economy back from the dead, as now their exports are so much more valuable.by PeterisP
3/20/2026 at 10:28:22 AM
They're not though. They're lofting sanctions on Russia just to help try to survive this war.by guerrilla
3/20/2026 at 10:54:35 AM
It's not the first time I see comments similar to this and I honestly can't even begin to grasp how anyone can think that the US is in any way shape or form at risk from Iran.by Levitz
3/20/2026 at 8:58:39 PM
I'm sure people said the same about the USSR invading Afghanistan.The US right now cannot keep its bridges from collapsing. It cannot keep its children safe from men with guns. It cannot keep its citizens fed or housed. It is failing to provide adequate healthcare for a majority of its population, it cannot even keep its children vaccinated against measles. Our science agencies are being run by crackpots. Our mass media is being combined under one single owner.
This doesn't even consider the impending existential challenges of climate change.
And this nation, instead of fixing its crumbling domestic infrastructure - educational systems, health care systems, or anything that would benefit the citizens of the US - has chosen to launch an attack against a foreign nation that has already cost 10s of billions of dollars and will likely cost vastly more.
All the political and economic capitol that is required to maintain and improve stable conditions is instead being poured into murder in a desert thousands of miles from home.
by solid_fuel
3/20/2026 at 12:28:25 PM
If it spends enough to trigger the debt bomb literally pounding sand, that could do it. It isn't Iran that is the danger though. The US could just walk away any time and be fine.by galangalalgol
3/20/2026 at 2:50:56 PM
I'd argue that Vietnam and Al-Qaida/Afghanistan/Iraq where much lesser "risks" than Iran, and those still left lasting scars on US society, self-image and standing.by myrmidon
3/20/2026 at 2:30:14 PM
Well, why don't you open Bloomberg or the Financial Times to understand why. The damage being caused is potentially civilization-ending. At the very least, this is already going to be very expensive for everyone for many years.by guerrilla
3/20/2026 at 9:35:43 AM
Which regime is trying to be changed though? The backlash to starting a war for no credible reason and tanking the world economy along with increased fuel prices could conceivably force a regime change in the USA.by ndsipa_pomu
3/20/2026 at 1:58:43 PM
The US regime is changing with the next presidential election regardless of the outcome (or lack thereof) of this war. Short of a nuclear exchange or China invading Taiwan or San Francisco, nothing is changing that.by pc86
3/20/2026 at 2:28:23 PM
Trump's private army taking guard outside the white house with the new military-grade defensive ballroom might change matters. Who exactly is going to force him to leave?by ndsipa_pomu
3/20/2026 at 2:33:31 PM
What are you talking about?I sure hope I'll see you back here on 1/20/29 saying over and over again how wrong you were and how stupid this comment was but I'm sure you'll have some excuse, or pretend you never said it.
by pc86
3/20/2026 at 3:40:51 PM
He already tried to overturn one election. What makes you think that he wouldn't try again?by estebank
3/20/2026 at 4:35:03 PM
There are quite explicit constitutional limits to his ability to be elected to a third term. Short of a mitary-style takeover, there is nothing he can do to change that (discounting the scenario of constitutional amendment).by hellojesus
3/20/2026 at 9:00:37 PM
The same limits he ignored in 2021?by solid_fuel
3/20/2026 at 6:43:44 PM
Who would be enforcing those constitutional limits? I didn't think that a convicted felon could run for president, but here we are.by ndsipa_pomu
3/20/2026 at 6:42:22 PM
It's just a possibility given the co-opting of ICE agents into performing like Trump's private army. I'd much rather never see that happen and have to live with making a dumb comment.by ndsipa_pomu
3/19/2026 at 8:45:26 PM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.The cries of a long-since-dead empire slowly fading into geopolitical irrelevance.
by 15155
3/20/2026 at 12:31:47 AM
I didn't see it that way. It seems like NGOs and IGOs have been pushing for internet restrictions for a long time. There has suddenly been a push for age restrictions allegedly because of abuse material. This happens annually. Some international group claims there needs to be something draconian abolishing encryption, or some other privacy invading measure to stop child abuse and help security. The laws are 1000s of pages and appear out of nowhere and we're expected to believe it's organic and that politicians are deeply concerned about the issue.So it really wouldn't be hard for the same legal framework that restricts age to happen in the US. It just takes compliance on our part. The UK is just one tentacle of the legal bureaucracy. It wouldn't surprise me if a bill appears called the Online Child Safey Act or something like that soon and it happens to coincide with a bunch of issues Ofcom raises in this lawsuit.
by onetimeusename
3/20/2026 at 1:02:13 AM
> It seems like NGOs and IGOs have been pushing for internet restrictions for a long time. There has suddenly been a push for age restrictions allegedly because of abuse material. This happens annually.we’re seeing some good evidence the most recent pushes were secretly funded and directly written by meta, the corporation. [0][1]
according to the link in there,
> Rep. Kim Carver (R-Bossier City), the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her.
and they’ve put as much as 2 billion dollars into it. and yes, that’s billion, with a B.
corporations openai, meta, and google were absolutely backing the push for the age verification bill in california and ohio. [2][3][4]
[0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47361235
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45244049
[3] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances...
[4] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/meta-google-back-differe...
by toofy
3/20/2026 at 4:03:51 AM
Reading the original research and stripping away the motives implied by the bot, the data is aligned with another interpretation. Namely that Meta is going with the flow and using the opportunity to push for regulation that impact its interests less, while affecting its competitors more.The original research is riddled with baked in conclusions, and has not been verified independently. Its also mostly LLM generated.
by intended
3/20/2026 at 5:15:28 AM
> and they’ve put as much as 2 billion dollars into it. and yes, that’s billion, with a B.The original report that cited the $2 billion number was AI generated slop. The $2 billion number wasn't from Meta, it was from Arabella Advisors.
The AI-generated report showed only about $20-30 million in lobbying efforts per year across all lobbying.
Even the Show HN post was full of AI slop, claiming things like "months of research" when the Claude-generated report showed it began a couple days prior.
So please stop repeating this AI generated junk. It dilutes any real story and the obvious falsehoods make it easy for critics to dismiss.
by Aurornis
3/20/2026 at 9:57:35 AM
> only about $20-30 millionThat is still an absurd amount of money
by w4der
3/20/2026 at 1:34:09 PM
That’s on all lobbying efforts combined. It’s not out of line for a company of that scale that is trying to do things like build data centers and other such activities.There’s a motte-and-bailey fallacy happening with that “Meta spent $2 billion” report where the $2 billion number is used as a hook but then replaced with a different argument if the other parties are observant enough to see that it’s BS
by Aurornis
3/20/2026 at 2:04:32 PM
What's absurd is lying by two orders of magnitude and expecting people not to completely ignore everything you have to say because of that.by pc86
3/20/2026 at 4:28:56 AM
India is considering these bans. I suspect every country in the world is thinking of them.I work in safety, and you are right in that this comes up every year. The pressures have been building up and it’s coming to a head. However:
0) Techlash is a thing, and HN regularly underestimates the vehemence and anger behind it.
1) There IS an organic component, driven by voters globally.
2) It is also meta and governments, taking advantage of a crisis to further their ends.
Governments globally are tending towards authoritarianism. Tech firms impact most of the world, but are barely responsive to even the American government.
Voters around the world are increasingly terrified of what tech is doing, while tech is entirely unresponsive to their concerns. Tech is very firmly the bad guy today, when it used to be the “good guy” in the 90s.
So governments are more than happy to be seen as putting tech in its place, while gaining more power for themselves.
A few anecdotes about how bad the safety side is: NDAs are so prevalent and tech is so averse to customer support, that safety teams have no formal signal sharing methods.
The number of requests to recover accounts, point out fraud, or even to address CSAM, that go through WhatsApp, slack, discord, etc. is heart breaking.
To be blunt, it’s a Kafkaesque fuck up that the whole world is stuck in, and people are pissed.
by intended
3/20/2026 at 10:54:20 AM
[dead]by speefers
3/20/2026 at 5:56:23 AM
Honestly there's nothing more corrosive and corrupt than "politics behind the back" from NGOsIt's 90% corporate lobbying with a "do gooder" varnish
by raverbashing
3/19/2026 at 10:06:18 PM
Not so slowly. They've gone from a more or less respectable smaller country to more or less politically, culturally, and economically irrelevant in less than 10 years. I even question whether it's rational to allow them to have nukes; they should probably be required to give them up to some country that has a shot at remaining a stable and predictable geopolitical entity over the next century.by observationist
3/19/2026 at 11:20:47 PM
Their cultural decline seems to have definitely accelerated recently. Even 10-15 years ago it seemed like there was so much more British influence in the media, a lot more films and television set in Britain. It seems like the London Olympics were a kind of last hurrah. Even here in Australia which has always historically had more British influence than anywhere else it's receded - there's very little focus on their internal politics, much more on the politics and culture of the United States, even more than you'd expect given the population difference.by joegibbs
3/20/2026 at 1:18:22 AM
The genteel class turning on jk Rowling was definitely a Waterloo moment in British cultural strength.by eucyclos
3/20/2026 at 6:07:24 AM
it's ironic though, that you wrote your comment in English.by bouncycastle
3/20/2026 at 6:47:18 AM
That is only historic influence, though. Britain does not control the English language and cannot exert any further influence through it.by moring
3/20/2026 at 9:37:32 AM
Well, Monthy Python does still reach some people, but apart from that it is fading away it seems ..by lukan
3/20/2026 at 3:45:46 PM
The lingua franca has changed before...by estebank
3/20/2026 at 8:37:53 AM
Yeah, but whose English?by aquariusDue
3/20/2026 at 1:57:16 PM
I think you meant,"but whom's English"
by munksbeer
3/20/2026 at 3:57:49 AM
It's deliberate isolationism, the same isolationism that drove Brexitby heavyset_go
3/20/2026 at 4:48:41 AM
There are two kinds of "isolationism". In the first, the person becomes a hermit refusing to interact with anyone.In the second, a cult grabs hold of the person and isolates them from their families and loved ones so they can brainfuck them. And, I suspect this has happened to the UK. England doesn't want to be a land for the English, because to do so would make them racist. They have strength in their diversity. Blah blah blah. And the English can't be allowed to talk with anyone else or they might realize how fucked-in-the-head all that nonsense is. They are under the spell of a cult, not as individuals, but collectively. And that cult won't be done with them until it's taken everything from them and coerced them to sign a "billion year contract". And to top it off, you're blaming it on them.
