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UK Government Body Kept Files on People Criticizing Prevent Program

73 points · 28 comments · latein

  1. mike_hearn · · focus · HN ↗
    The Yookay Government has become an atrocious far left dystopia over the past ten years so a lot of people no longer trust anything they say, but this particular thing seems to be a non-event. The complaints were being collected by a department that is supposed to be supervising Prevent, and they came from public internet comments with no apparent attempt to de-anonymize them.

    OK - how is the supervisor supposed to know what people think of Prevent or why they hate it if they aren't going out there and collecting feedback? Did the people criticizing it online not want the government to take notice of their complaints, and maybe even act on them?

    The ReclaimTheNet article relies heavily on blurring the lines between Prevent and the "Prevent Standards and Compliance Unit". Now, cynical people might argue that there can't be any real difference between these two parts of the government and the whole civil service marches to one agenda. And sure, there's plenty of evidence for that point of view. But if there was to be a difference, and there were people in the civil service who knew Prevent needed to be reigned in, then collecting evidence for that point of view would make a lot of sense.

    For this to be a sign of the times would require them to be going to X and Reddit saying give us the IP addresses of these complaints. But there's no evidence they did that.

    1. Spivak · · focus · HN ↗
      I'm not exactly tuned into UK politics but haven't you guys had a conservative government for eight of the last ten years? And even then I don't think I've ever seen Labour called far left before so I assume that isn't it. Is there some far left throughline in your government that isn't obvious?
      1. mike_hearn · · focus · HN ↗

        [dead]

        1. Lio · · focus · HN ↗
          > It was conservative in name only.

          The ol' "No True Scotsman"[1] defence, eh?

          1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;No_true_Scotsman" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;No_true_Scotsman

          1. DaSHacka · · focus · HN ↗
            Its not &quot;No true Scotsman&quot; when a party or organization affirms itself one thing, then does NOT do that thing.

            Like when Trump got elected and one of his campaign slogans was how Harris was going to start a new war, then he proceeds to start one himself, would it not be fair to say he was &quot;anti-WoT in name only&quot;?

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