Comments by "Gareth Hart" (@tgheretford) on "BlackBeltBarrister" channel.

  1. In the not to distant future, VPN usage could become illegal in the UK as it's been noted that it is a way around the measures being brought in by the Online Safety Bill.
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  2. The ultimate goal of the Government is to abolish privacy and encryption. They can't go all in now because of human rights legislation and huge backlash. So these changes will be brought in bit by bit. The argument being presented for the abolition of both is that it enables nefarious crimes behind closed doors which leads to the usual "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". Eventually we will all end up being mandated to present our private lives and social credit scores to anyone on request on the basis of "social cohesion", "crime prevention" and "safety" (exemptions apply).
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  3. We are starting to head into widespread "check your thinking", authoritarian style curtailing of opposing views and Government mandated views, opinions and beliefs. Self-generated content online must surely be under threat as it is being widely accused of spreading "speculation" and "incitement". A future "Internet" could end up becoming a one way medium like broadcasting - heavily regulated and in one direction from broadcaster to viewer.
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  4. Eventually they will abolish real world privacy too.
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  5. This isn't the first time we have had the Police intervene in someone's thoughts. Remember when Harry Miller got a visit from the Police for retweeting a limerick where he was told to "check your thinking"? It won't end here, the slope is being greased and it will go beyond religion and prayer. 1984 is supposed to be a work of fiction and a warning, not an instruction booklet and an inspiration.
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  6. What's to stop the Government banning VPN's? Labour tried to table an amendment during the Online Safety Bill but failed. Now they have a large majority, they can do this and start blocking user generated content and sites.
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  7. How long before it is a conspiracy theory and misinformation to state that electric vehicles/lithium batteries catch fire, ones that get you the banhammer and censored? Ultimately we could see a push toward banning petrol and diesel cars from certain places for health and safety, to prevent another fire. Ironically, China has already done this with electric vehicles!
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  8. There are people who believe that criticising religion is akin to burning a holy book and that should be criminalised too.
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  9. A lot of the complaints around videos like these involve women complaining about unattractive men being in their presence or speaking to them and they claim it causes them offence, distress and alarm. Now that we have a sex-based harassment in public law on the books, I worry it's only a matter of when, not if, this is tested in a court of law because someone filmed them in a gym, had it go viral on social media and then brings it to the attention of the police.
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  10. Soon. Her authority was successfully challenged by the media, the financial markets and her opponents the second she and the Chancellor u-turned on the top rate of income tax.
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  11.  @reneep.1978  From what I can see, they are and it would poll well if an opinion pollster were to ask that question. Curiously, they won't.
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  12. Could also apply to car radios. But who wants to be the one that decimates the majority of radio listening and revenue via commuter listening?
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  13. Would you also extend that to fat and salt? What about additives? At which point, you'll need ID (I suspect a ban would be preferred) for anything bar bottled water!
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  14. What will happen is that there will be a huge backlash by the public, a reversal of any changes to women's and girls spaces by Government and as a solution, shifting the same principle to men's and boys spaces which will become "gender neutral" spaces. To which there will be little to no backlash by the public.
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  15. You shouldn't be using Netflix et al via a VPN to overcome copyright georestrictions and contracts between the holder and the service provider either. And yet many a YouTube content creator promote VPNs on that very basis.
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  16. It's designed to nudge us toward HP Instant Ink. They will make their original cartridges prohibitively expensive once the third party ones are out of the way in order to get people to subscribe and be locked in to HP technology.
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  17. Well... the mask has well and truly slipped, hasn't it? Badenoch needs to be told that it is un-British for politicians to demand the censorship of their critics.
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  18. It would destroy free-to-air broadcasting as the BBC primarily funds the transmitter network. By moving to a paywall and that would have to be exclusively online, without that money, the commercial sector could not pick up the slack and would also go exclusively online and behind a paywall.
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  19. ​ @lazrseagull54  Advertising would decimate the revenue of the other commercial broadcasters to the point they would have to go behind a paywall because the advertising model would become unviable.
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  20. I think those who are making this a no win issue are doing this from the perspective of both health for the individual and the cost to society - ie. adding to the cost of NHS treatment or insurance for everyone. The problem is, the solutions they would suggest of dieting and exercise at the gym would herald cries of "fat phobia" and "fat shaming". I do wonder what the reaction will be when the Government starts to deal with the obesity issue to cut the costs to the NHS in a not voluntary way.
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  21. Better to convince people not to use it rather than just ban things you don't like.
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  22. There's an online saying - turn your hobby into a jobby.
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  23. Yet YouTube actively deletes my comments and shadowbans most of the other comments. But the bots can post without restriction.
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  24. The current double standard and hypocrisy from the right wing on this issue could be summed up in one paraphrase from the radio this morning: "free speech for me, contractual obligations for thee". The left can be just as hypocritical too.
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  25. This case is yet another example of how far our country has fallen, to the point where we can still pour money into public services and still the public have to take things into their own hands, whether its polciing, healthcare or education to name three. If this carries on, I can see private security with hefty subscription fees becoming popular in the same way private healthcare and education is gaining trade from a public fed up with being let down consistently with the state, regardless of whose turn it is from the two main political parties it is to run the country.
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  26. The remarks I have seen suggest that they refuse to believe he is a journalist and therefore has no defence for freedom of the press or whistle-blowing.
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  27. Biological sex is determined by gametes. As in male = sperm. Female = egg. If there is any disambiguation, then it's based on the presence of a Y chromosome. That's my understanding but I don't claim to be a biological expert.