by NoMoreNicksLeft
3/20/2026 at 7:24:21 AM
Don't mistake Brits' general disinterest in engaging with foreigners whose perspective on the UK begins and ends with lecturing us on "England for the English" with us not being able to talk with anybody else...by notahacker
3/20/2026 at 12:47:56 PM
Oh look! It's the Monty Python "Ahm not dead yet" skit, out in the wild...by NoMoreNicksLeft
3/20/2026 at 5:35:25 AM
[flagged]by joe_mamba
3/20/2026 at 6:16:35 AM
Am I reading these views on HN? I had to check, it seems yes. :)by DeathArrow
3/20/2026 at 9:15:32 AM
Diversity of views and expertise seems like a good thing.by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 9:49:21 AM
Except in this case it’s unhinged gibberish.by rounce
3/20/2026 at 9:49:02 AM
But not diversity of race, apparently.by dTal
3/20/2026 at 10:15:37 AM
That's neither here nor there. Just get the best people. Or are you against the current racial makeup of the earnings of the top NBA players?by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 10:40:12 AM
In case it wasn't clear, my comment was sarcastic. To be absolutely clear, I don't agree with racial discrimination.So that we don't talk past each other, here is a summary of my perspective of the discussion so far:
NoMoreNicksLeft dropped an unhinged rant about "England for the English", including a clearly sarcastic and mocking reference to "They have strength in their diversity".
joe_mamba chimed in with "diversity is bad", and added that Germany has the same "issue".
DeathArrow expressed incredulity at witnessing open racial segregationism on HN.
You replied to DeathArrow with "diversity of opinions is good". It was unclear whether you were defending the expression of segregationism on HN, or disagreeing with the premise of it. In any case you didn't signal that you recognized the extreme irony.
I attempted to point out the irony with as few words as possible, and apparently failed to communicate well enough.
by dTal
3/20/2026 at 11:35:52 AM
Ah I think I understand. I definitely think the point is worth making that England seems to be one of the only places on earth that doesn't value - or even recognise the existence of - its own native population, even as a point of debate. It's definitely nothing to do with segregation, which is just something else.No one in most countries would argue that their native population doesn't exist as a category. In fact while in the US the native Americans have been treated very badly in the past, that hopefully doesn't happen too much today, and they are quite honoured in some ways.
by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 12:51:58 PM
>No one in most countries would argue that their native population doesn't exist as a category.Germany?
by joe_mamba
3/20/2026 at 11:42:09 AM
The biggest racial discrimination in today's UK is their inability to arrest and put an end to grooming gangs. Get educated on the subject to understand whats being insinuated by the slogan they have "diversity" as their strength. Most of western Europe & UK are unable to handle crime committed by certain groups, for fear of being labeled racists. Well, there is a teacher in UK in "hiding" because he offended the wrong people. In summary, UK neither has the soft power nor the moral authority to influence anyone in the today's world.by indiangenz
3/20/2026 at 3:56:47 PM
the UK has incarcerated plenty of participants in grooming gangs from a diverse range of ethnic groups (and elected none of them President).No matter how many accounts you create to amplify the Epstein-associate media message that only other ethnicities participate in the systematic sexual abuse of children and get away with it, you're still not getting an invite to the island...
by notahacker
3/20/2026 at 12:39:49 PM
Exactly the accounts you most expect. Thank you for pushing back.by AlexeyBelov
3/20/2026 at 11:02:35 AM
> witnessing open racial segregationism on HNYou are misinterpreting something. "Diversity" is not exclusively about race.
by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
3/20/2026 at 11:13:55 AM
The comment that started all this was explicitly about race. Here's a quote:> England doesn't want to be a land for the English, because to do so would make them racist. They have strength in their diversity. Blah blah blah.
by dTal
3/20/2026 at 11:36:25 AM
But not about segregation.by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 11:51:52 AM
Yes, but the comment DeathArrow responded to, which is apparently what started all this bickering about racism (collapse that comment to see what I mean), was not.joe_mamba's use of "diversity" reads as being about diversity of opinion; it only appears to be about race given the context you pointed out.
Seriously, what part of "United people are dangerous for the elites" suggests that the people should segregate themselves and each other?
by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
3/20/2026 at 12:30:13 PM
I have a hard time believing that, sorry. joe_mamba literally quoted the same use of the word "diversity" that I did, and concurred with the sentiment - that it "leads to division". And went on to add that Germany was also "under the spell of a cult".You're suggesting that joe_mamba simply used a paragraph of barely-veiled racist drivel as a jumping off point to make a completely unrelated and totally-not-racist point about how diversity of opinion is harmful and "leads to weakness"? And agreed with the "cult" rhetoric for good measure?
Why exactly should we ignore the context? An excess of charity, perhaps? How are we supposed to interpret "similar issue in Germany" without the context?
by dTal
3/20/2026 at 9:46:18 AM
It used to be widely known that tech nerds are socially impaired.Then they built the future and earned a lot of money and status, and now Silicon Valley is a hotbed of neofascist thought.
Turns out that if you give enough power to people who wrangle machines, they start thinking about wrangling people the same way.
Nerds are extremely dangerous. Through their work they quickly absorb the axiom of "predictability is good, unpredictability is bad" and from there to conclusions like "heterogeneity is dangerous and unpredictable" and "behavior of actors in a distributed system must be constrained". Put DevOps in charge of society and expect to get humans treated like cattle, not pets.
by dTal
3/20/2026 at 10:16:15 AM
This was already happening, it's just they were on your team and you were happy. One of the most obvious things to have happen is the overriding power of the left in tech and all the right (and centre-left) people warning that when the pendulum swings all the left-wing people who love giving authority more power will regret it. As though all authoritarian left wing countries in history were not evidence enough, they have to learn the lesson the hard way.by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 11:08:20 AM
Firstly, I don't appreciate, at all, being told what "team" I'm on, or the smug tone that I'm now "learning a lesson". When you come on HN, leave that sort of thing at the door, please. I'm being polite but I'd like you to imagine this worded in the strongest possible way that is acceptable for whatever culture you happen to be from. Include swear words if it helps.I don't know of any "big tech" going out of its way to enforce left wing values. Bandwagoning on large scale social movements, sure, in a "play it safe" kind of way, the same way literally every company gets all rainbow-y during Pride month - it's profitable, or they wouldn't do it. If you resented that, what you resented was having a minority opinion.
The relatively recent shift towards right wing values is also rooted in self interest. It doesn't indicate some kind of change of heart, it simply signals recognition of a power shift - the opinions of people / users / customers now matter less than the opinions of certain authoritarian right wing governments.
by dTal
3/20/2026 at 11:18:44 AM
Unless you think I appreciate your first paragraph, it's a bit hypocritical to do something I don't appreciate while berating me for same.> I don't know of any "big tech" going out of its way to enforce left wing values.
I believe you, and I think that is exactly the problem.
> The relatively recent shift towards right wing values is also rooted in self interest
I agree, but this is why neither left nor right should be cheering for corporations enforcing hate speech rules (set by whomever is in power), shadow bans for the right wing voices, bans for people questioning the efficacy of the covid vaccine, or for questioning vaccine mandates, etc etc. The opinions of authoritarian left wing people for 10 years are now being ignored (well, not in HR departments and all the other places left wing authoritarianism exists) and the left seems to view that change as a rise in authoritarianism.
by philipallstar
3/20/2026 at 12:46:57 PM
Are you saying that merely stating the practically proven fact of "diversity leads to political and social division" makes someone a neo fascist? Or did I misunderstand your comment?by joe_mamba
3/20/2026 at 2:06:34 AM
It's irrational to allow anyone other than yourself to have nukes. That's the whole point of having them, and the reason why nobody is going to bother asking for permission. No country with any self respect wants to end up becoming another Venezuela.by matheusmoreira
3/20/2026 at 3:33:13 AM
Did it work out better for North Korea or Iran?by harry8
3/20/2026 at 3:42:04 AM
North Korea is still standing and even got Trump to play diplomacy. Only reason Iran got attacked is the fact they didn't have nukes yet.Venezuela showed everyone what happens when you're a toothless country. USA shows up at your door uninvited, fucks your shit up, takes your oil and kidnaps your president for good measure, just to tack on some extra humiliation.
