this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
186 points (98.4% liked)

United Kingdom

4612 readers
105 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Russia is to be put on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), meaning anyone working for the Russian state in the UK will need to declare what they are doing or risk jail, the government announced [...]

Introduced under the National Security Act 2023, FIRS is a tool to help protect our democracy, economy and society from covert, deceptive or otherwise harmful activities against UK interests. The enhanced tier has been specifically designed to shed light on activities directed by particular foreign powers which pose a threat to the safety or interests of the UK.

Russia is the second country to be placed on the enhanced tier, following the announcement in March that Iran would be specified. The government will designate all parts of the Russian state – including its president, its parliament, all Russian ministries and their agencies, and the Russian intelligence services.

The specification of the Russian state is in response to the significant and persistent threat Russia poses to the UK and our interests, which has only increased in recent years. Russian hostile acts on UK soil have ranged from the use of a deadly nerve agent in Salisbury, malign cyber incidents - which included targeting UK parliamentarians through spear-phishing campaigns - as well as espionage and arson.

[...]

Meanwhile, Russia continues to wage its unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine, a war which Russia could end by tomorrow by withdrawing its forces. The UK remains committed to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and will continue to exert maximum economic pressure to stop Russia from threatening and undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, and to help ensure Russia pays for the damage it has caused.

[...]

all 33 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Great idea! Now do this for the americans too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Considering orangy pordgy is going to be the person assigning them the next (🤞) 3&1/2 years. Yeah, this should be mandatory for our agents.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago

They've been interfering with the UK since the 70's. We have neo-liberalism as a result of their meddling. We could have had a nice, well-regulated economy that was far less prone to market fluctuations but nope. America doesn't have friends, it has business interests.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Many MPs are about to lose the ability to pay the mortgage on their 4th home.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Just arrest all the Reform MPs then.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Good. Now nationalize all assets of Russian oligarchs and sell them to buy weapons for Ukraine

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

How many shell companies between you and the government are necessary to make someone "not working for the Russian state"?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yes, this can’t fail. Now when asked for the purpose of their visit they’ll have to write “spying” rather than “to see the historic cathedral”. That’ll put an end to their shenanigans.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There’s a big grey area. Someone might be doing a podcast talking about a bunch of appealing topics for young men looking for their path in life, and every so often just slip in some talking points about immigrants buying up all the housing and that’s why their rent is so high, how badly the liberal party betrayed the voters and how the conservatives are going to give them their country back, that kind of thing. Le Pen got a raw deal, all she’s trying to do is save her country and the corrupt forces that dominate politics took her down for their own reasons. Look at this migrant who assaulted these innocent people, I’m just saying it’s a problem, it’s not racist, it’s reality.

And lo and behold someone might find out that that podcaster along with 200 others is being paid by Russia to destabilize British society and support the leaders that will serve Russia’s geopolitical goals. Should we put that podcaster in prison, or else force them to be honest with the British government about what they’re doing, so they can at a bare minimum keep some tabs on it? I mean, it’s not enough, but such a law sounds like a good start to me.

Russia has been exploiting the open nature of societies outside itself, and getting away with it to enact a whole lot of harm. Like a lot. It’s time to stop being polite with them and the people that are helping them do it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wish I could give your comment more than one upvote. I think the vast majority of us are not fully aware that we're in the middle of an active Russian propaganda campaign. Apparently there are at least 10,000 people in Russia employed full-time on this and a tiny fraction of that here to try and combat it.

I think this is the first time our society has been subject to a state-backed propaganda campaign since the widespread adoption of the internet (which is of course not regulated like 'legacy media' is) and so it makes sense that most people aren't really on their guard for it. The government has no excuse though. They are reported to by the intelligence services, who know exactly what is happening here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I think this is the first time our society has been subject to a state-backed propaganda campaign since the widespread adoption of the internet

We've been propagandized for decades, what are you talking about? Both from our different governments and from foreign ones.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Nobody expects them to admit to spying, but it allows to hit them with another charge if caught.

It is the same with the questions the US asks visitors or people who want to get a government job.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is about 10 years too late, at a minimum.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The best time to plant a tree for shade in your garden was 30 years ago. The second best time is today.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah well this is because the government has repeatedly failed to invest in time travel technology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

What a bunch of losers!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I love how afraid of Russia the Brits pretend to be, just so they don't have to admit that their allies ruined them

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Labour friends of israel, on the other hand, represent perfectly compatible values with british way of life

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

80% of the votes on this comment as of this writing came from Hexbear users. The chance that the situation arose by random chance, that the random walk of users running across this comment and having feelings about it happened to land on 4 Hexbear users almost instantly and on almost no one else, is basically 0. So they’re not just injecting talking points about labor and Gaza into random stories, they’re faking votes to boost it. Good stuff. Glad y’all are federating and bringing the behavior that everyone is always super happy to see.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I checked in the DB and the other Hexbear votes happened quite a bit after the comment was made. I don't think someone doing voter fraud would wait 50 minutes, then another 15, to boost a comment, but maybe I'm underestimating their dedication.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

IDK, man. Try this:

SELECT p.actor_id, comment_id, score, cl.published FROM person p, comment_like cl, comment c WHERE cl.post_id = 26726744 AND p.id = cl.person_id AND c.id = cl.comment_id ORDER BY cl.published ASC;

Hit slash and type hexbear to highlight all the hexbears. That little grouping of three of their users coming in and giving out basically identical voting patterns, all of a sudden, at 18:16 / 18:29 / 18:31 (in my instance's timestamps) after almost an hour of silence, looks pretty extremely sus. To me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I got the same timestamps with:

select name, score, comment_like.published from comment_like 
left join person on comment_like.person_id = person.id 
where comment_id = 16354453;

IDK, I just don't think this is the pattern of someone boosting their comment (see [email protected] for actual vote manipulation), or at the very least I don't think it's Plinky doing it (he's a fairly regular contributor to UK threads and this is the first time those accounts have interacted with his comments here).

I don't know why Hexbearers are so insular (I have also noticed they rarely interact with stuff not from their own instance), it could be malicious or just another aspect of the annoying culture they've developed over there.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

I get that yeah, but mine gives more context. Seeing other comments besides that one that the three accounts voted on in exactly the same fashion as each other, in the same order, and the pace of voting generally to give context to how unusual the little block all within 15 minutes is, gives a clearer impression of how unusual it is. The other comment they all voted the same way on wasn't any kind of particularly notable comment to draw every Hexbear user's attention somehow.

It's not really ironclad or anything, but it's certainly sus. And yes I agree, it sort of looks like Plinky's comment and voting was genuine, and then one Hexbear person noticed the comment after a while and voted on it three times. Why they do that sort of thing, I don't really have a clear idea.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm not from hexbear and I agree. It's absurd that we let anyone who's primary interests are in another country dictate what our government does. That also goes for China, the US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and anyone else too. The British government should act in the interests of Britons.

I'll also note - while we're accusing people of astroturfing - you spelled labour wrong.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago

If y'all wanted to keep your weird little "u"s in the official spellings you should have won the war. 😃

I am extremely American, I'm just offering some input as an observer, being concerned about your democracy as I am about my own.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Ive noticed constant vote weirdness from anything to do with hexbear as well, they really are insufferable.

Hopefully dbz0 defederates sometime in the future.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Finally, a way to unite George Galloway and Nigel Farage.