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Britain Wants Tech Firms to Tackle Extremism (fortune.com)
Britain will tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft on Thursday to do more to stop extremists posting content on their platforms and using encrypted messaging services to plan attacks. From a report: Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Sunday tech companies should stop offering a "secret place for terrorists to communicate," after British parliament attacker Khalid Masood was widely reported to have sent encrypted messages moments before he killed four people last week. Rudd has summoned the Internet companies to a meeting to urge them to do more to block extremist content from platforms like Facebook and Google's YouTube, but a government spokesman said encryption was also on the agenda. "The message is the government thinks there is more they can do in relation to taking down extremist and hate material and that is what they are going to be talking about this afternoon," the prime minister's spokesman said on Thursday.
It's a good thing that Britain threw off the violently imposed monopoly of the EU! I mean, how dare those bureaucrats in Brussels tell them how to oppress their subjects^Wcitizens!
Everybody knows that's the job of the violently imposed monopoly in London.
greed fear ego based psychopaths calling the shots has left us coming up short.. cease fire stand down.. in the moms we trust,, truth+mercy=justice,, that's the spirit..
Doesn't work by blocking their SM accounts.
Crypto is the only real privacy. You can see where someone truly stands on totalitarianism vs liberty by their attitude towards crypto.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Amber Rudd: We need you to do more to combat extremists. How about you use some of those tools from CSI? And also give us back doors into your services.
Google: Sure, no problem
Facebook: OK
Twitter: What ever you say
MS: Why not
outside the meeting
Google: So you guys going to do anything?
MS: haha, fuck that.
Twitter: Yeh. Stupid cow, what the fuck was she talking about?
Facebook: Pub?
Government can't stop encryption. If google of face book breaks encryption, is not effective anymore and another provider will step in to fulfill the demand for secure messaging. Nobody can stop it. If whatsapp was insecure, then Masood would have just used some other messaging platform that was. As long as the desire for secure messaging is there, someone will fulfill that demand. If the UK outlaws encryption, well, they have to block any software selling websites from outside the UK too. Then they have to block all VPN services. Then they have to block tor....it goes on and on. Encryption cannot be stopped.
My ancestors left England because it was trying to run their religion and their business.
Now it wants to run their email.
On the other hand I'd rather live there than the EU.
Who defines the "Terrorist"?
Is it just suicide bombers and folks assaulting civilians with deadly weapons?
Or is it anyone who opposes the policies and or people running their local and or national governments?
If they wanted to tackle extremism they would do that by going after the things that make people take things like religion and political beliefs to their extremes.
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Encryption is math.
Free Speech about math.
What is next? Criminalizing algorithms ?
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Seriously, Cameron was awesome when it came to finding blunders and jumping right into the middle of them. Actually the Cameron is the SI unit for the minimum distance between two blunders.
Is Rudd really trying to outdo the grand master? It's not easy, but she's very obviously ambitious and willing to put her mind to it. Or ... well, whatever substitute she has.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Britain created Pakistan. Was it a good move? Just wondering..
would be more direct.
Amber Rudd is not being driven by the intelligence communities, or anyone who actually understands what this is all about. What she sees is a complete outsider's view of "Think of the " without actually thinking whether there's a problem that putting measures in place will fix. All the view of the intelligence communities and professionals is that there is no purely technical solution that can be put in place to fix this, without shooting off both feet. Still, she's adamant that "Things must be done", without a clear plan of what must be done, or, more importantly why it must be done and what impact it will have (real impact, not something that exists in her head, therefore it must be true!).. I used to dislike the old Labour government for knee jerk, uninformed action, creating situations worse than the ones they were trying to solve. And it just continues on this government. The running theme behind the two is career politicians.. If we got rid of those, then we'd be a step closer to real solutions.. Another step would be to make up the policy creation bodies from experts in the field (or at least very experienced people in the field, who are able to liaise with experts when serious policy decisions need to be made).. Idiocracy here we come.
All we need is someone at these social media companies to understand the necessary hashtags, and it's sorted. Come on Facebook stop being so uncooperative with us.
In the United States we have this idea that even speech we don't necessarily like should be protected- especially so. Speech that is popular doesn't need protection after all. While the US has done a piss poor job at protecting freedom of speech in the most outrageous of circumstances there is at least protection for KKK-style "hate" speech, pornography to one extent or another, and similar communications.