Don't get me wrong, Maduro deserved an even worse fate than what he got. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. It's still a cautionary tale for nations worldwide. It can happen to you. China continues to erode the economic power of the USA. They could very well discover one day that their military might is all they have left. Who's to say they won't suddenly decide to capitalize on their advantage before it evaporates?
by matheusmoreira
3/20/2026 at 4:41:37 AM
As Venezuelan nothing angers me more than someone naming Maduro as our president, and that in some way I should feel bad about it. The guy and his government were pure evil.by kelvinjps10
3/20/2026 at 4:59:45 AM
You guys should have been the ones to personally get your hands on him. Hope you're doing alright now. Situation is far from perfect but at least one tyrant is gone.by matheusmoreira
3/20/2026 at 3:41:14 PM
We have tried so many times, and tbh if Venezuelans were the ones doing it this time so many civilians would have died. Because the military people that can do something about it, are so comfortable with all the stuff they have.by kelvinjps10
3/20/2026 at 9:52:56 AM
IF he had played ball with the US they would have left him in charge no matter what he did to the population.by Hikikomori
3/20/2026 at 5:24:25 PM
No one should feel bad for Maduro, but the reasons Maduro was evil had very little to do with the actual reasons the US grabbed him. Trump's motives were pure greed, and that's a terrifying reason for kidnapping a foreign head of state. And at least as far as I've seen, it didn't even help. Literally every other part of his regime is still in place isn't it?by andrewflnr
3/20/2026 at 6:19:26 AM
Yes Maduro and his cronies are pure evil. But it's not another country business to intervene, kidnap or assassinate leaders.by DeathArrow
3/20/2026 at 8:04:10 AM
It should be UNSC acting on the arrest warrant from Den Haag sending the president snatchers, but that version of world police didn’t live up to expectations, so back to big shaitan ut goesby Muromec
3/20/2026 at 8:27:25 AM
Every country has the president they deserve. You had Maduro because you didn’t oppose him.by nslsm
3/20/2026 at 8:56:46 AM
Iran would be attacked even with nukes. If you promise relentless war- and nuclear attacks via proxxies - you basically show that game-theory does not apply to you. Religion explicitly states that MAD does not apply to them too. And they life by that. So Iran with nukes, would be nuked 1 day after. No matter the cost. Its similar to the a medieval pope having nukes, and everyone else being heretic witches. You just pick the size of the stake you burn on at that point.What the west wishes the world to be and how they think everyone does see the world, does simply not apply. No matter how Nash pure. The All defector defects in all games..
by 21asdffdsa12
3/20/2026 at 9:51:38 AM
This US regime isn't any different than the ayatollah, they also want christian sharia laws and to oppress women.by Hikikomori
3/20/2026 at 11:07:06 AM
I wish you had traveled the world and would have seen whats really on the ground, instead of staying in your bubble and earlying out with a "everyone is just like me".The us is the most harmless empire that ever was. The most extreme case in the us evangelical bullshit is a daily buisness case.
by 21asdffdsa12
3/20/2026 at 2:27:28 PM
How it currently is and what the people currently in power wants can be different things right?by Hikikomori
3/20/2026 at 8:51:56 AM
Nicaragua and Cuba nextby DivingForGold
3/19/2026 at 10:15:03 PM
The UK has been declining for at least 50 years, it isn't a new phenomenon. It's only really relevant culturally; after all EU countries are forced to speak English or they wouldn't be able to communicate, even after the UK's departure from the Union and some unsuccessful attempts at increasing the place of French.by drnick1
3/20/2026 at 12:48:09 AM
Not having the UK in the EU makes English a better choice, not a worse one. It was one of those things where the UK had a 'home court advantage'. This is one of the strangest fringe benefits and of course there were some countries that tried to jockey for position but fortunately that didn't go anywhere.by jacquesm
3/20/2026 at 8:50:20 AM
And hey, now that the UK exited stage right, Ireland gets to be the de-facto owner of the English language in the EU :Dby swiftcoder
3/20/2026 at 9:57:00 AM
The benefits keep stacking up!Joking aside, that was one of the worst own goals in history.
by jacquesm
3/19/2026 at 10:32:44 PM
While it's the defacto public language (and the one of the required languages). These days all EU communication is done though either the translation service or governmental variants of it making it pretty much irrelevant due to most official languages being served (there seem to be some exceptions but they are minor in the grand scheme of things).by consp
3/20/2026 at 8:49:50 AM
OK, I can see how you can call UK irrelevant, but unstable? Currently it looks much more stable that the major nuclear powers of US and Russia.by oytis
3/20/2026 at 1:45:19 AM
The thing about an independent nuclear deterrent is that it’s completely irrelevant what anyone else thinks about you having one.by FuckButtons
3/20/2026 at 5:00:24 PM
> economically irrelevant in less than 10 yearsThe UK has the 6th highest GDP in the world. Pretty high bar if that make you economically irrelevant.
by remus
3/20/2026 at 5:50:30 PM
That's mostly because of London's financial center, where a lot of foreign money is laundered; the city's GDP is comparable in size with small EU countries like Belgium or Ireland. If you take London out of the equation, what's left has an average GDP of only 30k per capita [0].A quick comparison with [1] (using 1 GBP ~ 1.30 USD) shows that London would rank #8 in Europe (between Denmark and Norway), while the rest of the UK would come in somewhere around #25, between Spain and Italy.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1168072/uk-gdp-per-head-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...
by tremon
3/20/2026 at 6:19:15 PM
Sure, if you exclude the wealthiest parts of the country then it does look significantly poorer. Just as if you exclude California then the GDP of the US drops significantly. The point was whether the UK is economically relevant, not whether the economy is ethically sound (which is quite a nebulous question I'm sure you'll agree).by remus
3/20/2026 at 3:06:04 AM
"allow"? Under what authority and governance would you remove them?by Daviey
3/20/2026 at 1:50:35 PM
American exceptionalism is a law unto itself.by pydry
3/20/2026 at 4:49:07 AM
Not that I necessarily disagree but rationality doesn't enter into it. I mean Pakistan is probably less stable than the UK but I guess they're allowed to have nukes now?by nradov
3/20/2026 at 6:07:50 AM
> I mean Pakistan is probably less stable than the UK but I guess they're allowed to have nukes now?Is there a nuke authority that I did not know about who decides who should and should not have nukes?
by ExoticPearTree
3/20/2026 at 6:33:43 AM
Do you mean the International Atomic Energy Agency?by eucyclos
3/19/2026 at 10:13:43 PM
> some country that has a shot at remaining a stable and predictable geopolitical entity over the next century.Which country do you believe could possibly qualify for such an impossible task?
by philipov
3/19/2026 at 10:38:13 PM
China's probably making the best argument for it now.by nemomarx
3/20/2026 at 12:34:10 AM
China's wot?by gerdesj
3/20/2026 at 12:50:35 AM
I don't personally like their government but at this point they certainly have the appearance of long term social and political stability. More than most western countries for the time being.by fc417fc802
3/20/2026 at 2:19:59 AM
> they certainly have the appearance of long term social and political stabilityYou could've said that exact same thing about the US just 10 years ago when Obama was president.
by nozzlegear
3/20/2026 at 1:53:49 PM
The only real difference between Obama's foreign adventures in Libya and Trump's in Iran was that Obama lied to the security council to get their approval first.Trump isnt all that different in character to previous administrations he just takes bigger risks and doesnt bother with the mask.
by pydry
3/20/2026 at 4:11:02 PM
The person I was replying to was talking about China's own long-term social and political stability, not their foreign policy. If you're suggesting that Obama's boondoggle in Libya was the catalyst that led to Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016 and Trump's first presidency, that's intriguing speculation. But I don't think his foreign policy is relevant to the overall topic since it was largely milquetoast for the American public at the time, and certainly didn't cause any immediate domestic instability like we're seeing with Trump.by nozzlegear
3/20/2026 at 2:58:16 AM
China has a host of factors that make their current system very fragile. I doubt they make it five more years before turbulence hits.by ungreased0675
3/20/2026 at 9:08:06 AM
They'll likely skate over the current turbulence that's already hitting many non-China countries.China has been preparing for a global energy crisis for years. It is paying off now
As other Asian economies race to conserve energy, China has huge reserves of oil and gas as well as alternative energy sources like wind and solar
by defrost
3/20/2026 at 6:24:24 AM
I've been hearing that since the 1990's when it first started to become apparent that their economy was on track to overtake the rest of the world within a few decades.It hasn't happened yet. Is there something you perceive as especially problematic now, as opposed to the last 30 years?
by __d
3/20/2026 at 3:23:37 AM
I'd be interested to read about that if you have any particular pointers to resources to share.by fc417fc802
3/20/2026 at 1:58:08 PM
Been hearing that said repeatedly since 1989.I've never once heard it from somebody who correctly anticipated China's rise though. The imminent collapse story just quietly changes every 5 years or so.
