friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Standard British things that you don’t realise are creepy and authoritarian as fuck when you grow up in the UK.

These are meant to frighten you. You can safely throw them in the bin.

a scary letter from the TV Licensing people saying VISIT AUTHORISED and that I can be fined A THOUSAND POUNDS!
in reply to Sarah Brown

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Sarah Brown

The silver lining in this is the joy you can obtain when you realise that they are like geese: they make a lot of noise, but if you make yourself look big and scream “go fuck yourselves!”, there isn’t a thing they can do.

As long as you never invite them in.

So they’re also like vampires.

Vampire geese.

reshared this

in reply to Sarah Brown

mastodon - Link to source

James Baillie

This has been the case in Austria, but as of January 2024 they're making the TV license fee mandatory on all households (which begs the question of why they can't just do it all out of taxation rather than giving me paperwork as insult added to the injury of paying nearly 200 euros a year for a "service" that's totally useless to me).
in reply to Sarah Brown

glitchsoc - Link to source

bluestarultor

As an American, it boggles that anyone pays a direct tax (let's call it what it is) on public television. Here it's funded by donations and recurring support from various sources with maybe a smidge of tax dollars and to be blunt a good portion of it is BBC content, which I imagine the BBC is being paid for. And maybe that sounds horrifying and unstable, but it's really not. People pay into it and if they have a pledge drive every once in a while, they back it up with special content. It's basically the truest form of socialism we have here.
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