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>Research published yesterday by several European media outlets has revealed that an international campaign in support of the EU’s proposed child sexual abuse r

>Research published yesterday by several European media outlets has revealed that an international campaign in support of the EU’s proposed child sexual abuse regulation has been largely orchestrated and financed by a network of organisations with links to the tech industry and security services. The controversial “chat control” regulation would require providers to indiscriminately scan and automatically disclose allegedly suspicious private messages and photos. EU Parliament lawmaker Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party), negotiator for the Greens/European Free Alliance group on the proposed regulation, expresses shock: “As negotiator for my group, many of the organisations mentioned in the report, which call themselves child protection organisations or victims’ associations, also contacted me. But I had no idea that the pro-chat control campaign was being orchestrated and funded by a network of organisations linked to the tech industry and security services, drawing millions in funding from a US-led foundation and paying foreign consulting agencies to create lobbying strategies. I had previously only expected corporations to use such methods of ‘capturing legislation’. Q. Do you know what the difference is between reality and a conspiracy theory is? A. About six months P.S. And before anyone gets all angry at me, if you had told any random person on the street that the Tech and Security Industrial complex were secretly funding activists groups to try and be able to spy on all European data you would've been considered to be daft and people would look at you like your crazy. If it doesn't sound crazy to you it's only because you're familiar with how the sausage is made in this area. So what could be going on in places where you don't know how the sausage is made?