If the US has an imperial rival one thing you can almost guarantee is that the predictions of economic collapse will be as frequent as they are absurdly overblown and as always, This Time It's Different.
by pydry
3/20/2026 at 1:13:39 AM
Totalitarianism aside, I'm not sure about the stability either. Personally I suspect Xi Jinping's reign will end with some kind of bang, either an economic one or something relating to invading Taiwan.by andrewflnr
3/20/2026 at 1:26:29 AM
A dramatic end to his reign doesn't have to imply social or political instability (though it certainly could).by fc417fc802
3/20/2026 at 1:25:34 AM
Would the us currently defend Taiwan? I think they might get the chance to just take it, especially if we get another president like Trump in 28.by nemomarx
3/20/2026 at 6:10:24 AM
No idea, honestly. But if I lived in Taiwan I would be shitting bricks.by andrewflnr
3/20/2026 at 6:57:49 AM
Taiwan's biggest problem is that the average age is currently ~45 and in 15 years it will be ~55. It's going to be hard to keep the economy going once half the country's retired.by slavik81
3/20/2026 at 1:28:15 AM
If Japan became involved would the US then become embroiled?by fc417fc802
3/20/2026 at 2:42:42 AM
Yes obviously. We would erase President Xi and his family as well. What are they going to do, cross the Pacific? Our total willingness to do is unconditional.by peyton
3/20/2026 at 8:49:20 AM
That's true, but the one child policy has backed them into a corner.A society that is unwilling to replace itself will inevitably decline.
by imtringued
3/20/2026 at 9:03:05 AM
The policy in place for 36 years, that ended 11 years ago had pros and cons, but it hasn't backed them into a corner of inevitable decline.by defrost
3/20/2026 at 8:54:55 AM
> the one child policy has backed them into a cornerA policy that ended a decade ago, and was only ever marginally successful (even at the height of the restrictions their birth rate was nearer 1.4 than 1.0)
by swiftcoder
3/20/2026 at 10:24:15 AM
The one child policy was only for cities anyway. Agricultural areas were permitted, even encouraged, to have more children. There were other exceptions, like twins (obviously), if the first baby was disabled, etc. Later on, couples were allowed two children if both parents came from single-child families.by ralferoo
3/20/2026 at 1:21:59 AM
> Totalitarianism aside, I'm not sure about the stability either. Personally I suspect Xi Jinping's reign will end with some kind of bang, either an economic one or something relating toThat’s a pretty big aside.
by ta9000
3/20/2026 at 5:19:12 PM
Not sure why you replied over here, but yeah, it sure is. Just trying to be clear about separating the moral judgement from the prediction.by andrewflnr
3/19/2026 at 10:41:29 PM
One or more of the Nordics.by andrewflnr
3/19/2026 at 11:59:42 PM
At first I took the comment about transferring nukes as a bit of a joke, but you make a fair point. Let Iceland have em!by WastedCucumber
3/20/2026 at 12:47:23 AM
Greenland can make a competing bid on the basis of a pressing need.by fc417fc802
3/20/2026 at 12:48:53 AM
That's one that I didn't have on my bingo card for 2026 but it is funny to contemplate.by jacquesm
3/20/2026 at 12:37:09 AM
So, Sweden.by gerdesj
3/20/2026 at 1:16:04 AM
They're also starting to talk about a joint nuclear program.by andrewflnr
3/20/2026 at 3:19:37 AM
As they should beby morkalork
3/19/2026 at 10:51:55 PM
It’s kind of sad to read your arrogant and xenophobic rantings. I’m not sure you’re really down for the sort of inclusive and open minded discussion that normally takes place here.by urbandw311er
3/20/2026 at 12:03:55 AM
I would normally agree but if you see Brexit and the kind of "people" that are getting ready to take over power (Reform UK), I do have to say I understand some of this sentiment.by wolvoleo
3/19/2026 at 11:07:45 PM
Living here the decline is tangible. And this is West Oxfordshire; not one of the poorer parts of the country.An example in microcosm: a local village suffered road flooding due to failed maintenance of water pipes. Our rent-seeking privatized water company effected the minimum repair required by regulation.
The next section of old pipe burst almost immediately, flooding the road further for most of January, utterly destroying the surface, through the road base in many places. Even at a crawl it's difficult to avoid tyre damage.
Over a month later the water repairs were effected. Then shortly after some local roadwork notification signs were put up.
Those expecting repairs to the moonscaped road were disappointed: instead the relentless bureaucracy of British local government installed traffic calming measures on top of the broken road, as the work had already been booked and could not be stopped by any means as even basic roadworks lack any degree of dynamism in their execution.
All this still needs to be made right. These small scale failures will compound and compound until the entire state is drowned in the consequence of its incompetence.
by magospietato
3/20/2026 at 2:46:58 AM
> An example in microcosm: a local village suffered road flooding due to failed maintenance of water pipesYour example only compares against the UK past.
It has zero relevancy because it says nothing about relative change against other countries.
Anecdotally for the USA, I went to New Orleans last year, and I was stunned at the rotting infrastructure. Coming from New Zealand, the USA seems to be trying to copy the trajectory of Argentina.
Then again, I see serious problems in my hometown (e.g. sewage treatment plant) and country (e.g. big problems with rail, ferry, air, electricity, 3 waters). Apart from the societal issues that it seems all countries are facing.
by robocat
3/20/2026 at 3:39:12 AM
I was in New Orleans last year and everything looked brand new. The whole city was basically rebuilt 15 years ago.by tjwebbnorfolk
3/20/2026 at 4:01:22 AM
New Orleans in particular is highly variable in what you see, depending where you visit.by mbg721
3/20/2026 at 3:52:18 AM
I know what a rebuilt city looks like, because I come from one. Hurricane Katrina was 2005. Christchurch Earthquake was 2011. In my opinion, my home town has recovered better and faster from destruction than New Orleans has.I also live within a floodzone. There is a high probability I will learn how we deal with flooding in the future (different flooding - shallower and lacking the winds and hopefully better pre-planning for avoiding harm).
> everything looked brand new
Absolutely not, to me.
And the conversation is regarding infrastructure. A bunch of Christchurch infrastructure is brand new.
by robocat
3/19/2026 at 11:50:54 PM
We need to recognise the difference between the GP rant and what you're describing. The austerity is undeniably still reverberating through the country. It will take years for this ship to turn around, although it is being turned around. For example, in just about a month we're getting European-style rents with the Renter's Rights Act, which is transformational. We can and should do better, and everyone can contribute to solving those issues, but after a decade of nothing the necessary changes are finally being implemented.But the rant is entirely counterfactual. Britain is a very rich country with beautiful and recovering nature, a healthy and educated population, one of the more capable armies in Europe, a functioning deterrent, and a relatively healthy political system. We just got two new parties becoming credible threats to the "main" two (regardless of the parties' views, the political competition itself is a much healthier situation than the American duopoly)! We just abolished hereditary peers, which is a constitutional change (and it can just be done)! Below the everyday media noise, we're doing alright as a democracy.
by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 12:13:56 AM
The UK is still a respected "brand" in most of the world despite what chronically online people say. British education is the most sought-after in many countries for example.by wdutch
3/20/2026 at 9:47:29 AM
It's important to realise that the US is full of fascists obsessed with the perceived decline of Europe. They love to shit on Europe. I think it's about distracting themselves from the abject moral, political and economic failure of voting for Trump twice.by jjtwixman
3/20/2026 at 1:27:11 AM
[dead]by decremental
3/20/2026 at 4:44:58 AM
Fyi, large states in the US routinely have rolling blackouts and brownouts.Texas, California (the richest state lmao), Puerto Rico, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi etc
by maest
3/20/2026 at 5:56:55 AM
Fyi, this is not true. California has them but they are not routine, and are a function of internal political dysfunction that is quite unique to California. The grid here is still extremely fragile, and vulnerable to e.g. cyberattack and other disasters, but let's not get carried away.by remarkEon
3/20/2026 at 6:03:03 AM
California at least only has blackouts when pge causes another fire.by death916
3/19/2026 at 10:11:40 PM
I mean the US have nukes and they’re hardly stable and predictable.Allow them to have nukes, who are you lol
by bromuk
3/20/2026 at 3:17:03 AM
Given that the nukes that the UK has is Trident, which is a US system that the UK cannot use without US cooperation [0], it seems entirely appropriate that the USA gets to decide if the UK has nukes.[0] Yes, the UK can fire them without US approval, but the actual hardware is maintained and supported by the USA, and they have to be shipped to the USA regularly for maintenance. If the USA decided that the UK should not have nukes, there's not a lot the UK could do about it, the Trident system would have to be scrapped entirely and replaced with some completely different system. Which the UK doesn't really have the capability to do and it would cost a fortune to acquire that capability.
by marcus_holmes
3/20/2026 at 5:57:18 AM
Come now American people,The UK and France have long had a project 'on the shelf' to substitute the missiles with the French M51 ballistic missiles.
They don't want to do it, they'll do it if they have to.
by ta20240528
3/20/2026 at 3:38:30 AM
That's only the delivery method, the warheads are UK-designed and built.So yes, if the US withdrew support then the existing nuclear program would be pretty fucked for a while, but the US couldn't unilaterally de-nuclearise the UK.
by Nursie
3/20/2026 at 6:32:29 AM
Imagine thinking that there aren't national security contingency plans for this sort of thing.by Chaosvex
3/19/2026 at 10:15:44 PM
>who are you lolThe US.
Who else on the planet would have the effective power to possibly even think about who should and shouldn't have them, while plausibly being able to do anything about it?
by observationist
3/20/2026 at 5:49:37 AM
Then you're in no position to throw rocks. The US is currently humiliating itself on the world stage in a fashion that makes Brexit look positively sage in comparison.by jjtwixman
3/20/2026 at 2:11:58 AM
Given how the situations w.r.t Ukraine & Iran escalated, the US is the only country that has specifically and publicly demonstrated it's inability on both counts.We can't give Ukraine their nukes back because they were decommissioned (and they were rotting at the time), but there'd be no nation more deserving.
Corollary: no individual nation is able to shoulder such responsibilities.
by inopinatus
3/20/2026 at 2:50:48 AM
[flagged]by k33n
3/20/2026 at 4:18:12 AM
> the US fully having its way with themSo the Straights of Hormuz are totally reopened, right? Any day now?
by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 7:05:11 AM
It’s pretty damned hard to completely secure any area from a potential attack when all one side needs is a drone.That’s a pretty specific high bar when we’ve destroyed most of their navy, Air Force, etc, all within a couple of weeks.
by AuryGlenz
3/20/2026 at 8:19:59 AM
> It’s pretty damned hard to completely secure any area from a potential attack when all one side needs is a drone.Man, maybe the US should have had a contingency plan to address the drone issue before launching an unprovoked attack.
