The internet may well be the root cause of today's problems… but not in the way you think

In a predictable but still shocking pronouncement, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has put much of the blame of recent terror attacks in London and Manchester on the internet and internet companies like Google and Facebook. "We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed," she argued in a speech following the …

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The internet is to blame.

"As a form of brainwashing, Church of England is probably the best. "

While historically I would agree - that is no longer necessarily true.

The evangelical branches of the CofE are more "fanatical". They tend to have "literal" biblical dogma that encourages abuses of human rights.

I stopped supporting the maintenance of our ancient CofE church a few years ago. It was inadvertently revealed that the community funding was going to be used for evangelical missions into the local non-denominational schools.

An elderly cousin is married to a CofE vicar. She was quite appalled recently to hear that I am an atheist. She said that she couldn't countenance any of her five children becoming atheists.

In my limited experience - the Quakers, with their emphasis on individual responsibility and no clerical hierarchy, seem to be the most benign.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The internet is to blame.

An elderly cousin is married to a CofE vicar. She was quite appalled recently to hear that I am an atheist. She said that she couldn't countenance any of her five children becoming atheists.

Yes, the CofE I remember was quite happy with agnostics or atheists, especially if they showed up at church a few times in their lifetime. Nowadays CofE won't even put up with agnostic bishops.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Re: The internet is to blame.

The C. of E. is a wonderful institution, because it somehow promotes such apathy.

"Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice"?? Not at the weddings and funerals I have attended, not unless they decided to hire a choir.

Apathy may not make the world go round, but it prevents it from grinding to an acrimonious halt. Every country needs a C. of E.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The internet is to blame.

I've often though that a M. of E. might be the solution to reaching a more reasonable form of the religion. But there is an issue of how to get through the required reformation, which would involve a fair degree of unpleasantness.

[Tony W]

Nuance

The Internet does allow very fragmented groups of people to get together and reinforce each other's views. But demagogues and dictators got elected before the internet. What they did have was the backing of forces with money and power, which will use the Internet just as they do other media. You don't need to invoke the Internet even to explain the Brexit vote, when there were years of misleading propaganda from several popular mainstream newspapers.

But advocating killing people because they belong to a particular group is not just part of ordinary discussion and debate, and I would be happy to see that stopped. Can that be done without losing the freedom of discussion that is essential If society is to develop? That debate is part of a long continuing conflict between freedom and stability that has gone on at least since the arrival of the printing press.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nuance

IMHO the Internet unluckily helps to build "distribute clans". Often violence is the effect of a tribal structure - you see it in sport hooligans, organized crime, terrorism, antagonists groups, even organized parties when they overcome a democratic state structure and becomes the real rulers.

Democracy is an attempt to weaken clan/tribal groups, often organizing them in larger "parties" which has to work withing a defined set of rules, and at a more granular level assert citizens are equal regardless of what group they belong to.

Public instruction and adopting values which are established outside the clans is another way to try to break clan structures and ties. In larger group made from different people, it's more important to find compromises and avoid unacceptable behaviours.

Everywhere you see clan structures well alive, life quality decreases quickly, violence increases and economy worsen (unless there are easy sources of money) because the main aim is protecting and impose the clan, even at the price of worse conditions overall - it's Milton's "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

The internet is a very powerful media which allows for building tribes quite easily, outside the old constraints. Actually, bad ideas like Facebook are exactly built on the tribe idea - not a surprise since it comes from those stupid tribal groups which are US university fraternities or whatever they are named.

Still, Freedom of Speech has limitations even in the most democratic countries. Because there are values with higher priority - like Life. Inciting to kill people - and thereby deprive them of the fundamental right to Life, can't hide behind the right to speak freely.

It would also be important to avoid to use different way to judge freedom of speech. For example, we're discussing if hate speech about killing people should be censored or not, but if an old Australian tennis player speaks against same sex marriage, it's just a barrage of blame and requests of censorship.

If we believe there are values that above the right of speak against, we have to treat them equally, and not pick each time again what is OK for our tribe.

[ecofeco]

Re: Nuance

Well said, LDS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nuance

@LDS - as a side note, on our recommended reading list is Cory Doctorow's "Eastern Standard Tribe".

