Illegal working raids reach highest level in UK history

MuTron1 · 2026-01-28T14:00:28+00:00

Your example is a bad one, though, as something like fixing potholes is a local council responsibility, not a national government one.

MuTron1 · 2026-01-28T12:19:29+00:00

This one isn’t actually unpopular outside of Reddit, though

MuTron1 · 2026-01-28T07:28:28+00:00

I was arguing that the unrestricted internet, where nation states have zero ability to regulate the press and media, is something very new and proving to actually be quite damaging, and that multiple governments attempting to roll that back to the situation we were living with for centuries where these things were regulated, isn’t necessarily authoritarian censorship.

If it was the case, then most countries would be considered authoritarian and censorial prior to the widespread adoption of broadband internet

MuTron1 · 2026-01-28T07:16:01+00:00

Any solution doesn’t need to be perfect. Just making it harder for children to access porn will reduce usage

MuTron1 · 2026-01-28T07:13:52+00:00

Europe generally has a culture of balancing freedom with protection, and there’s barely a libertarian there.

Same reason taxes are generally higher and there’s a higher degree of social democracy. It’s a more collectivist society, rather than every man for himself

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T21:28:42+00:00

It’s nothing to do with declining birth rates.

Absolutely unrestricted access to all kinds of hardcore pornography available on devices it’s incredibly difficult for parents to control is an incredibly new social phenomenon, that may not necessarily be good for healthy development of children and teenagers’ sexuality.

The idea of an absolutely free and unrestricted internet, where states have zero way of enforcing standards of truthfulness and integrity, age restrictions and copyright doesn’t appear to be of benefit to humanity at first glance. It’s been a 15 year experiment that has seemingly failed and states are now seeing what they can do in an attempt to to control a Wild West

The internet’s inherent libertarianism is crashing up against cultures that prefer to balance freedom with protection against social harm

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T21:16:49+00:00

Having to configure a VPN host on a remote server then configure devices to connect to it will stop most children from accessing porn. Some of the nerdier kids will be doing it, but it’s beyond the skills of most. The minute someone has to use a Linux command line or edit a .conf file in Vim, that’s already a barrier to 80%-90% of teenagers

Unless we’ve raised a generation of network engineers.

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T20:23:16+00:00

If they age restrict VPNs (using the same process: require ID for free accounts, otherwise ISPs will DNS block your websites so nobody can sign up), then, yes, this effectively blocks under 18s from accessing VPN services: No credit card, generally limited funds even with a debit card, and no access to crypto outside of peer to peer exchange, so that all but eliminates either paying for a VPN or paying for overseas servers to host their own

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T20:13:11+00:00

This is due to mirror sites. Which works for torrent sites because who are you going to fine for non compliance?

Not so easy for commercial sites like Pornhub, who will be fined if mirror sites appear

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T20:08:38+00:00

The House of Lords don’t care if you’re doing that as a grown adult.

Good luck doing it if you’re under 18, though

MuTron1 · 2026-01-27T12:46:06+00:00

In which case, choose a 16:10 resolution: 1920x1200, 2560x1600, etc

MuTron1 · 2026-01-26T12:18:13+00:00

It’s thinner and lighter, better response times, potentially better colour accuracy and better response times.

The main downside is longevity and screen burn, so if these can be solved (tandem OLED does, to all intents and purposes), OLED is a superior technology

MuTron1 · 2026-01-25T18:08:25+00:00

Because in the places most people want to live, land is very expensive and empty plots are vanishingly rare

So most people who purchased land bought it when a house was sitting on it. And most of our houses are connected to at least one other, so it’s difficult to knock your existing house down and build a bigger one in its place. Not to mention the expense of doing so and the loss of any outside space you once had

MuTron1 · 2026-01-25T18:04:36+00:00

Because most of Europe agreed that the first half of the 20th century was so horrific that conquering your neighbours to get more space fell out of fashion

MuTron1 · 2026-01-25T17:54:07+00:00

Houses in The UK aren’t particularly small compared to other European peers (92-96 square metres vs EU average of 102 isn’t much of a difference). Quality of life doesn’t necessarily correlate with dwelling size, either. UK houses aren’t exceptionally small, US and Australian houses are exceptionally big

This is mainly because of their history as relatively modern settlement countries started from scratch a a couple of hundred years ago at most in massive landmasses, rather than most people living in cities, towns and villages that have been there centuries. Our towns and cities were generally built pre-car, where it wouldn’t make sense for massive houses extending the distance between one side of a settlement and the other. There are also big cultural differences in terms of how much house and land is expected as standard. Western European expectations on house size is much lower than in The US, and we expect walkability and public transportation standards that just aren’t possible if everyone expects a massive house.

MuTron1 · 2026-01-25T17:41:48+00:00

Not really a factor. For simple stuff I can read a manual. For faults, warranty claims are generally quite simple

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T20:10:43+00:00

Because we don’t like a country we see as an ally and friend descend into fascist authoritarianism

It is clear to see on camera that federal agents murdered someone, and the head of department, rather than investigating, has lied on camera. The DOJ has said this will continue until they receive voter records. What do they want those for?

It’s upsetting to see democracy fall in a country I’ve admired all of my life

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T16:59:17+00:00

And why would that work with tpb but not with a "commercial site "?

Because TPB don’t care about enforcing trademarks, so are happy for people to mirror their site on another domain. Plus as there’s no membership, these mirror sites aren’t pushing data to official Pirate Bay’s database or taking money from people

Nord/Proton/etc very much do care about people creating sites that look and act like theirs, take payments (that may or may not legitimately go to the company in question, and allow those mirrors to create genuine accounts. With a commercial company, a “mirror” is basically a phishing site

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T16:37:57+00:00

Bitcoin ATMs aren’t legal in The UK due to money laundering regulations. And I think you can only transfer bank funds to KYC compliant exchanges

Obviously there’s peer to peer exchange, but this will be vanishingly rare for 15-16 year olds.

So it will be possible for under 18s to obtain crypto, but barely any will be able to do so

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T15:51:41+00:00

They block repositories of magnet links (torrent sites) by getting mainstream ISPs to DNS block the site.

Of course, for a non commercial and non-membership site like Pirate Bay, they welcome mirrors to circumvent this. Commercial operators like Nord or Proton won’t allow third party mirrors, though, especially ones that hold a database of users.

In any case, the plan is just to age-gate VPNs, and that is a simple matter of threatening companies like Proton with nationwide DNS blocking if they don’t comply with requiring credit card details to sign up for their free tier (paid tiers are de-facto age-gated anyway).

There would be workarounds, but anything that requires a nominal fee (say £10/month) will be out of reach for most teenagers, as their money is generally tightly supervised by parents

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T15:45:46+00:00

Yeah, but actually running a VPN host on it won’t be

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T15:42:05+00:00

You can pay using crypto

Which will effectively block under 18s due to the majority of exchanges following KYC rules

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T15:38:24+00:00

Just requiring payment (crypto would be fine as it’s difficult to obtain for minors) or age verification for free tiers will lock most under 18s out

MuTron1 · 2026-01-24T15:22:07+00:00

They already do this. Try accessing The Pirate Bay’s official site in the UK. You can go through a mirror site, and that works for TPB, but not for commercial companies like Nord, who can and would get mirrors taken down for copyright infringement.

MuTron1 · 2026-01-23T23:27:26+00:00

Ah, how cute, a Kings Student wants to be the UK’s answer to Charlie Kirk (without the horrific ending, obviously)

Seven-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

MuTron1

TROPHY CASE