> That’s a pretty specific high bar
It's the bar that matters.
by solid_fuel
3/20/2026 at 8:40:33 AM
> It’s pretty damned hard to completely secure any area from a potential attack when all one side needs is a drone.Right. So maybe get a good plan before showing up and bombing all the things? We are not setting the bar, Trump told us why he expected to do in Iran. It was about as realistic as Putin’s fantasies about Ukraine surrendering on day 3.
by kergonath
3/20/2026 at 8:23:42 AM
Funny that's what Israel kept saying about Hamas too. "We'll have killed all of them any day now". But really they were mostly blowing up civilian buildings and , well, civilians. But I'm sure in the case of the US its not propaganda /sby x3ro
3/20/2026 at 8:38:16 AM
> Re: Iran, the US fully having its way with them.Sure, everything is fine. I am sure Iran will be a peaceful democracy any day now.
In reality, none of Trump’s stated goals are likely to happen any time soon.
by kergonath
3/20/2026 at 3:35:45 AM
> recused itselfSurrendered.
by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 4:19:04 AM
More like abandoned an ally because the new government prefers a former adversary on the other side of the conflict.by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 6:00:33 AM
Ukraine never really had nukes. Only technically.NATO is bad for the world so any one fighting it are pretty cool. Which seems to be Russia and Korea.
by skinnymuch
3/19/2026 at 10:20:16 PM
Probably a country that has done so in the past, like the UK…by PUSH_AX
3/20/2026 at 5:58:33 AM
China. If they wanted to.by ta20240528
3/19/2026 at 11:30:48 PM
This is an entirely delusional twitter-brain take.Despite its problems, the UK is still a sixth largest economy, a cultural powerhouse (how many Hollywood actors are British?), with a lot of soft power, a capable and currently renewed nuclear arsenal (Astraea and Dreadnought are on track), a globe-spanning network of alliances (from AUKUS to Japan deploying to the UK first time in their history to being one of the closest and most unwavering allies for Ukraine), and a constitutionally healthy and adaptive system of government (we just passed another constitutional change and it's not a big deal, we can just do that).
Frankly, this meme stinks of projection. Going from a shining city on a hill to a place where public executions by state backed paramilitaries are just another partisan talking point, that starts Special Military Operations with no plan or goal, that threatens to annex territory of its allies in about a year is an achievement. I guess projecting this free fall on the UK makes living through it more bearable.
by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 3:23:18 AM
The UK used to be the 4th largest economy [0] so being 6th is still indicative of decline.[0] https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizatio...
by marcus_holmes
3/20/2026 at 3:31:35 AM
Is it indicative of "economic irrelevance"?by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 3:44:28 AM
Kinda. It's a single-digit percentage of just the US and China, clustered with a lot of other countries of roughly the same size [0].[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
by marcus_holmes
3/20/2026 at 6:09:35 AM
Just to be clear you're saying only the top 2 countries by GDP are "economically relevant"?by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 7:07:46 AM
I think they’re saying they used to be one of the big boys. Now they’re just a regular boy.by AuryGlenz
3/20/2026 at 3:07:50 PM
Weird, America usually goes "Regular, Big, Mega, King Size, Super Size, etc.", not the other way round!by oneeyedpigeon
3/20/2026 at 7:24:34 AM
When was the UK last in the top 2 countries globally by GDP? Certainly pre-WW2?They're still in the same cluster of countries by GDP as the #3 country so falling from #4 to #6 doesn't look so drastic.
by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 10:47:42 AM
True, but the the UK has under 30% of the population of the US and less than 6% of the population of China.If you compare per capita, it's a very different story. USA is around $93k, UK $61k and China $15k. So about 2/3 of the USA's and more than 4x China's. This was using my figures calculated from your table and the population figures I found elsewhere.
An actual source of GDP per capita [0] puts the USA at 9th globally, UK at 20th globally and China at 74th.
When you factor in that the US's GDP figures are quite skewed because there are lots of multinationals headquartered in the US. If you ignored just the Mag7, who all derive the majority of their income outside the USA, the USA would be significantly further down that GDP list.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
by ralferoo
3/19/2026 at 11:50:37 PM
>Despite its problems, the UK is still a sixth largest economy, ... Going from a shining city on a hill to a place where public executions by state backed paramilitaries are just another partisan talking point, that starts Special Military Operations with no plan or goal, that threatens to annex territory of its allies in about a year is an achievement.Why would you use the economy to defend the UK's status and then point to a bunch of non economy stuff to try to knock the US? The US is the largest and has been for awhile. Isn't that what mattered to you? Plus, pointing out that a bunch of prominent UK residents leave to participate in US industry hardly seems a point in favor of how well the UK is doing.
by ribosometronome
3/20/2026 at 1:41:46 AM
They didn't put it very well but they're right that being the 6th largest economy, and likely to become the 5th or 4th quite soon puts a hole in the "economically irrelevant" accusation.by dukeyukey
3/19/2026 at 11:56:17 PM
It's not "knocking the US", it's an example of the (likely, projected) decline. The size of the economy is an example of why "irrelevant" is delusional. Two different points.The "prominent UK residents" don't "leave" the UK. Benedict Cumberbatch lives in London, despite constantly starring in Hollywood films. It's an example of the UK culturally punching way above its weight in proportion to its population.
by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 1:31:41 AM
> it's an example of the (likely, projected) declineAgain, you just used the present size of a nation's economy to argue that a nation isn't in decline when someone was talking about the ongoing decline of a nations politics, economy, and culture. It seems odd to me you're able to, for other countries, understand that the present moment can be viewed with both historical and likely future context.
>The "prominent UK residents" don't "leave" the UK. Benedict Cumberbatch lives...
Plenty move, but that wasn't the point I think anyone was making. If I wanted to say they were moving to the US, I would have said that instead of "leave to participate in US industry". And all of that ignores that the original commenter was talking about the decline of British media rather than saying that they're aren't talented Brits. It's not like they they're saying the UK had a bunch of great actors ten years ago and they suddenly died. Them working in American industry rather than the UK producing it own is, I'm pretty sure, the sort of point the commenter you replied to was making.
by ribosometronome
3/20/2026 at 3:34:38 AM
> more or less politically, culturally, and economically irrelevantI feel like we're reading different posts.
by dgroshev
3/20/2026 at 5:57:24 AM
The Yanks see in the UK their own inevitable decline. The British Empire disappeared, and every time they turn on the TV and see their retarded paedophile in chief struggling to express even one single coherent thought, they must surely know they are witnessing the end of their own empire.They're just lashing out, emperor has no clothes, their empire is collapsing, and those who are paying any attention at all, are fully aware of it. All they have left is to go on the internet and shit on Europe for daring to regulate their precious social media companies (that elsewhere they generally admit we would be better off without). They are desperately clutching onto this tech-company-based nationalism. It's absolutely pathetic.
by jjtwixman
3/19/2026 at 11:39:08 PM
> they should probably be required to give them up to some country that has a shot at remaining a stable and predictable geopolitical entity over the next century.I really hope this wasn't posted by an American....
by RobotToaster
3/20/2026 at 7:46:10 AM
I think its an attempt at resurgenceby yieldcrv
3/19/2026 at 10:22:32 PM
[dead]by cineticdaffodil
3/19/2026 at 10:18:58 PM
Long dead? Within living memory. Britain still has colonies with millions of people in them.by nephihaha
3/19/2026 at 11:21:10 PM
>Britain still has colonies with millions of people in them.Britain does not have colonies. You might be thinking of the British overseas territory but the total population of those islands is less than 400,000
by stackghost
3/20/2026 at 9:37:12 AM
Not to open a can of worms, but there are probably people who still consider Northern Ireland a colony.by zelos
3/20/2026 at 12:17:02 PM
They can consider what they like, but it is factually wrong. People in NI get to vote in UK elections.A reasonable case can be made that it should be Irish territory, not British, but that is a territorial dispute.
by graemep
3/20/2026 at 12:11:55 AM
A small colony doesn't count?by wolvoleo
3/20/2026 at 6:12:24 AM
I think it was in reply to the "with millions of people in them" comment.by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 1:43:48 AM
They're not colonies. An overseas territory is not the same thing as a colony.by stackghost
3/20/2026 at 6:30:50 AM
The people living there might struggle to identify the difference?by __d
3/20/2026 at 8:04:15 AM
Are you calling them stupid?by loeg
3/20/2026 at 9:20:41 AM
Mauritius and La Réunion are doing much better than say Madagascar.by imtringued
3/20/2026 at 9:14:14 AM
You can rebrand something as a territory or a dependency (or a DOM-TOM in the French case) but they're still the same. Even during the height of colonialism many of these places had some self-government and even democracy (Hong Kong). That was partly a practical consideration as many of them were so far away they had to run themselves to some extent.But not all of Britain's colonies are far away.
by nephihaha
3/20/2026 at 9:11:00 AM
"You might be thinking of the British overseas territory"Not just them, but I'll leave it at that.
Some years ago when the United Nations started critiquing colonies, the British overseas ones were rebranded as "territories" and "dependencies." (The French still have overseas colonies, the so called DOM-TOMs, and also some nearer to home.)