If terrorists are actually threatening to use violence against people you can arrest them for it. If you criminalize the speech (and your laws/police were effective at dealing with it) it doesn't mean terrorism will end. The police would have had seconds to deal with this particular case if that under the propaganda here- so eliminating encryption wouldn't have done a darn thing. And that seems to be true for most of the encryption scenarios involving terrorism that have been brought to our attention by the propaganda/media. These are nothing but scare tactics that are aimed at getting the government to eliminate freedom of speech.
Plus- a success here merely means you've succeeded in creating a larger group of disgruntled people- of which more people will then lash out violently. You can only hush people up and back them into a corner for so long. Eventually people will get together and act- often rightfully so- in violent defensive ways. Violence for the sake of violence or gain is immoral. Violence for the sake of self defence is not. We need to stop throwing people in prison who've committed no violence. We need to stop stealing (taxes) from people who have not stolen themselves. If you'd rather live in a free society with the occasional violent individual or risky driver check out the Free State Project, as we've successfully completed a project to migrate 20,000 people and with 5,000 people here already we're having a lot of success at breaking down big government and government violence used on people here in New Hampshire: http://www.freestateproject.org/
Whatever Britain wants is not very important as it was just some days ago.
At least they don't have the power to change EU legislation or even influence it anymore.
He sent encrypted messages moments before he killed four people last week, so how would unencrypted communication have prevented this? That's right, not at all, of course. Why can't they just state the obvious, that they are authoritarians who want to fully survey everyone in realtime and therefore encryption should be banned? Do voters in the UK reward hypocrisy?
When everyone is on crypto, and far frim a public forum, then the country will wither and disappear among a plethora of vast privileges in contract law.
Nobody uses rights anyway.
Can we also make sure tech firms do something about the white extremists, like the one who murdered MP Jo Cox? Remember him, Mr. "This is for Britain?"
Hope the tech companies succeed
So easy to ask the questions or make the demands.
It is an entirely different thing to make it happen and work as intended.
But.. fine. Let's gather your requirements, and we'll go from there. As long as you fund the project.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
garden that smart phones are today they could in effect enforce a ban(or backed doored) on that medium. it would take savy tech people or someone willing to learn.
Always falling on America and landing in Europe.
I think tackling is a bit extreme. How about just asking them nicely to sit down?
When did tech companies become mosques?
This cry wolf seems no more than smoke and mirrors.
Would please someone explain me what it prevents some ISIS/Alquaeda/fictitous "terrorist" group/buck of kids setting up a tor service for private video/voice/text chat via browser?
Oh, the horror, will Britain now outlaw having open source tools too?
"Extremism" basically means anyone with an "extreme" view, but extreme against what? It's a vague meaning description. What they are really saying is, "take away privacy so know what everyone is saying like in 1984". Which makes free independent thought less likely to be expressed to anyone else. Anyone who disagrees with the "Status quo" could be considered an "extremist" (doesn't go with the flow) in the eyes of the government. Not necessarily related to physical violence. Someone who disagrees with, say the lobbying practice with politicians, or an election process that takes the vote away form the public (see USA Electoral College Vote), could be quitely silenced. This sounds very similar the style of government employed by, say Chairman Mao (who invited people to express their views to him, and any who disagreed mysteriously disappeared) or Nazi monitoring: you disagree you are an enemy of the state, and again you disappear. Or even McCarthism. (George Bush Jr. said it best, you are with us or against ). It has been shown that the crazy monitoring programs in the USA for example ,have no significant impact of violent acts of terrorism. It's not about protecting the public, it's about protecting the status quo of the government.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I'm lost. How is this different from asking manufacturers of walkie-talkies or GMRS-style radios to take control of their products' operation and intercept all communications? If they need a finger to point, it's an IP. Having encrypted communications with a key match pretty much removes discrepancies from the accuracy of the IP-finger-pointing. Plus, they will be solving no problems, they will just be giving the entities encouragement to try another.
Always leaders when it comes to controlling and censoring the net.
If *YOUR* particular interest is combating extremism, then by all means go for it. But my particular interest is making great, innovative technology.