And yes, he does wear goggles and a red cape, at least when I met him he did.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nuance

I think what also makes it worse is that, in terms of social scope, humans as a species are most comfortable with the tribal structure: large enough to have strength in numbers, but small enough that everyone knows everyone else.

One of the biggest complaints about larger social structures is what I call disconnect: the feeling the people up top don't understand what the people down below are experiencing.

"If we believe there are values that above the right of speak against, we have to treat them equally, and not pick each time again what is OK for our tribe."

Until you end up with two that are fundamentally at odds, where they CAN'T be treated equally because each takes an all-or-nothing mentality. They must be supported wholly or you're considered against them. It's like two tribes fighting for the same watering hole, and there's not enough to share. Sadly, there's no clean answer to such problems.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: Nuance

Well, the internet is the open form of the closed ward.

[mythicalduck]

the decision by the UK to leave the European Union despite the clear and obvious logic in staying

... in your opinion.

Yes, there were valid reasons to vote remain, but there were valid reasons to vote leave. It depends which reasons you thought were more relevant as to which way you voted. Stop pretending it was just an act of rebellion

[tiggity]

You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

.. Please do not say "less red tape" (just wait until we are out of the EU and back to the mass of "paperwork" needed for imports / exports)

.. Please do not say "take back control" either

On recent history, the 2 "main" UK parties have both been useless & screwed things up massively with the powers they already have, so IMHO quite a good thing that some things are EU driven, as with large group consensus, less likely to get "extreme" policies (of whatever flavour) enacted.

With an IT slant, given this site, both main parties happy to take away all our online privacy / let our personal data be moved around everywhere, the EU has been a prime mover (albeit not too effective yet, but at least trying) in making a belated attempt to limit the abuses of our personal data

I'm old enough to remember foully polluted rivers and areas of coast being very common, without EU environmental directives I doubt the (costly) improvement in water quality would have happened if UK left to its own devices.

In the Life of Brian style "What did the Roman's ever do for us", there's plenty of good things came from the EU & I'm not going to list them all

Still, when we leave the EU, ignoring trade, plenty of EU states will still benefit from us financially as huge chunks of our rail, power network etc. owned by European countries and the high prices we pay go to subsidise their economies, if we want some control how about the exorbitant infrastructure profits being limited to UK investors (and then, not spirited away from UK economy via tax havens)

[Redstone]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

OK, off the top of my head:

1. Not waving goodbye to a net of £13 billion of our tax money per year

2. Having boarders that the UK are allowed to control

3. The possiblity of returning to the superior British Common Law

4. along the same lines, No EU courts overruling our own.

5. Not having an unelected, unaccounatble EU commission make all our important decisions for us.

6. Vacuum cleaners that are allowed the power to actually pick up dust

7. Setting our own tax rates without a by-your -leave from the EU (c.f. VAT)

8. Stop the rape of UK fisheries

9. Bin subsidyfarms, sorry I mean Windfarms

[Anonymous Blowhard]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

1. Not waving goodbye to a net of £13 billion of our tax money per year

Given that the UK GDP is 1.86 trillion pounds (for 2016), then the devaluation of sterling is costing us at least 186 billion pounds a year (assuming a conservative 10% devaluation). Anything that we buy overseas (e.g. medicines and medical devices for the NHS) is already costing at least 10% more, so if there's an expensive cancer drug we're buying from Europe or the USA then we either spend more pounds or treat fewer people.

We might get an increase in exports, if we can capitalise on the exchange rate; but that might be a big "if" if we don't get proper access to the European market.

I was at a fund-raising event the other day, for a US made precision radio-therapy machine; it costs over 2 million pounds, so add another couple of hundred grand to the price of Brexit...

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

Let's take a few:

"1. Not waving goodbye to a net of £13 billion of our tax money per year"

I remember the morning after the result was declared one MP who'd campaigned for Leave demanding that the government make up for the special EU funding that his constituency receives. I wonder where those special EU funds come from.

"2. Having boarders that the UK are allowed to control"

What boarders are those?

"3. The possiblity of returning to the superior British Common Law"

Are you thinking of English (and Welsh) Common Law. Scotland has its own legal system? No matter, Common Law still applies - just about. May wants to dispose of bits of it; that presumption of innocence is so inconvenient, so let's ignore it, treat everyone as guilty and spy on them.

