13 ms·

Fight Chat Control

1493 points by tokai 1y ago

righthand 1y ago
This is a list of countries not to visit with tourism money as a foreigner you’re no longer safe.
isoprophlex 1y ago
God fucking damn it not again This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?
- ath3nd 1y ago
  They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.
  - mantas 1y ago
    The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick another figure head. And we can’t even get the names who want to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were redacted for their privacy :D
    - morkalork 1y ago
      When the people orchestrating something like this can hide behind a veil of anonymity as well as bestow exemptions from monitoring upon the political class, it looks deeply wrong and conspiracy worthy. :D indeed.
      - Geezus_42 1y ago
        The exemptions for politicians is straight out of 1984.
        thfuran 1y ago
        They weren’t exempt in 1984.
        ElectroBuffoon 1y ago
        Upper class could completly turn off their telescreens, meaning they have partial exemptions at least. For middle class they were always on. Proles had no telescreen because they were considered to lack brains. Even the Party had levels, Inner and Outer, with different rules. 1984 would be incomplete without the hypocrisy of "rules for thee not for me".
    - croes 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
    - nickslaughter02 1y ago
      Context: https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/111499769526754966 https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/1114997695267549...
  - ncr100 1y ago
    Yup. Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power. Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
  - miroljub 1y ago
    > They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it. I wouldn't call login political career or being cancelled and voted out "real repercussions". They can pretty much retire and enjoy the rest of their lives with all the lobby money and EU rents. Real repercussion would mean prison time and losing their property, but we all know that won't happen anytime soon.
- 9dev 1y ago
  They only need to succeed one time. People are generally preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this is their lucky shot…
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - zubspace 1y ago
    It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one time while the other side needs to succeed over and over again. What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.
    - pessimizer 1y ago
      > What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules authorities, but it's usually limited to once per "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar legislation. It can easily be argued that passing something that failed to pass before, multiple times, should require supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where you can move that something "should not" be passed without a supermajority in the future. It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions. At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules with a supermajority.) I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure as I would like to, though.
      - Telemakhos 1y ago
        Is there no way to codify a negative right, like “The right of the European people to privacy in their communications and security in their records through encryption shall not be infringed?” Negative rights reserved to the people should be more important than positive laws granting power to the government.
- mantas 1y ago
  As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it later…
  - uncircle 1y ago
    Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things. It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy. Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.
    - croes 1y ago
      People don’t want change. If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too. People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
      - mantas 1y ago
        People don’t want change, yet politicians are pushing sleazy changes left and right. Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change, wow.
        croes 1y ago
        That are alibi changes because the real necessary changes are too unpopular
        mantas 1y ago
        Then don’t do any changes. Such BS changes are counter-productive and just a waste of resources.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware and will never go away. We exist constantly balanced on the razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else. Self-governing humans are not a stable system.
  - swayvil 1y ago
    Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.
    - idiotsecant 1y ago
      Is it? Every human society has been an incredibly brief enterprise, on the scale of, for example, geologic time.
- swayvil 1y ago
  The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.
  - ncr100 1y ago
    Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate. Watchlist? Easy. Mislead? Easy. We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
- brikym 1y ago
  What do they gain? The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. If there was a conspiracy like that would they be acting much differently?
  - palata 1y ago
    > The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. Then you lack imagination :-). Let me give one example: "I am a fundamentally good guy, and I want to protect the people. If I was given access to all the communications of everybody, it would be easier for me to do my job and to improve the security for everybody". Of course, (as you know) this is flawed, be it just because you can't guarantee that a surveillance system will only ever be used by fundamentally good guys in the eyes of their people. Or said differently, if you create a backdoor for the good guys, you also create a backdoor for the bad guys. But it's easy to be well-intentioned and not understand that it's impossible to build cryptography only for the good guys. No need to invent a deep state when the simplest explanation is "the people who believe it are uninformed".
cobbzilla 1y ago
Is Europe sliding into feudalism? The impression is that the government/megacorp complex are the lords, everyone else should accept their place as a serf and do whatever they’re told.
- croes 1y ago
  Where is the difference to the US, China or the UK? Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against organized crime, terrorism, child abuse. But in the end it’s just used for the heavy crimes like copyright infringement
  - cobbzilla 1y ago
    The US, at least, has a Bill of Rights that would make this illegal, it would definitely violate the 4th Amendment and maybe the 1st too.
    - Nifty3929 1y ago
      I hope you're right.
    - cobbzilla 1y ago
      That said, it’s not all roses in the US. There are many backdoors the government uses like issuing subpoenas to tech companies to get their data. Sometimes (like the notorious NSLs, National Security Letters) the order is secret and the company can’t even talk about it. This is also why the Snowden revelations were significant— arguably what the NSA is doing (mass, untargeted surveillance) is illegal, but so far (iirc) courts have said nobody has standing to challenge it. Various groups are still trying.
    - lawn 1y ago
      The administration and the people will just shrug and move on, like they've done with all the other crap they've shrugged at.
    - croes 1y ago
      The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that make that illegal. Still they try because there is always an exception that allows breaking those laws. Chat control isn’t something the EU invented, they tried to implement CSAM in Apple devices and the whole chat control thing in the EU was heavily lobbied by Thorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
Disposal8433 1y ago
