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This is nuts (the UK government)

If there was any doubt that governments of the Western world are entering an authoritarian phase, that was dispelled last week.

The UK government is proposing to dictate to YouTube exactly how its algorithm ranks videos -- in order to make sure that news and views that it thinks are authoritative are prioritised over other perspectives.

This, we're being told, is to reduce misinformation and disinformation being promoted on the platform.

Are you kidding me?

After 20 years on the platform (as of the 12th of this month), I'm becoming increasingly less of a fan of the way that YouTube is headed but this attempt to seize control of the algorithm by an authoritarian government is crazy and completely unacceptable.

We've seen similar attempts in the past from governments such as Canada's which decided it would be a great idea to introduce quotas for Canadian produced content over that from other countries -- but to "shape" the public's view of the world by effectively suppressing dissenting perspectives is just not on.

No doubt, the UK government will claim that they're simply trying to lift authoritative, reliable news sources out of the noise so that people are better informed and not mislead by noisy radicals.

The reality is that no government should have the right to decide for its people what is "authorative" and "reliable" when it comes to news, views and opinions. That is the start of a very slippery slope to facism.

You have to wonder why the UK government would even suggest such a move, until you look at what's going on in that country.

On an almost daily basis we're seeing first-hand reports from people in the street who have videoed conflicts between police and ordinary Brits. In just the past couple of days we've seen a couple more incidents where the victims of assaults have been arrested or detailed by UK police -- seemingly just because their attackers were immigrants. In both cases, the attackers were allowed to walk off while the *victims* were treated like criminals in their own country.

In one case the police involved made a plea on social media for people not to share the video footage that showed their wrongdoing -- something which simply threw fat on the fire of public outrage.

It's clear that the UK government thinks it can hide this sort of lunacy by forcing YouTube to hide these first-hand video reports in favour of whitewashed articles by highly compliant mainstream media sources such as the BBC. Yes, the same BBC which was caught out misleading the public by cleverly editing footage of the US president in a way that made him appear to incite violence. Yes... the trustworthy and reliable BBC!

I really fear for my British friends but I also fear that the rest of the Western world is not too far behind.

Sadly, if the governments of the world have their way, we're going to lose the internet as a reliable vehicle for free speech. They all seem to want to exercise control over what regular folk can say and see online.

Australia and the UK are both ploughing ahead with their age-gating which, as anyone with half a brain can see, is simply a back-door to forcing digital ID and surveilance on everyone who wants to go online.

I can only hope that the sleeping masses that are the public, wake up to these underhand tactics and take the opportunity to remind these governments who is really the boss and who they work for.

Unfortunately, we seem to have several generations of people who either don't care or can't be bothered honouring their responsibilities as part of a functioning democracy. If you just stand back and allow a government to take away your rights, you never deserved them in the first place and we're headed for a very dark place.

Carpe Diem folks!

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