"4. along the same lines, No EU courts overruling our own."

I'd rather like to have had the EU courts continue to overrule May's diktats.

[mythicalduck]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

"4. along the same lines, No EU courts overruling our own."

I'd rather like to have had the EU courts continue to overrule May's diktats

This isn't a refutation of the argument, it's just your preference... And of course, May isn't here to stay, you can vote her out. Good luck in voting out Junker though...

[werdsmith]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

. Good luck in voting out Junker though...

What is Junker? His is a symbolic role which has no useful effect. The de facto head of the EU is the German Chancellor. Not officially of course, but in reality.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

.. Please do not say "less red tape"

It was more money for the hostiples, innit. Plus that Mr Farage looks like a good bloke.

[mythicalduck]

@tiggity Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

Redstone has given you some. I don't agree with some of them, but they are none-the-less still valid.

But I'll give you one : The free movement of people. You might think this is a great thing, you can go work where ever you want, but look at some of the eastern european nations. I think I read that Lithuania lost a quater of it's population as they moved around Europe. What does that mean for the home nation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31488046

As I also mentioned, I never said "nothing good came from the EU", I appreciate that there are, I'm just saying it's not all one way.

You can downvote me all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that there are actually legitimate reasons to leave, even if you don't agree with them.

[nijam]

Re: @tiggity You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

> Redstone has given you some.

Even after correcting the spelling, only one of them had a hint of accuracy about it, unfortunately.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @tiggity You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

If/When we lose free movement on 1/4/2019, then British-born children of Brits will have fewer rights to work than British-born children of EU-citizens, who will probably still retain dual nationality through their parents. Lots of us on here currently work in roles that cover the EU region, and once FM goes, either the job roles will proportionally move into the EU (meaning redundancies in the UK) or the native-Brits will be pushed out for EU-born workers who still retain the rights to work overseas.

For the record, I'm not talking permanent working overseas, I'm talking jump on a plane on Monday and fly to a customer site for 1-5 days then fly back home.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

I voted remain, but Brown's stunt with the Data Retention Bill made me think twice.

You'll remember that Parliament voted against it so he took it to the EU to overrule his own government?

More significantly there were a bunch of obvious lies coming out of both camps, but since both camps only noticed the lies coming out of the other side, of course it was polarising.

[mythicalduck]

@AC: Re: @tiggity You had better tell me some valid reasons to vote leave

For the record, I'm not talking permanent working overseas, I'm talking jump on a plane on Monday and fly to a customer site for 1-5 days then fly back home.

If you're not talking permenant, please can you explain why a dual nationality makes the slightest bit of difference?

One global company I worked for sent me to Budapest and Memphis for a week each. Guess what, Memphis isn't in the EU, and I didn't have any issues, nor did I have to become an American citizen or anything.

I, honestly, don't get what you're saying. I could see it possibly making a difference if your office was based in the EU, but just flying over there to do some work and fly back, not so much...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dowvoted you not for the view that brexit had / has its merits, or that some people voted on merit, I merely pointed out that a huge majority of those who voted out, did so, on lies, not on any real merits (the proverbial 350 milion bus).

I would have been happy with people voting out because "when we entered the EEC, we entered an economic zone, not a superstate, which it's trying to turn itself into, we don't like that!". Regardless of what I think beneficial for the UK, in or out of a super(lame)state, such frog-boiling is the same as weasel wording of any mobile phone contract. But that's not what made a vast majority vote out. They just believed in that rosy picture of the past, when the UK was milk and honey cause we didn't have those f... foreigners crawling all around us. Well, too bad, we can lock ourself in and throw away the key and put our heads under the pillow and pretend it's 1970 again, but the world around won't just pause for this little United Kingdom (currently still including Scotland and Northern Ireland, but who knows).

[mythicalduck]

@AC

I dowvoted you not for the view that brexit had / has its merits, or that some people voted on merit

So, you downvoted me not because there was anything wrong with my post, but rather other people doing other things that are totally unrelated... Gotcha... Makes perfect sense

[Anonymous Coward]

economic or personal freedom

aka "bread and games". And yes, I would argue, that personal freedom is just an excercise, an illusion of having any influence. No bigger for an average joe now than in Roman times. As to bread... well, you can't have us all being winners, eh? I mean, somebody's got to profit from somebody else's loss, perhaps from that (Polish, per chance?) labourer from Middlesbrough who works twice as hard for half the money (hurrah, saved myself a few bob with that, thanks mate!). Or, looking further afield, a cheap factory worker in China. I mean, I personally don't mind them being exploited, I'm not a hypocrite, I buy what they make and congratulate myself on this "amazing piece of technology at reasonable price!"