Some of these overseas ones like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands have overwhelming support for British rule thanks to an aggressive neighbour. Some of these remaining colonies have active independence movements with varying support.
by nephihaha
3/20/2026 at 12:54:19 PM
> the so called DOM-TOMsFun fact: they've not been called that in 23y, they're DROM-COM
by williamdclt
3/20/2026 at 4:28:25 PM
>Not just them, but I'll leave it at that.Okay then if you're just going to be cute and nonspecific there's no point in continuing this discussion. I'm not interested in trying to decipher vague insinuations.
by stackghost
3/19/2026 at 10:32:54 PM
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of a screaming eagle spreading freedom.by tredre3
3/20/2026 at 6:34:20 AM
These are the "duties" Ofcom is demanding of site owners and operators: - to conduct a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment;
- to use proportionate measures to prevent individuals encountering priority illegal content;
- to use proportionate systems and processes to minimise the length of time priority illegal content is present;
- to swiftly take down illegal content when it becomes aware of it;
- to specify in its terms of service how individuals are to be protected from illegal content; and relating to content reporting and complaints procedures in relation to illegal content.
That's the only method that will scale, can be done "swiftly" and won't have the government kicking down your door if someone posts something illegal on your platform while you're sleeping or on vacation.
by heavyset_go
3/20/2026 at 7:04:43 AM
Guess how one gets "a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment"?You need to buy it from compliance companies which lobbied for the law in the UK, run by ex regulators.
by miohtama
3/20/2026 at 7:56:58 AM
It means you have to do your paperwork so you can’t then pretend you “didn’t know” csam can exist on your website when repeatedly pointed out.As far as regulation goes this is pretty light and allowing. It’s more annoying than not having any laws at all sure, but zero regulation regime failed (from the point of view of powers that be).
Next on the escalation ladder is govt writing the rules for you that you either take or leave
by Muromec
3/20/2026 at 11:00:44 AM
4chan is and has for a long time been in cooperation with US law enforcement. You can literally, right now, enter the site and when reporting a post there's an option to report a post as breaking US law.If the UK is not happy about how the site deals with such matters, the UK can block the site.
>Next on the escalation ladder is govt writing the rules for you that you either take or leave
No. This is not "next". This is "now" but the UK doesn't want to actually look to be doing what they are actively doing, and now we've got this mess.
by Levitz
3/20/2026 at 10:49:09 AM
This won't solve anything and "being annoying" to everyone on the planet isn't a trivial overstep. I don't see any sense in your statement that "no regulation" failed.by raxxorraxor
3/20/2026 at 4:56:54 PM
> Guess how one gets "a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment"?This stuff is not magic, you can just do it yourself.
by remus
3/20/2026 at 10:54:05 AM
It's all just a money making schemeby verisimi
3/20/2026 at 10:48:59 AM
[dead]by speefers
3/19/2026 at 8:43:56 PM
>Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.Just 2 months ago Italy tried to ban domains globally too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555760
by agilob
3/19/2026 at 11:52:16 PM
I don't get it. Shouldn't this be done at the ISP level? (Well, arguably it should not be done at all, but...)Otherwise each company, everywhere in the world, no matter how small, has to follow the arbitrary demands of every nation state? How does that make any sense?
by andai
3/20/2026 at 9:17:33 AM
Spain blocks all of Cloudflare during big football matches because people might use it to watch pirate streams. :/by schnitzelstoat
3/19/2026 at 9:23:58 PM
It’s really kind of unfortunate that people ignore the fact that the ruling powers seem to always follow the same MO, yet everyone falls for it over and over again; first they go after the dregs that they’ve made beyond the pale for pearl clutching polite company, e.g., I think over a year ago, when the German government first went after Gab followed by something like, if not Ofcom itself.I don’t recall the outcome exact outcome or what has happened since, but I think Gab basically told them off in a similar way, i.e., “ummmm, this is America, silly Europeans” and may have even submitted the foreign demand letters to Congress and for whatever reason may have still geo-blocked the UK and at the same time has blocked VPN IPs because they found it effective at blocking pornography and the bad actors who emanated from a certain country. The effect though is that they’ve effectively barred the UK from participating in free speech in America if that’s still the current state of things. I suspect that is exactly what the tyrannical forces have worked out too, and which is why they’re demanding something other than just geo-blocking.
If you agree to VPN blocking, you effectively enforce the geo-block as well as unmasking users for five-eye de facto domestic surveillance. But they only came after those horrible horrible “Nazis” that insist on their rights to free speech, “…and I did not speak out.”
The point is, regardless of what one thinks of Gab, the powerful and tyrannical elements clearly go after those the mainstream population hates due to the two minutes of hate, so to say, which people have been conditioned to loathe; where the tyrants refine their tactics and the strategy, and practice and normalize the process for when they are ready to go after the mainstream populace… which seems to be approaching. And then the mainstream people are shocked and surprised because they believe it all came out of nowhere, when they just ignored it all along.
This of course is not just limited to the digital realm, the tyrannical forces will always come after scapegoats, and the exposed and low hanging fruit, or and even deliberately cause the “troublemakers” to identify themselves so they can be tracked, monitored, and picked off if need be.
This is not new, and people seem to fall for the same tricks over and over and over.
by roysting
3/19/2026 at 11:54:55 PM
Yeah, it's the same way with using AI to scan private messages before they're encrypted.Even if you agree that this should be done for the currently stated reasons, the precedent is horrifying.
To quote Snowden, we're building the infrastructure of mass surveillance. (And then hoping nobody's going to come along and use it.)
by andai
3/19/2026 at 11:06:31 PM
The fact that unsympathetic targets are the first to be targeted need not be viewed as strategic. Other targets would be defended, which is a reason not to target them. Unsympathetic targets lack defenses and are therefore most likely to be targeted, all other things being equal.We grant fully that it’s a slippery slope, ofc. But is the end of the slope in mind at the outset? Maybe, but not certainly.
by towledev
3/20/2026 at 1:54:31 AM
I don't think it needs to be seen as "strategic", beyond that most effective people start with a proof of concept that is low risk. You are right, being pragmatic is surely the primary motivation to follow that pattern, but that too is inherently strategic. The strategy being; plan, test deploy the process, measure responses, adjust, redeploy, etc. We know this inherently strategic process even if it is a bit different outside of software development.by roysting
3/20/2026 at 8:26:08 AM
I mean, this logic is how USA walked itself into fascism. Right wing extremists were poster child for who must be protected at all cost, systematically, regardless of how it affected everyone else. And now they are in government taking a swing on everyone else.by watwut
3/19/2026 at 10:51:59 PM
“Vpn” blocking is a game pf cat and mouse, not an absolute .by bethekidyouwant
3/20/2026 at 10:26:22 AM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.It really paints this authority in a special light if they believe they can force their rules on everyone on the planet. To be honest, I think this needs immediate psychological evaluation because you have to have a very distorted view on reality. Even if you give a lot of leverage to authorities being detached. But certainly the authority is very overwhelmed with itself and the world.
But while we are at it I demand that Ofcom removes it presence from my internet too. Perhaps flood some DNS server, so ofcom.uk to point to 4chan...
by raxxorraxor
3/20/2026 at 4:12:01 AM
Not saying this is the same, but there are depression forums where the admin / mods promotes and sells “permanent solution” kits.People really should turn to medical professionals and not internet strangers for help.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...
by itake
3/20/2026 at 12:54:19 PM
If everyone turned to medical professionals the system would fall apart. Many try but fail to find a space in the current system. Internet forums / llms offer another path that many have used to move forward.Its like telling people don't talk to friends and family only go to a professional. This is how we end up in a worse mental crisis.
by ipaddr
3/20/2026 at 6:54:04 AM
> People really should turn to medical professionals and not internet strangers for help.For your own safety, you are to only discuss your health with NHS certified healthcare providers and no one else. Doing so with others can lead to unprovoked, unsanctioned and dangerous anecdotes, advice and memes. Worse, you might find community and make friends with people who have similar life experiences, which can distract from your state sanctioned treatment plan. This extends to your friends and spouse, they might mean well, but they are not medical professionals.
Your health is your private matter, let's keep it that way!
by heavyset_go
3/20/2026 at 9:28:01 AM
Your sarcasm sounds like we'd be living in some extreme 1984-like dystopia, while the reality is: there is more bullshit one can read online than a bullshit one can get from a poor doctor/therapist.From my experience, the best one can do is to get a good and affordable therapist by a word of mouth.. and sometimes one can get lucky as such person is doing also service for a state, for free. Main point is to actively start searching
by kunley
3/20/2026 at 9:47:59 AM
Main point with depressed people is, they often do lack initiative and enthusiasm to go find that unicorn therapists. When you are struggeling already in general and then you have to struggle even more to maybe find help (and then you don't know whether you can afford it) .. no wonder people turn to online help and LLM'S.So yes, you are right in that activly start searching is the better way. But that insight is often lost on the target audience.
by lukan
3/20/2026 at 10:28:26 AM
Well in my European country therapists hourly rates are very flat and practically the same as hourly rates for physiotherapists, massage practitioners and basic doctors, plus an LLM can really quickly tell that, so it is much faster to get to know if one can afford it than to look for a general solution of the whole problem.by kunley
3/20/2026 at 10:27:27 AM
That's just how the law works apparently, if there's a UK law passed that makes smoking illegal in Paris then smoking is illegal in Paris. The practicalities of this are to be worked out later.by Neil44
3/20/2026 at 10:44:55 AM
Smoking in Paris is harmful to the health of UK citizens residing in Paris. I'm not sure why UK hasn't banned that yet.When OSA was announced I really expected the US to state clearly that they wouldn't let UK to threaten US citizens with millions of fines if they practice their rights to Free Speech.