Fascism? In modern Britain? Have you been living under a rock? Fascism is nationalist. As you should be able to guess from the name of the terrorist, the British government is the opposite of nationalist otherwise the attack mentioned would never have happened in the first place.
is an end to extremism. But there's an elephant in the room here. Going against extremism means going against the basic concept of deeply held religious beliefs. Not the "feelings" but the actual, raw beliefs. If one is going to be rational and believe in religion then one has to accept that most religions demand some pretty extreme things from their followers, especially the Judeo-Christian variety.
Basically, going after extremism for real is a very, very touchy subject...
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If they *ACTUALLY* wanted to tackle extremism they would quit letting the fuckers out when they complain about their punishments being "too severe" and "racist".
That's exactly what happened in Sweden when an 18 year old migrant dragged a 13 year old girl into a public bathroom and anally raped her, then raped another girl days later. "Boo hoo 2 months is too long!!!" Shit like that is absolutely RAMPANT in Malmo, Sweden, and has been since 2014 when the scum started flooding into the country, but the media will not cover it. Castrate the motherfuckers and let him bleed to death. Until those psychos experience extreme punishment for their crimes, they will continue doing what they are doing. Furthermore, letting them off will only EMBOLDEN them more.
Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Perhaps Twitter.
That new, fashionable anorectic state disappearing more and more.
Good bye democracy. State of right, separation of powers, good riddance. Was nice while it lasted.
Like Brexit?
Have gnu, will travel.
They're happy to defend their extremists of the Islamic kind.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So, some (or most?) perpetrators post hate stuff on their FB wall?
Well, then why don't you send Scotland Yard to knock on their door, have a little chat with them and if it turns out they really mean it, ask them to kindly leave the country?
Asking Google, FB etc. to delete the content instead is like deliberately destroying evidence or intelligence that could be used to prevent crimes. Stupid request.
As soon as the post office does the same thing, the tech firms will get right on it
Every time gun violence occurs, similar arguments are made on why gun ownership needs additional restrictions/controls. Indeed, many on this very site make well-reasoned arguments to that effect. People who own/enjoy guns and see their use and ownership as a fundamental right are dismissed. "You don't really need guns", commenters say.
Now those same arguments are being used to oppose something Slashdotters use/enjoy and see as a fundamental right. "You don't really need such strong encryption", opponents say.
Enjoy sleeping in the bed you made.
They also supported the Turkish Caliphate against Russia in the Crimean war. They also got involved in India and sabotaged them just when various Indian non-Muslim kingdoms were ending the Mughal empire and the associated hated Islamic rule in that country. The UK has mostly been a bad actor when it came to dealing w/ Muslims
Tackle Brit extremism? You mean like USA yeomanry butchering-out Brit and German mercenaries ( Ca 1776 ) and suppressing "progressive" anti-slave pro-Brit NYC azzwhole ? USA yeomanry well-maintained & hot to do that again!
With all the recent Muzzi-wog ISIS poodles poverty-striked Brits have encouraged into England, mebby we need to re-Anglo the country & put-down-the-queen one-more-time. Eh ? Or .. just let the Slavs eat-them and clorox the camel-fucking-nibberized culture ... when Russia comes marching west!
Stop importing muslims
Does anyone remember when we used diplomacy to sort our problems? When rational people demanded governments use diplomacy to sort out problems instead of using taxpayer money to make bombs and then use them to create new enemies for us.
When bravery meant some unarmed professional diplomats went in to a hostile zone to see if they could *prevent* a war from starting. What a parody of democratic ideals our governments have become.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Just a lame attempt by the government to be able to say "See! We're doing all we can! It's the tech companies fault!" by trying to get them to address irrelevant symptoms since it's a lot harder to tackle the actual problem itself.
The real psychopathic extremists are in the House of Commons.
What can tech firms do about them? Develop automated killer bots to clean the house?
instead of doing their jobs regarding immigration they are going to restrict the free speech of their citizens and interfere with their IT security, private industry, etc. Typical socialist scum. when will the people attack? you won't have the ability to rise against them if you don't protect your communications channels. this is what they are really after: control of the slaves. attack now before it's too late. show them what hate really is!
Tech companies SHOULD offering a "secret place for citizens to communicate"
What a load of crap that we should worry that ever single bit of communication prior to some crime MUST be known. That's nutty thinking with the end desire to never have any (legal) conversation occur outside of government recording, monitoring and evidence collection.
They're happy to defend their extremists of the Islamic kind....
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.