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  28. One of the challenges in future to private companies and their ability to restrict who can use their services will be bars and nightclubs. We are starting to see clubs refusing entry to men with certain looks, appearances, personality traits and attitudes that women find unattractive, creepy or unwanted - men that women don't want in these social gatherings. Unless someone has a disability, they're not protected characteristics and if it were, the establishment could simply claim it wasn't the disability that got them barred from entry. We've already had private establishments hold free ladies nights with men required to pay for entry without any legal consequence. Club 77 in Australia is the recent international example but we have seen police stationed in UK nightclubs to deal with and eject such men. Not just in the online realm that private companies versus universal access is a problem.
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  29.  @nigelanscombe8658  Good point. Eventually extending to other vices and products too. That would be how you would slowly introduce a national ID card through the back door.
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  30. If such a fundamental mistake is being made with the energy unit and standing charge price cap, I'd dread to think what is being done when its hundreds of billions of pounds on the line. All this does is justify the opponents of democracy that a technocratic Government is the way forward for the UK. Won't matter soon anyway, after this mornings u-turn on the top rate of income tax, her authority has now been usurped by the media, the financial markets and her opponents so it's now only a matter of when she stands at a lectern outside 10 Downing Street giving her goodbye speech.
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  31. You might regret that when the big, predominately American, streaming networks become the only games in town and increase their prices massively to capitalise on their fallen foes (because it won't just be the BBC that falls).
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  32. The response from many of the public is now heading to the other extreme, where people are now actively boycotting severe weather warnings and flood alerts/warnings on the basis that the Government is putting fear into everyone for control. Even to the point while saying that things like floods, winter storms and earthquakes do not and have never happened in the UK. The consequence of a Government that has lost the trust of the populous. Meanwhile everyone else outside the UK scratches their heads because they've had emergency alert systems for decades with none of the complaints and protesting we are seeing in the UK. Couple this with a distrust of the mainstream media and the consequence of this is that when something does or is due to happen, such as a severe flood warning, people will simply refuse to co-operate and believe what is being said.
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  33. Without the BBC there won't be any free-to-air channels because the BBC is the one that primarily funds the transmitter network that the commercial channels use for free-to-air broadcasting. They can't afford to take up the slack of the BBC leaves and would have to paywall themselves too.
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  34. Anyone who is advocating for the banning of headphones and smartphones in public should air their concerns via the democratic channels of petitions, correspondence with your constituency MP or launch a campaign group to protest and lobby. However, if you demand the banning of headphones and smartphones for pedestrians, it is only fit and proper to demand the banning of radios and in-car entertainment on the same grounds. I would not support either but you do you.
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  35. So you either accept all cookies and send them your data or you pay to reject and send them your data. This should not be sold as paying for privacy. I think eventually all websites will adopt this and then eventually go behind paywalls. Internet will get very expensive at that point.
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  36.  @redsfanwakey  Something does not have to have happened for it to become banned by law. Laws are not just reactionary, they can be proactive too.
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  37. I suspect websites (Netflix and other streamers do this) will in future detect you're using a VPN and immediately redirect you to pay. Their ultimate goal is to get your data and make you pay for the privilege.
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  38.  @tonysheerness2427  The danger then is that you'll have to pay to access every single website. That will get very expensive very quickly.
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  39.  @twig3288  Who predominantly funds the transmitter network they use to broadcast free-to-air?
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  40. To everyone cheering this on and hoping this will be applied to all criminals in all circumstances, be very careful what you wish for. Only a few years ago meeting someone for a coffee and a chat was deemed a criminal act. As is increasingly having opinions or stating uncomfortable truths that are not approved by the state. Do not assume that when it happens to your opponents, it wont ever happen to you.
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  41. You should read their terms and conditions, specifically the rationales they have to immediately close your account. It's probably also in the terms and conditions for the bank or building society that you're with too.
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  42.  @Salfordian  It's what he said they disagreed with and criticising the building society got his account closed. Don't agree with what the building society did but they can do that with such vague T&C's.
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  43. The problem then becomes that every website will go behind a paywall. Using the Internet will get very expensive very quickly if that happens.
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  44. Starmer really has it in for (male) "loners", doesn't he?
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  45. Under the same argument, why should I be forced to pay for schools when I don't have kids? Take schools out of universal funding and only have the parents pay. The problem with this argument is that it treats the BBC like any other private broadcaster when it isn't - it's a public service broadcaster.
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  46. If the BBC disappears behind a paywall, it will be online only and it will mean the end of free-to-air broadcasting, Freeview, Freesat, most FM and AM radio stations and the DAB network. And every broadcaster is constrained by impartiality. Even GB News. And we will have a monopoly made up of a small number of American conglomerates becoming the gatekeeper of British media and communication.
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  47. I bet the answer from advocates will be photo ID (driving licence, passport or Government ID card).
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  48. TL;DW - Live off-grid alone in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere.
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  49. A literal "papers please" society.
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  50. The problem in the UK is that if it is a standard petrol station with a shop, the business wants you to go into the shop and purchase items as well as buy your fuel in order to make money as the station will make its money on the goods in the store. Putting card readers on the pumps would only demand a request to pay-at-the-pump and leave, missing out on opportunities to sell items in the store to make a station financially viable. Supermarkets tend to be the only ones who do a pay-at-the-pump system because they're a loss leader to get people in the supermarket and compete with the other supermarkets.
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