[Anonymous Coward]

When people band together governments start worrying

You do realize that at one time in history governments also tried to ban the formation of unions? Because those would be bad; shifting the balance of power where it should not belong, according to the powers that be of course.

This is not much different. They're not targeting the Internet, they're targeting us humans banding together. Because in a sense we could become a threat to their existence. Because when politicians tell lies, and people debunk those and place their findings on the Internet for all to see...Then only 1 single individual could start a (virtual) riot (with riot I'm not referring to violence, only verbal violence of some sort).

I would have been much more impressed if the British police had actually been monitoring the recent attackers, but the story is that they were not. Another thing which the government would rather keep quiet I think.

[fruitoftheloon]

Eh what?

'Clear and obvious logic in staying' [in the EU]?

I mean, horrific youth unemployment, lots of screwed economies - which are hamstrung by the EU and ECB policies, a refugee policy which INCREASED the horrific plight of those already in desperate situations, many folk across Euroland being none-too-happy with the performance of their leaders...

Yup, why would anyone possible want out of that?

And for the benefit of the inevitable mute downvoters, I have no problem whatsoever with folk from overseas choosing to move to and live/work in the UK. BUT I understand why others may not share that viewpoint.

Love the rest of the article tho!

Jay

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to discuss things like adults

When the players act like children.

I see you Miss May and Master Trump!

[Jason Bloomberg]

Old school radicalisation

If we removed the internet people would simply go back to being radicalised by what they read in the papers, in campaign pamphlets, or see on the news or in documentaries, they would go back to organising responses in person, by phone or by mail.

Of course "radicalised" has these days been redefined from being "motivated into wanting to do something about it" to "wanting to kill because of it". It's a jump from protesting, writing letters, egging politicians, to murder, but that in itself is not entirely new; it's just the most extreme direct action.

There are three parts to "the internet is to blame"; providing the evidence and propaganda which radicalises and motivates a response, providing justification that an acceptable response includes murder, allowing the response to be organised, coordinated, even financed.

The internet is not however responsible. Its only crime is that it allows people to be 'better informed'; be that rightly or wrongly informed.

[Anonymous Coward]

TWOTTER

if YOU can't spell a POLICY IN 14o lettahs THEN YIU SHULD AKS YOUSE,F whether it's Worth BEUNG MADE A LOR or not. TRUMO TWEETS THE LAWH and because HIS BRIAN IS string, HE GETS HUS POINT ACROSS. ID MAKE every one of aTrumps tweets a LAW ALL OBER THE WORLD, EVEN FRANCE AND GERMAMYN where MACRO and MERKIM are ALLOWING 1000,00,000''s of TERRIERISTS IN everybody Second. The INTANET IS GUD, it's where i FOIND MY TRAILER Andy its WHETE I BUY MY BEER. AND look at pictures of LADY MARMALADE. Nakid. ((Her not me]]]}.

[John Smith 19]

"if YOU can't spell a POLICY IN 14o lettahs THEN YIU SHULD AKS YOUSE,F"

Another classic piece of work.

You've totally got the inbred SEL thick-as-s*** motherf***er vibe down.

[Potemkine]

Shoot the messenger

It's a kind of tradition: From Sarajevo's assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria leading to WW1 to 9/11 used to justify Iraq's invasion, each time a terrorist attack occurs someone uses it to push his/her agenda.

Trump or May are no exception.

[Charlie Clark]

Nice article

Reminder me to buy you one of these if our paths should ever cross. That's if Mother Theresa and Donny Boy haven't locked us up beforehand!

[Anonymous Coward]

This article proves its own point

By using the Internet to promote a rabidly left wing agenda.

Theh author is clearly one of the people he warns you about

[Potemkine]

Re: This article proves its own point

rabidly left wing

Meaning being left of Trump, Farrage and al, that is whoever is not a a racist and/or a xenophobic clown.