beebeepka 3y ago
We've reached a point where people don't even remember what conspiracy means. Let's take the very first line from Wikipedia > A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement There. It's a secret plan. But the word has been twisted into meaning crazy.
- kstenerud 3y ago
  Really?? You had to take it that far out of context? You couldn't even quote the rest of the sentence? "A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with political motivation,[1] while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it."
  - beebeepka 3y ago
    Yes, really. Someone went completely overboard with the qualifiers and I very much disagree with their opinion.
- antod 3y ago
  There's difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.
lawlessone 3y ago
Conspiracy theories have completely turned on their heads in recent years. If you went back 10-15 years everyone was talking about how electric cars are being suppressed. Now similar people are talking about how electric cars part of some vast conspiracy to limit travel.. oddly most of the people posting this kind of stuff don't really travel at all. Another is UFOs, conspiracy theorists used to mostly say they are real. Now you are as likely to find conspiracy theories that say UFOs are a conspiracy to unify humanity against an outside threat.
- peddling-brink 3y ago
  Both of those things can be true. The Illuminati deep state WAS suppressing electric cars until their puppet Elon agreed to normalize the extremely connected and remotely controllable car. This way, the bioweapon defense mode built into the Tesla can be remotely inverted to invite bioweapon agents into the car remotely incapacitating the ones who know too much. /s, maybe.
  - BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
    Connected car features were becoming common independently of Tesla and EVs. They're a function of the year the car was built, not the drivetrain.
- lazide 3y ago
  They’re generally reactionary related to the current state of the world (even the gov’t funded actual conspiracies!) so it would make sense if you look at it that way. It’s rarely going to be something completely unrelated to what is in the news or on people’s minds.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  It's unlikely to be the same people subscribing to both of those theories. And furthermore, many of the people who were saying that oil and car companies conspired to suppress electric cars probably still believe that. Quite frankly, GM's insistence that all EV1s be destroyed or permanently deactivated without lessees being given the option to buy their car stank to high heaven. Maybe it wasn't a nefarious conspiracy, but I can totally understand why reasonable people concluded it was. It's popular to dismiss conspiracy theorists as reactionaries (re: lazide's comment), but here you have a case where the people who allege a conspiracy occurred were looking forward to something new and were allegedly stymied by a reactionary conspiracy.
wayfinder 3y ago
The writing makes it conspiratorial. It’s law enforcement companies trying to lobby for increased chat control. They’re doing it via a scummy way of NGO fronts. That is not really a conspiracy in the classic sense of something crazy. Lobbying via front organizations happens all the time. I don’t condone it. We should stop this effort. But it ain’t anything special.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  >It’s law enforcement companies trying to lobby for increased chat control. They’re doing it via a scummy way of NGO fronts. This is your hypothesis, and I agree it's a likely one. But frankly nobody knows because it's all being done with dark money. It could also be US national security contractors looking to maliciously exploit EU data networks, or even private data brokers looking for new revenue opportunities. In every case, these possibilities significantly change the tenor of the debate away from "it's just to protect children." I'm not familiar with the way that EU governance works, but my impression is that dark-money-based lobbying is less common over there. Which is why there seem to be so few defenses against it. Here in the US such lobbying would be less effective, since our structures are more distributed and lobbying would be countered with corresponding lobbying from civil society organizations and the tech industry -- in some sense (and here I only half-jest) we US folks can be more cynical about this because our corruption is more mature.
  - tremon 3y ago
    I'm not convinced it's less common over here, but I do believe it's less blatant. Things operate more in the shadows here, but I'm not at all convinced there is less corruption in/surrounding the EU Commission than there is in the US Senate.
- lazide 3y ago
  I mean, it’s literally a conspiracy [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy] of foreign interests (including foreign intelligence services!) trying to convince legislators to pass laws against their own (and their constituents) interest using deceptive and likely illegal methods. I think you might mean that it doesn’t involve blackmail, assassinations, etc?* Notably, a conspiracy doesn’t require those things - but some do. And they’re pretty bad too. * that we are currently aware of anyway.
jacquesm 3y ago
I'm more shocked at Breyer's naivety (or his acting all naive) than I am at the efforts made by the tech industry. They're about as transparent as can be about this.
- lazide 3y ago
  ‘I’m shocked! Shocked! That there is gambling in this establishment!’ ‘Your winnings sir’
  - wjnc 3y ago
    Casablanca, 1942. (Had expected it to be a Yes, Minister quote)
    - duckmysick 3y ago
      I thought it would be The Simpsons - maybe there was a similar scene.
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        The Simpsons have referenced just about anything by now, I think.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Can you give some examples where they've been transparent about it?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    They're lobbying all over Brussels, it's hard not to trip over a lobbyist or two when in the halls of power. They're not even subtle about it, full on fear button pushing.
- toyg 3y ago
  It's a rhetorical pose, for the benefit of mainstream journalists. He can't come out saying "AHA I KNEW IT!!" because he'd look like a conspiracy nutcase and be ostracized even more than he already is. Gotta play the game.
wolverine876 3y ago
> Do you know what the difference is between reality and a conspiracy theory is? Evidence is the difference. > if you had told any random person on the street that the Tech and Security Industrial complex were secretly funding activists groups to try and be able to spy on all European data you would've been considered to be daft and people would look at you like your crazy This reasoning is hindsight. People come up with lots of conspiracy theories, 99% of which are false. The difference is evidence.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  You can only have evidence for things that have already happened. So warnings from "conspiracy theorists" can all be dismissed with that reasoning. Life is not a court of law however, and we as humans can use our common sense and intuition to discern what is right and wrong and plan accordingly. When law enforcement publish a bulletin about how they've thwarted a terrorist plot, they act before there is complete evidence, instead judging the intentions of bad actors and the likelihood that they'll act on those intentions. We have to do the same with all bad actors, while realizing there will usually never be any evidence accessible.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    (It's pretty depressing to see so many people defending conspiracy theories as a reasonable source of information.) > You can only have evidence for things that have already happened. Logically true and yet irrelevant. Why work so hard to defend conspiracy theories? Why is it so important to you? > judging the intentions of bad actors and the likelihood that they'll act on those intentions Based on evidence. > Life is not a court of law however, and we as humans can use our common sense and intuition to discern what is right and wrong and plan accordingly. Common sense and intuition are awful without evidence. That's why courts, engineering (metrics!), science, and anyone serious about anything, require it. Common sense and intuition produce witches and inject every bias we have. Intuition is well-demonstrated to be awful without expertise and evidence.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
varispeed 3y ago
The sad thing is that security services are being paid by the tax payer to protect us from such activity that is ultimately undermining security and democracy. But who is going to arrest those involved and prosecute? This should be a massive scandal that should lead to closure of security services and creation of new ones from scratch as these people are compromised.
- azmodeus 3y ago
  Moral collapse is a real danger. In Germany there were Nazis in the Eastern bloc the communist terror. We need integrity and civic duty to protect ourselves from the next totaliterian regimes. Security apparatus power trips and the erosion of privacy is the wet dream of the Stasi. I think asking the question what would the Stasi do with this legislation helps warn every day people about the privacy risks.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

