4 ms·

Not specific to this, but can we just rename the "European Union" to "Big Government" at this point? It feels like every month there is something else the EU is

Not specific to this, but can we just rename the "European Union" to "Big Government" at this point? It feels like every month there is something else the EU is trying to be a nanny for and it is starting to feel like they're moving towards becoming something in the vein of what China does to their citizens and internet.

sigmoid10 3y ago
The EU is nothing like China. China is basically a dictatorship, run by a single party, with a single guy on top who can make far reaching decisions. The EU is a huge collection of institutions and political parties. Even if they agree on something in the parliament and the commission, they still need all the heads of government - from every single member country - to agree before it becomes law. And even if they manage to do that, political activists can and have brought down laws using the European court of justice. These spy laws under the guise of protecting children from sexual abuse from zealot parties have come and gone for many years now, but functioning democracies like the EU have never seen them come to fruition.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  The key difference is the EU doesnt have as much enforcement ability because they are not a dictatorship and the people they are governing have higher expectations. None of which is really a credit to the EU.
  - sigmoid10 3y ago
    The point was that these ideas are neither new nor rare. They constantly pop up everywhere. But only a functioning democracy can keep them at bay. Like it or not, it is the only thing that can protect you from mad/powerhungry people's ideas.
    - hcfman 3y ago
      Yes, and that’s sad because we are absolutely not a “functioning” democracy.
anigbrowl 3y ago
This is a fallacy of composition. A hearing to evaluate one proposal in one country is not 'The EU is doing a thing', any more than a hearing in a US state legislature or even in Congress is equivalent to a law being passed. The thing is the Tech community doesn't have a clear and simple response to CSAM, although CSAM has proliferated with the growth of the internet. Nobody cares about the technical excuses; people care about the absence of any clear effort to reduce its availability and spread. Absent technical measures, people will continue to demand legislative ones.
- jenadine 3y ago
  > although CSAM has proliferated with the growth of the internet Do you know if actual child abuse also proliferated?
  - nforgerit 3y ago
    That's another absurd point about our public debates: No one cares to share some facts. It feels like it's all based on gut feeling and emotions. As far as I know, we don't have official numbers (at least not shared as part of the discussion). But what we know is, those scanners have a significantly high error rate and will overwhelm law enforcement with false-positives. What we also know is that law enforcement is simply not competent enough, there was a case in Germany where they just removed links in a Forum forgetting to sweep the according link targets to file hosters.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    That's a different question, isn't it? Maybe you should explore it on its own rather than letting it distract from the issue under discussion.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      It is the issue under discussion. The justification for prohibiting the material is that its production requires child abuse. But copying doesn't require additional production. It may have even gone down if dissemination of existing images competes with new production, or wider dissemination makes it easier for law enforcement to obtain the images and use them to track down the producers. Whether or not the amount of abuse increased is then quite relevant.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
The EU is speed running totalitarianism with good PR. What happened to the free market only and the absolutely swearing up and down it would stay that.

sigmoid10 3y ago

The EU is nothing like China. China is basically a dictatorship, run by a single party, with a single guy on top who can make far reaching decisions. The EU is a huge collection of institutions and political parties. Even if they agree on something in the parliament and the commission, they still need all the heads of government - from every single member country - to agree before it becomes law. And even if they manage to do that, political activists can and have brought down laws using the European court of justice. These spy laws under the guise of protecting children from sexual abuse from zealot parties have come and gone for many years now, but functioning democracies like the EU have never seen them come to fruition.

nonethewiser 3y ago
The key difference is the EU doesnt have as much enforcement ability because they are not a dictatorship and the people they are governing have higher expectations. None of which is really a credit to the EU.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  The point was that these ideas are neither new nor rare. They constantly pop up everywhere. But only a functioning democracy can keep them at bay. Like it or not, it is the only thing that can protect you from mad/powerhungry people's ideas.
  - hcfman 3y ago
    Yes, and that’s sad because we are absolutely not a “functioning” democracy.

anigbrowl 3y ago

This is a fallacy of composition. A hearing to evaluate one proposal in one country is not 'The EU is doing a thing', any more than a hearing in a US state legislature or even in Congress is equivalent to a law being passed. The thing is the Tech community doesn't have a clear and simple response to CSAM, although CSAM has proliferated with the growth of the internet. Nobody cares about the technical excuses; people care about the absence of any clear effort to reduce its availability and spread. Absent technical measures, people will continue to demand legislative ones.

jenadine 3y ago
> although CSAM has proliferated with the growth of the internet Do you know if actual child abuse also proliferated?
- nforgerit 3y ago
  That's another absurd point about our public debates: No one cares to share some facts. It feels like it's all based on gut feeling and emotions. As far as I know, we don't have official numbers (at least not shared as part of the discussion). But what we know is, those scanners have a significantly high error rate and will overwhelm law enforcement with false-positives. What we also know is that law enforcement is simply not competent enough, there was a case in Germany where they just removed links in a Forum forgetting to sweep the according link targets to file hosters.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  That's a different question, isn't it? Maybe you should explore it on its own rather than letting it distract from the issue under discussion.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It is the issue under discussion. The justification for prohibiting the material is that its production requires child abuse. But copying doesn't require additional production. It may have even gone down if dissemination of existing images competes with new production, or wider dissemination makes it easier for law enforcement to obtain the images and use them to track down the producers. Whether or not the amount of abuse increased is then quite relevant.

tick_tock_tick 3y ago

The EU is speed running totalitarianism with good PR. What happened to the free market only and the absolutely swearing up and down it would stay that.