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Comment by Veen | Hacker News Reader

From my perspective, as a British person, the difference is that this is being done by British people to support British interests. As a person who lives in Britain, and by extension the west, and who supports the general values on which my society is based, I'm not interested in relativist comparisons. If the information war must be fought, I'd like us to win it.

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As another British person I'm unconvinced that "British interests" include the interests of most British voters.

Historically we've seen the British state infiltrate and influence organisations that it considers hostile to it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2018/oct/...

What stands out is the trivial nature of most of these groups, which surely fall squarely within a general democratic right to assemble and protest.

What also stands out is that right-wing groups don't seem to have had anything like the same level of oversight.

So if - hypothetically - the military and/or GCHQ ran a campaign to influence a British election, or a public referendum, would that align with "British interests" or not?

This isn't a hypothetical. It's obvious from the comment sites of most newspapers and also from posts on FB interest groups that industrial-level opinion-shaping is being attempted.

If it's originating from hostile foreign powers, the UK's cyber response seems inexplicably ineffectual. If it's originating from closer to the home, that's clearly a non-trivial problem for our "general values."

Some of those are appalling, especially spying on the trade unions and having workers blackballed. But most of them are loonies of the left or right, animal rights extremists, or have connections to Irish terror orgainzations. Exactly the people the police should be infiltrating.

I'm not convinced "Britain" is in the interest of most voters.

That's a charming degree of trust you have in our intelligence services to be acting in your interests.

Their track record doesn't support it very well though, unless your interests happen to align with the economic elite and social conservatives.

I'm just a firm believer that falling short of perfection is not a reason for total condemnation. In general, over time, the intelligence services do act in the interests of the country. In specific cases, they may not, and in those cases, the organizations and individuals concerned should be properly punished.

And yes, I'm in favor of organizations that defend the nation's institutions, because without them we'd be fucked.

And as an American I’d rather the British be doing it than the Russians or Chinese.

As an american, I don't see a difference. The UK has been as blatantly evil as the rest. I would argue russians enjoy more freedom. I think this UK favoritism is simply racism by another name.

As a skeptic, I don't think any of you are real people. Just bots optimized to ddos my attention.

Why racist? Russia has interests and an agenda it pursues. The west including the US and UK have interests and an agenda they pursue. Conflict is all-but-inevitable. Choosing a side is not racist; it's rational. You can, of course, choose to support the other side because you think the West irredeemably evil and that Isis or Russia or China are morally superior. Many have taken that path. Most people, though, choose their communities, their families, their friends, and their country.

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