Because this is what's happening, the UK is making open threats against US citizens when they practice their rights to Free Speech. See e.g. Lobsters' take on it: they just wanted to have a webforum in the US but they couldn't because a foreign country threatened them with huge fines. No protection from the US.
"Just geoblock UK" seemed like a good enough in practice solution, although it is more action needed than I'd prefer.
by bmacho
3/20/2026 at 12:25:38 PM
geoblocking should be on ofcom. they should be able to order UK ISPs to block non-compliant sites. everyone gets their own great firewallby __s
3/20/2026 at 1:28:52 PM
I don't know how I missed this. Yes, geoblocking should be on ofcom. If they don't like my forum, then instead of sending me a ridiculously big check, putting me on interpol, capturing me at the airport etc, just tell their ISPs to block my forum.by bmacho
3/20/2026 at 1:03:11 AM
The US thinks their laws apply globally so why wouldn’t Europe expect the same. We will be dealing with the fallout of Venezuela for generations.by tw04
3/20/2026 at 1:16:06 AM
So because a window is broken in the neighborhood you go out and smash your own?by culopatin
3/20/2026 at 9:07:51 AM
Nah, in context it's more like if your neighbourhood police have been sanctioning counterfeiters across our borders for years, we're not going to take lectures on how inappropriate it is for our neighbourhood police to pick on your pimps too seriously.by notahacker
3/19/2026 at 8:28:03 PM
I think anyone running a website should avoid visiting the UK from now on.by diego_sandoval
3/19/2026 at 9:19:08 PM
The UK I don't think has arrested anyone for running a website.by tim333
3/19/2026 at 9:35:01 PM
I don't think it's a great argument considering that the law in question is the Online Safety Act 2023.by Hamuko
3/20/2026 at 10:15:31 AM
There are a lot of things you can worry about in life. I'm not sure not visiting countries due to things zero people have had a problem with is productive. I'd be more worried visiting the US with the ICE stuff, although I accept that's rare but there's real cases like https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton...by tim333
3/20/2026 at 10:52:37 AM
Pointing at someone even worse underlines how the behavior in question, here a law, is a complete failure.Well I guess sudden cardiac arrest is even worse than silly internet rules.
by raxxorraxor
3/19/2026 at 10:53:40 PM
The police in the UK have arrested more than 12,000 citizens for online speech.https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
by jdkee
3/20/2026 at 4:06:28 AM
I would suggest taking that stat with a big grain of salt:by rcxdude
3/20/2026 at 3:14:59 AM
I mean yes and no.Looking through that article, one of the examples is "The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post."
But if you dig into what happened - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3wkzgpjxvo
"The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire."
This is pretty clear incitement to violence.
The UK has problems, but it's not very useful to throw all of these cases together to make a big number, it really rather undermines the point.
(edit - looking at the video posted in a sibling comment is enlightening. The number actually convicted of anything is around ~400 and this includes a lot of direct incitement to violence, stalking and all sorts. Which are similarly illegal in the US. The US right-wing talking points are as usual a load of crap.
None of which is to say I think the UK has things right, and that number of arrests is clearly a problem in itself, but as usual the "OH MY GOD look at what's happening over there! Muh free speech!" from the US commenters is hypocritical and myopic)
by Nursie
3/20/2026 at 4:09:02 AM
Most of those cases in that number aren't even online posts, but stalking and harassment through other means of communication.by rcxdude
3/20/2026 at 1:59:34 PM
[dead]by speefers
3/20/2026 at 1:43:16 AM
Why? I run a few.by dukeyukey
3/19/2026 at 11:56:36 PM
Anyone owning 4chan should be very anonymous and only operate in a very friendly jurisdiction. Normal websites, no one cares.by jwlake
3/20/2026 at 6:13:36 AM
Is 4chan much worse than X (or rather, is X much better than 4chan) these days?by reverius42
3/20/2026 at 6:56:43 AM
The owner of X is more powerful than the owner of 4chanby hdgvhicv
3/19/2026 at 10:09:56 PM
[flagged]by bargainbin
3/19/2026 at 11:43:14 PM
> We’re not a police state like the US, there’ll be no action unless there is irrefutable proof, of which they’ll have none and can acquire none unless the person readily admits it.Are you talking about the same UK where people get harassed by the police for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-crime_hate_incident ?
by badc0ffee
3/19/2026 at 9:12:01 PM
A gf asked to go on a trip to England/Ireland and I told her I will go to Brazil or Colombia before I go to the UK. Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them.by throwawaytea
3/19/2026 at 10:19:03 PM
> "Im not going to risk getting in trouble because I made a post online or discussed immigration or trans people in the wrong way according to them."This is a mis-truth which has been spread by Joe Rogan and his ilk. Political speech is very much protected in UK law. You won't get in "trouble" if you make posts against immigration or trans people. J.K. Rowling and Ricky Gervais certainly haven't been locked up.
Yes, there have been cases, such as the infamous Cowley Hill School case where Hertfordshire police arrested a couple over their posts in a school WhatsApp group. However, such arrests are illegal and in that case the police had to apologise and pay compensation.
What will get you in trouble in the UK is threatening violence against people or posting hate speech that encourages others to do so. But this is also true in the USA and in most countries.
by Reason077
3/19/2026 at 11:19:05 PM
> Political speech is very much protected in UK lawWith "protected political speech" being defined as which flavour of the established, incompetent elite you prefer this year.
People have been arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches. People have been arrested over protesting Charles' coronation. To say nothing of thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
Political speech is basically criminalised in the UK at this point. This is not an establishment worth any of our respect.
by troad
3/20/2026 at 12:42:52 AM
You forgot the part where they are literally debating if to get rid of jury trials or not because the government didn't hire enough judges.by hunterpayne
3/20/2026 at 3:16:29 PM
Not quite. They're debating whether to get rid of some jury trials, only for trials that have an "either-way" decision and carry a sentence of less than 3 years.Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5lxg2l0lqo
97% of trials in the UK don't have juries anyway.
The changes would mean instead of 3% having juries it would be down to 2.25%.
This would also be reviewed once the existing backlog has been seen to. "This means that currently a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030."
by alexfoo
3/20/2026 at 1:44:05 AM
Worth pointing out the US has similar restrictions already. Why is the UK catching flak for discussing this?by dukeyukey
3/20/2026 at 6:59:02 AM
Far right podcasters. The ones cheering people losing jobs and being jailed over quoting the US presidenthttps://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/no-freedom-of-s...
by hdgvhicv
3/20/2026 at 3:18:31 AM
> arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches.Got a source on this one?
Supporting Palestine in the UK has never been illegal. Supporting the specific group "Palestine Action" has been as they were for a while a proscribed terrorist organisation due to what was (IMHO) some property crimes committed against defense contractors by some of their members. Totally wrong, and has now been struck down in the courts, but saying "you can't support palestine" is also wrong.
> Thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
The source I saw on this one had clear examples of violent threats and calls to set buildings full of people on fire, so I'm not sure this is clear either.
by Nursie
3/20/2026 at 7:02:23 AM
They were breaking in and damaging US militaryThe group itself offered training courses on Ho to sabotage the U.K. military
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/palestine-ac...
I wonder what would happen in the US with such a group
by hdgvhicv
3/20/2026 at 8:50:18 AM
They broke into an RAF base, and defaced/damaged UK military hardware (spraypaint on aircraft). This is a serious crime, but in no way does it meet any reasonable definition of terrorism. There are plenty of laws under which those responsible can be charged, it was a ridiculous overreach to use anti-terror laws.More concerningly, prescribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation had a suppressive effect on lawful protest against the Israel-Gaza war, since any supporter of Palestine might be considered a member of Palestine Action and therefore, legally, a terrorist suspect.
by Reason077
3/20/2026 at 3:21:58 PM
> > arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches.> Got a source on this one?
Not quite arrested but the closest I can find is someone threatened with arrest if they wrote certain things on the blank sign:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-monarch...
The UK Police seem to have switched to a policy of knowingly arresting people erroneously and then releasing them and apologising afterwards.
(At least it is just arresting people and releasing them rather than shooting them and then apologising afterwards whilst also exonerating the officers involved.)
The article does link to an incident in Russia where a protester was dragged away for holding up a blank sign.
by alexfoo
3/19/2026 at 10:39:06 PM
> You won't get in "trouble" if you make posts against immigration or trans people.Not to say anyone would actually get in trouble for just some opinion posts, but I don't know why you went with "against" here, I think "for" is the more likely one to make the current UK (or US) government upset.
by Dylan16807
3/19/2026 at 10:45:51 PM
“Burn old fella burn”, felt like political speech - but that didn’t work out so well.by TeapotNotKettle
3/20/2026 at 3:42:47 AM
> What will get you in trouble in the UK is threatening violence against people or posting hate speech that encourages others to do so. But this is also true in the USA and in most countries.The line is quite thin and ambiguous though. If they want to get someone they will and find that various remarks “encourage violence”.