beebeepka 3y ago

We've reached a point where people don't even remember what conspiracy means. Let's take the very first line from Wikipedia > A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement There. It's a secret plan. But the word has been twisted into meaning crazy.

kstenerud 3y ago
Really?? You had to take it that far out of context? You couldn't even quote the rest of the sentence? "A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with political motivation,[1] while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it."
- beebeepka 3y ago
  Yes, really. Someone went completely overboard with the qualifiers and I very much disagree with their opinion.
antod 3y ago
There's difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.

lawlessone 3y ago

Conspiracy theories have completely turned on their heads in recent years. If you went back 10-15 years everyone was talking about how electric cars are being suppressed. Now similar people are talking about how electric cars part of some vast conspiracy to limit travel.. oddly most of the people posting this kind of stuff don't really travel at all. Another is UFOs, conspiracy theorists used to mostly say they are real. Now you are as likely to find conspiracy theories that say UFOs are a conspiracy to unify humanity against an outside threat.

peddling-brink 3y ago
Both of those things can be true. The Illuminati deep state WAS suppressing electric cars until their puppet Elon agreed to normalize the extremely connected and remotely controllable car. This way, the bioweapon defense mode built into the Tesla can be remotely inverted to invite bioweapon agents into the car remotely incapacitating the ones who know too much. /s, maybe.
- BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
  Connected car features were becoming common independently of Tesla and EVs. They're a function of the year the car was built, not the drivetrain.
lazide 3y ago
They’re generally reactionary related to the current state of the world (even the gov’t funded actual conspiracies!) so it would make sense if you look at it that way. It’s rarely going to be something completely unrelated to what is in the news or on people’s minds.
mcpackieh 3y ago
It's unlikely to be the same people subscribing to both of those theories. And furthermore, many of the people who were saying that oil and car companies conspired to suppress electric cars probably still believe that. Quite frankly, GM's insistence that all EV1s be destroyed or permanently deactivated without lessees being given the option to buy their car stank to high heaven. Maybe it wasn't a nefarious conspiracy, but I can totally understand why reasonable people concluded it was. It's popular to dismiss conspiracy theorists as reactionaries (re: lazide's comment), but here you have a case where the people who allege a conspiracy occurred were looking forward to something new and were allegedly stymied by a reactionary conspiracy.

wayfinder 3y ago

The writing makes it conspiratorial. It’s law enforcement companies trying to lobby for increased chat control. They’re doing it via a scummy way of NGO fronts. That is not really a conspiracy in the classic sense of something crazy. Lobbying via front organizations happens all the time. I don’t condone it. We should stop this effort. But it ain’t anything special.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
>It’s law enforcement companies trying to lobby for increased chat control. They’re doing it via a scummy way of NGO fronts. This is your hypothesis, and I agree it's a likely one. But frankly nobody knows because it's all being done with dark money. It could also be US national security contractors looking to maliciously exploit EU data networks, or even private data brokers looking for new revenue opportunities. In every case, these possibilities significantly change the tenor of the debate away from "it's just to protect children." I'm not familiar with the way that EU governance works, but my impression is that dark-money-based lobbying is less common over there. Which is why there seem to be so few defenses against it. Here in the US such lobbying would be less effective, since our structures are more distributed and lobbying would be countered with corresponding lobbying from civil society organizations and the tech industry -- in some sense (and here I only half-jest) we US folks can be more cynical about this because our corruption is more mature.
- tremon 3y ago
  I'm not convinced it's less common over here, but I do believe it's less blatant. Things operate more in the shadows here, but I'm not at all convinced there is less corruption in/surrounding the EU Commission than there is in the US Senate.
lazide 3y ago
I mean, it’s literally a conspiracy [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy] of foreign interests (including foreign intelligence services!) trying to convince legislators to pass laws against their own (and their constituents) interest using deceptive and likely illegal methods. I think you might mean that it doesn’t involve blackmail, assassinations, etc?* Notably, a conspiracy doesn’t require those things - but some do. And they’re pretty bad too. * that we are currently aware of anyway.

