Recently, there has been violence committed in a country now on fire in many ways. Instead of listening and helping a wounded nation to heal, laws are being drawn up to censor anyone who complains with arrest, fines and even jail time. This goes for online sharing as well and even reposts on places like social media facebook or twitter/X. This is extreme. Why is it happening? Where is it going? How will it end? Is it Orwellian? That is my guess. The billionaire elites have priorities. Preserve the status quo unless it benefits them to change.
Here's the thing - in many ways, the internet is lawless. However, if people misuse it, then they're inviting regulation. Laws have to change with changing times, and when current laws aren't sufficient, they need to be rewritten and updated. It's inevitable and sadly, necessary. Else how can we police our societies and protect it from riots the like we've seen in the UK?
I don't think anyone is overtly happy about legislation online, but if there is someone inciting and organizing riots online, then the authorities need to have the ability to identify them, and to perform an arrest. I don't know what you mean by having laws for "anyone who complains", because to my knowledge there's no such law being suggested.
Facebook and X, and essentially all Social Media sites, are a poison in our society. You won't be surprised to see me writing this, I've mentioned it many times. I see potential utterly wasted, and people seem unable to follow simple rules. Ethics and morality have no place on Social Media, but without it you just have a cesspool of nonsense, imo. YMMV.
Note, the call for laws to protect our society isn't coming from the "elites". In fact, the elites - or the people that own these Social Media sites - are dead against any kind of regulation. Their profits are greater without government intervention, and they lobby against proposed laws all the time. This is a case where governments are left with little choice.
I think terms such as "Orwellian" are over-wrought and cliche at this point. If you're in the UK you've got a high chance of being on a CCTV camera 90% of the time. It's how we operate. Given that, the whole "is it Orwellian" argument is somewhat mute.
I wonder if it's all happening because we were discouraged/forbidden to discuss anything important in the first place? People don't talk to each enough anymore.
The laws do not prevent you from discussing any single topic. It's not the subject that is the issue. Same as you can write about murder all day long. However, you commit a murder, then any talk can be used against you. This is the level they want to get to with incitement. We know from the recent riots that Social Media was extensively used to coordinate attacks on stores. Blame the bad actors for putting the spotlight on Social Media.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
How do you feel about censorship and where it is going? What are your thoughts on this??
I think "censorship" is an emotive word and people tend not to put it on context. Do I think people should be able to incite violence and organize attacks? No, no I don't. I'm much prefer if they were held to account before any incident takes place. So we need laws to help with that. But is the organizer in such a case being "censored"? I guess at a stretch you could claim it - but for me no, it's not really censorship in the way people think about it.
The thing is, in other areas of life, this is already against the law. So, you can try and arrange the murder of someone online or off, but you should know you can be arrested for doing so (conspiracy). We don't have to wait for the murder attempt to take place.
Ideally we'd not need such laws. But this is the way the worst amongst us force us to go. What is the alternative?
Also, over time, the internet is going to become increasingly regulated. It's inevitable, I'm afraid. Even the wild west didn't last forever.