Almost any opinion that isn't nice can be argued to encourage violence.
by Blikkentrekker
3/20/2026 at 11:43:29 AM
Unless they are Ricky Jones, of course.by 6031769
3/19/2026 at 9:17:07 PM
No chance I'd go to America, as they definitely check that sort of thing at the border now.Not sure how often that happens coming to the UK, yet.
by specproc
3/19/2026 at 9:36:21 PM
It happens to citizens of the UK everyday, so I'm not really into finding out how tourists are treated.by throwawaytea
3/20/2026 at 3:27:26 AM
You are the victim of misinformation and need to check your sources.by marcus_holmes
3/19/2026 at 10:13:15 PM
[flagged]by 2postsperday
3/19/2026 at 11:46:28 PM
I just went there as German and it actually went really smooth. They just asked me why I'm visiting and I said to visit a friend/tourism, took less than 2 minutes. So I think this is FUDby sva_
3/20/2026 at 1:07:19 AM
That's usually how it goes with the US as well but every now and then they decide to search someone's electronic devices.Of course AFAIK this can happen pretty much everywhere at this point so your only hope is being a citizen of a country that doesn't allow it for locals (such as the US) and then not traveling. Or wipe your devices prior to traveling.
by fc417fc802
3/19/2026 at 11:44:55 PM
Ireland, in contrast to Northern Ireland, is not part of the UK.by n3t
3/20/2026 at 7:06:14 AM
Don’t tell MAGAs, might cause them to cryhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/maga-traveler-dragged-o...
by hdgvhicv
3/19/2026 at 11:37:40 PM
You can be arrested for being racist in Brazilby umanwizard
3/19/2026 at 11:10:50 PM
Not like good ole America where you can get arrested for mocking Charlie Kirk.by lovich
3/20/2026 at 1:51:35 AM
Nobody was arrested. Plenty of people got fired from private sector jobs. Your employer not wanting to be associated with your terrible behavior isn't the same as the government jailing people for the "wrong" opinion.by hunterpayne
3/20/2026 at 4:21:33 AM
From "Retired cop jailed for 37 days over Charlie Kirk meme sues, saying his First Amendment rights were violated"[1]:> A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer was held in jail for more than a month this fall after police arrested him over a Facebook post of a meme related to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail...
by heavyset_go
3/20/2026 at 7:06:51 AM
How brainwashed do you have to be to come out with this?by hdgvhicv
3/20/2026 at 4:07:47 AM
> Nobody was arrested.You are entirely incorrect.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jailed-o...
by lovich
3/19/2026 at 9:16:38 PM
In those countries, you'll probably have more to fear for your physical security from non-governmental threats than the other way around.But given the increasingly dystopian state of many countries worldwide, you may also encounter difficulties related to administrative burden and systems with not enough human oversight and override for exceptional situations.
by edwcross
3/19/2026 at 9:19:09 PM
What is the HN way to say "touch grass"?by patrickmcnamara
3/19/2026 at 10:11:26 PM
Not to say it, but instead to choose to say something both interesting and directly responsive to the comment you're replying to.by pessimizer
3/19/2026 at 10:26:05 PM
Okay, here goes. You can tell when someone is acting in bad faith when they talk about a law that has been in force and enforced since the 1960s is something new.Of course, "touch grass" works just as well.
by Leynos
3/19/2026 at 11:54:42 PM
Laws can be in existence for decades before they are weaponized against people. It's illegal to have most eBay/Amazon bulbs on your car because they are not DOT approved. If someday they start impounding cars crossing state borders with light bars, fog lights, and LEDs of races they don't want in that state... Someone like you will say "you're just making stuff up, that law has been on effect since 1961."by throwawaytea
3/19/2026 at 11:22:47 PM
Does it?by DANmode
3/20/2026 at 11:07:57 AM
"help people with depression" is not quite a full description of that website, is it? I thought it had advice on how to kill yourself.by dash2
3/19/2026 at 11:21:02 PM
>Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.Ofcom is probably full of non technical people who have been given a specific set of (stupid) instructions including that if its on the internet, its a product being sold to the UK.
by protocolture
3/20/2026 at 5:58:50 AM
I mean yeah when you're paing 20-40k£ you're not getting the bestby raverbashing
3/20/2026 at 12:13:14 AM
"Just following orders"by recursive
3/20/2026 at 3:50:28 AM
Pretty much. But the outcome being a bunch of emails and court action instead of like, genocide.by protocolture
3/20/2026 at 4:27:30 AM
Totally unrelated to this post. Get a grip.by pcf
3/19/2026 at 10:18:30 PM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.Curious time to complain about the UK doing this (*points broadly eastwards*)
by 9dev
3/20/2026 at 1:45:53 AM
I think it's good that the UK is trying this right now. It's bound to set a precedent, and the UK isn't powerful enough for that precedent to be in favor of the idea that you have to follow other countries' laws if you're on the internet. Doubly so with Trump II making freedom of speech and overbearing European regulations a political issue.If America introduced a law like this, especially the strong, late-aughts, pre-Trump America, I bet most countries would just cave in, just like most caved in when copyright and AML/KYC laws were concerned. Hell, Swicerland basically abolished anonymous bank accounts, something which the country was famous for, just because the US wanted them to. I don't think we'll see a similar resolution here.
by miki123211
3/20/2026 at 11:51:28 AM
Leaving the topic of freedom of speech to conservatives was one of the largest intellectual errors of modern progressive forces. Perhaps you believe Trump or his advisers are idiots, but if so, what are you then...And no, you don't do it because of some holy quest to protect minorities. Minorities never suffered from too much of freedom of speech. The opposite however...
It may dawn some people at some point that if you demand a certain behaviour from others, you might be neither liberal nor progressive.
Trump can easily point the finger at the EU because it lets him do that. I think the EU cannot take responsibility for itself or other if it doesn't correct course.
by raxxorraxor
3/19/2026 at 11:23:57 PM
“Parliamentary supremacy means that Parliament can legislate for all persons and all places. If it enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence.”(Ivor Jennings)It is also accepted that enforcement can be an issue if the law is an absurd overreach (like the UK criminalising smoking in the streets of Paris).
by wisty
3/20/2026 at 12:01:44 AM
So, does a powerful foreign the UK and put the Parliament out of its misery?by nobodyandproud
3/20/2026 at 9:23:18 AM
The UK government is trying to regulate a service used by UK citizens / residents. What part of this seems unreasonable?by Rebuff5007
3/20/2026 at 9:50:38 AM
That they don't consider it sufficient for the website to block all UK IP addresses.by CodesInChaos
3/19/2026 at 7:55:46 PM
After bending over backwards for US media companies in the 2000s they thought it went both ways, turns out it doesn't.Oh well, the uncensored web from my NL VPN still looks the same.
by swarnie
3/20/2026 at 2:34:54 AM
I mean, IP meant a lot more in 2006 than in it does now in 2026. The IP economy has basically died, so of course IP/Data based trade deals no longer make sense.by BobbyJo
3/19/2026 at 8:09:04 PM
NL VPNs will bend the knee to EU regulationby NullPrefix
3/19/2026 at 9:33:33 PM
One click its Algeria, or Singapore, or Canada.We can move much faster then they can legislate.
by swarnie
3/20/2026 at 7:11:46 AM
First they came for the websites but I used vpnsThen they came for vpn clients but I used free software
Then they came for the payment methods but I used bitcoin
Then they blocked UDP at the isp but I used satelites doe linked elsewhere
Then they just came for me but nobody cared as nobody else was affected
by hdgvhicv
3/19/2026 at 9:25:31 PM
If it's insufficient then there's no risk of removing the geoblocking then.by behringer
3/20/2026 at 5:21:15 AM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.And enforceable. Let them fail but they have money behind them,
by bilekas
3/20/2026 at 10:21:07 AM
The tricky part is that geoblocking is inherently porousby veunes
3/19/2026 at 8:42:15 PM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globally.They learned from the US
by croes
3/19/2026 at 8:47:15 PM
The United Kingdom's once-relevant hegemony existed centuries before the United States.by 15155
3/19/2026 at 9:19:05 PM
There is the difference.They made the whole world British so the British laws applied everywhere.
by croes
3/20/2026 at 6:12:02 AM
Like most matters concerning the UK: unless your feet are touching their territory, the correct response to their actions, inactions, or very existence, is: "fuck off"by jalapenos
3/20/2026 at 3:26:32 PM
I think the correct response in terms of the British legal system is to simply say:"Dear Sirs, In regards to your recent request, can I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram (1971). Yours etc,"
by alexfoo
3/19/2026 at 8:41:10 PM
These departments are full of delusional maniacs, that at home are doormats and nobodies, but once they cross the floor of the department, they think they own the world. They sit by the desk and think who's day they can ruin today.Meanwhile the UK is gnawed by corruption, scams and whatnot, yet there is no one able to do anything about. But harassing some Canadian forum? First to serve!
by varispeed
3/19/2026 at 8:26:02 PM
Well they technically do, parliamentary sovereignty means that the UK can, "legislate to ban smoking on the streets of Paris." There are no limits to what laws they can write, even ones that are out of their jurisdiction, absurd, or unenforceable.by Spivak
3/19/2026 at 9:16:35 PM
The U.S. asserts the right to prosecute anyone, anywhere, who provides material support to any group they label as a terrorist organization.Not only is this enforceable, it has been enforced, and people have been assassinated without charge for this crime.
by markdown
3/19/2026 at 9:18:12 PM
It helps when you spend trillions annually on your military. Might makes right.by 15155
3/19/2026 at 11:46:45 PM
The US isn't spending trillions/year on the military, at least not yet. It might crack 1 trillion in the near future.by badc0ffee
3/19/2026 at 9:44:20 PM
Russia spends a lot less and routinely assassinates foreign critics. India has targeted overseas critics as well.The size of ones military expenditure does not determine whether a foreign government can kill you, specifically.
by XorNot
3/20/2026 at 12:39:47 AM
> Ofcom really thinks that their laws apply globallyWhat, Ofcom is trying to restrict viewing outside UK?
by chrisjj