jacquesm 3y ago

I'm more shocked at Breyer's naivety (or his acting all naive) than I am at the efforts made by the tech industry. They're about as transparent as can be about this.

lazide 3y ago
‘I’m shocked! Shocked! That there is gambling in this establishment!’ ‘Your winnings sir’
- wjnc 3y ago
  Casablanca, 1942. (Had expected it to be a Yes, Minister quote)
  - duckmysick 3y ago
    I thought it would be The Simpsons - maybe there was a similar scene.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      The Simpsons have referenced just about anything by now, I think.
wolverine876 3y ago
Can you give some examples where they've been transparent about it?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  They're lobbying all over Brussels, it's hard not to trip over a lobbyist or two when in the halls of power. They're not even subtle about it, full on fear button pushing.
toyg 3y ago
It's a rhetorical pose, for the benefit of mainstream journalists. He can't come out saying "AHA I KNEW IT!!" because he'd look like a conspiracy nutcase and be ostracized even more than he already is. Gotta play the game.

wolverine876 3y ago

> Do you know what the difference is between reality and a conspiracy theory is? Evidence is the difference. > if you had told any random person on the street that the Tech and Security Industrial complex were secretly funding activists groups to try and be able to spy on all European data you would've been considered to be daft and people would look at you like your crazy This reasoning is hindsight. People come up with lots of conspiracy theories, 99% of which are false. The difference is evidence.

carlosjobim 3y ago
You can only have evidence for things that have already happened. So warnings from "conspiracy theorists" can all be dismissed with that reasoning. Life is not a court of law however, and we as humans can use our common sense and intuition to discern what is right and wrong and plan accordingly. When law enforcement publish a bulletin about how they've thwarted a terrorist plot, they act before there is complete evidence, instead judging the intentions of bad actors and the likelihood that they'll act on those intentions. We have to do the same with all bad actors, while realizing there will usually never be any evidence accessible.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  (It's pretty depressing to see so many people defending conspiracy theories as a reasonable source of information.) > You can only have evidence for things that have already happened. Logically true and yet irrelevant. Why work so hard to defend conspiracy theories? Why is it so important to you? > judging the intentions of bad actors and the likelihood that they'll act on those intentions Based on evidence. > Life is not a court of law however, and we as humans can use our common sense and intuition to discern what is right and wrong and plan accordingly. Common sense and intuition are awful without evidence. That's why courts, engineering (metrics!), science, and anyone serious about anything, require it. Common sense and intuition produce witches and inject every bias we have. Intuition is well-demonstrated to be awful without expertise and evidence.
  - wolverine876 3y ago

varispeed 3y ago

The sad thing is that security services are being paid by the tax payer to protect us from such activity that is ultimately undermining security and democracy. But who is going to arrest those involved and prosecute? This should be a massive scandal that should lead to closure of security services and creation of new ones from scratch as these people are compromised.

azmodeus 3y ago
Moral collapse is a real danger. In Germany there were Nazis in the Eastern bloc the communist terror. We need integrity and civic duty to protect ourselves from the next totaliterian regimes. Security apparatus power trips and the erosion of privacy is the wet dream of the Stasi. I think asking the question what would the Stasi do with this legislation helps warn every day people about the privacy risks.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]