[naive]

Re: This article proves its own point

Good point, lets hope the lefties are mentally fit enough to keep count of the deaths caused by their policies.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Re: This article proves its own point

Well said, sir or madam AC.

I am not a natural sympathiser with the policies and values of the government of mainland China. But this article made me feel they have a point: that one should actively defend one's position. Indeed, the Chinese government seems to adopt the Dalek(*) policy to those whose opinions are different. They don't seem to have as many terrorist incidents as western countries.

(*)Dalek policy: exterminate them. BBC Children's Hour programme, but suitable for 90 percent of grown ups.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: This article proves its own point

They don't seem to have as many terrorist incidents as western countries.

Well, when it's the state doing the terrorising, how do you do the counting?

[Rob D.]

You can tell it's an election

How much moronic political claptrap is being posted in the last few days? This article itself was interesting enough to be worth a read and there are some considered responses here but wow, just pick a choice one and watch it fall apart under its own internal inconsistency: "Austerity was implemented to use the recession/deficit to justify the right wing ideology of lower taxes for the rich and less public services for the poor."

Maybe I'm expecting too much in an election period. Moving on ...

[joeldillon]

'The election of both leaders'?

May hasn't even been elected, yet, anyway.

[druck]

@joeldillion

May hasn't even been elected, yet, anyway.

Shame that complete ignorance of the British electoral system is no bar to voting.

She was elected to parliament just as every MP is, and was elected leader of the party by the parties MPs as every leader has been. If that party is in government, the leader becomes the Prime Minister.

We do not directly elect the Prime Minister in the UK, perhaps you are getting confused with the US presidential system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Credit where credit is due. Identify the rot and cut it out

The problem isn't ideologies spreading on the Internet, it is incompetent candidates for high public office being led to believe they be bold leadership material with a significant presence of being, rather than their realising they be just as terrorised sheep being led through markets for eventual ritual media slaughter and/or putting out to pasture in arid fields of ignominy.

And here be a presently active, super prime, subprime tale of catastrophic deceit and monumental cowardice which would certainly rightly disqualify any and all involved, should they have even just a titter of wit, from even thinking about themselves as strong and stable persons of interest to anyone …….. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-05/dear-great-britain-–-blame-your-intelligence-agencies-government-not-internet

And does media rule and regulate your existence, for certainly without it and IT would you all be in the dark about everything and prey to anything with more intelligence than power can ever provide and maintain?

[uncommon_sense]

Is this article an example?

The author of this "article" has never been objective IMO, but now he appears to live completely in his own bubble!

This is what the radical lefty internet does to our society!

I can't be sure he didn't mean to exemplify it, and the article is therefore a joke..(?)

[Stevie]

Bah!

Religeous wars are mechanically no different from any other type - political ideology or land-grab being the two broad classifications I can immediately call to mind - in that the reason they collapse is when the money needed to prosecute them dries up.

You can talk about The Will To Win or Public Opinion, but they both boil down to sources of funding in the end.

If you think carefully there are any number of relatively recent examples of the phenomena in action.

[Bucky 2]

It seems to me that money, religion, and all those things that government officials are fond of talking about are all emergent properties of the power of self-determination, not fundamental properties in and of themselves.

If you don't address self-determination, then manipulating any of the other things is just putting lipstick on a pig.

[sisk]

Not to defend Trump or May or to deride the main point of the article but damn that's a lot of bias.

Mind you I don't actually disagree with anything that was said here (Trump's a blight, I don't know enough about May to have an opinion - yes, that's embarrassing typical 'Merican of me, and I do indeed think that taking care of people is a much better solution to the current problems than clamping down on them), but more hard fact and less opinion in news - especially news involving politics - is usually a good thing.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

"Not to defend Trump or May or to deride the main point of the article but damn that's a lot of bias."

And that's why it was cleary marked as a 'comment' = an expression of personal opinion.

[Nick Kew]

Ban Coffee

A historical perspective: much of the Enlightenment happened in the revolutionary social hotbed of Europe's coffee houses, where people would meet and ideas were developed. The powers-that-be at the time felt threatened, and tried to ban the dangerous new drug at the centre of it.

Nothing new in the idiocy of today's rulers.

[Florida1920]

@Kieren McCarthy

Well said.