I'm French and every idiot supports it, even the so-called left. There is nothing I can do except donate money every month to GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/donate https://grapheneos.org/donate). Democracy is dead for me.
- tatjam 1y ago
  Looking at the supporting members, this appears to be supported by "both parties" across many many countries, what a sad thing to unite over...
- dabber21 1y ago
  what are the arguments?
  - realusername 1y ago
    France is just very regressive when it comes to the internet, any laws which can make the situation worse is usually voted by all parties (see neighbouring rights or any anti-piracy laws), I don't think there's any real reasoning.
    - KennyBlanken 1y ago
      The country is predominantly Catholic. So both prudish views on sexual content, but also wanting to pretend sexual abuse by priests in their religion, and their religion protecting those priests, isn't the problem - nope, it's the interwebs creating child abusers. That is coupled with racist fear of terrorist attacks being committed by the African and middle eastern immigrant populations. Sure are a lot of white elephants in the room with you...
      - rdm_blackhole 1y ago
        As a French person, let me tell you you are wrong. French people mostly don't give a shit about religion and do not have any prudish views. We have many nudists beaches and women are regularly topless on the beach. Talking about sex if accepted in society and between friends and family. So it's not about that at all. What most French people are though is little children that need to be guided and protected by the state. Without the state they are lost. If you look at the news, the most recurring theme is: "why hasn't the government solved this problem for us poor souls? We are helpless, help us!" Therefore French people accept the state and all that it encompasses. They have little protests here and there and sometime they succeed in making the state back down but in the end the state usually wins. It's a form of learned helplessness and a very sad and toxic relationship between the French state and it's citizens.
Centigonal 1y ago
In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety. Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
- nosioptar 1y ago
  I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its citizen. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at all waking hours.
- ragmodel226 1y ago
  This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted. It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its communications against government interference ever again. One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    Australia already has this capability and is likely using it for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.
    - ragmodel226 1y ago
      Australia can’t get technical capability notices for anything that matters, maybe some local trash only. (Don’t use Australian software or products folks). American tech will tell them to pound sand, and you got another international incident in the media.
rdm_blackhole 1y ago
[flagged]
- 9dev 1y ago
  No, that’s the worst conclusion to draw. The EU is the only hope we have if we don’t want to become a toy for the US and China. We need to save the EU from these people!
  - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
    They already see us as a toy. Even Russia can't take EU serious. We could have economic and military cooperation without this circus. It's not even actually democratic and veto powers of tiny countries like hungary have turned common foreign policy into a joke.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Wasn't Ireland threatened with not being allowed in (a hypothetical) EU 2.0 at some point, unless they backed down on some issue.
  - gardenhedge 1y ago
    there's no 'saving' the EU imo. I would consider voting to exit if given the opportunity
    - 9dev 1y ago
      To what end though? What is your country’s opinion worth globally without the EU? It’s not that I like the current state of affairs, but the alternative is so much worse.
      - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
        If not being in the EU is so awful, you should tell the Swiss about it. They must have missed it. /s On a serious note, I think EU was a good idea but it has decayed a lot, especially after how the Greek crisis was handled and because of multiple legal design flaws. It needs a big restructuring, otherwise it will continue to decline and be used as a dumping ground for unpopular laws like Chat Control.
kratom_sandwich 1y ago
Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could support with a donation?
- lostmsu 1y ago
  Pick any decentralized IM project
  - nickslaughter02 1y ago
    You cannot fight this with technology. What will you do when they make connecting to instant messager servers without scanning illegal? VPN? They are already going after VPNs. "VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge"" https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-services-may-soon-become-a-new-target-of-eu-lawmakers-after-being-deemed-a-key-challenge https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
    - lostmsu 1y ago
      You don't need to ask anyone to connect to a decentralized IM. This all the way till encryption is banned for personal use.
- Nemo_bis 1y ago
  EDRi. https://edri.org/about-us/victories/ https://edri.org/about-us/victories/
- kratom_sandwich 1y ago
  Kind of answering my own question, but in Germany there seem to be: https://freiheitsrechte.org/ https://freiheitsrechte.org/ https://chat-kontrolle.eu/ https://chat-kontrolle.eu/ Can anyone comment on the reputability of these initiatives?
pmlnr 1y ago
I don't remember the link to the essay that defined public, private, and secret information. Essentially it said that public is ok for anyone to hear, private is something that shouldn't concern others, whereas secret is something that needs to be kept under wraps. Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others. Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.) I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data. Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
- tough 1y ago
  you cannot enforce law globally online there's no internet police
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    You didn't even need the word "online." There's no global police.
futurecat 1y ago
Thank you for sharing.
101008 1y ago
I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't continue, it boiled my blood. > *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
- lordnacho 1y ago
  Can't make this shit up. The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves. But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself? How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?
  - amarcheschi 1y ago
    It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it would delegate that to service providers - the organizations managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the foundation for the signal app is ecc
  - shark1 1y ago
    It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from stealing, for example. By doing it, you will not be a lawful citizen.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      You mean "an illegal?"
      - bombela 1y ago
        nah they meant unlawful. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/unlawful https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/unlawful
setnone 1y ago
Excellent resources section [0] including "Digital technologies as a means of repression and social control" study from European Parliament [0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources
lucideer 1y ago
A little context here since this website is highly misleading: - EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament - EU Council is pushing this regulation - this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown" Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.
- beberlei 1y ago
  Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works. If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.
- x775 1y ago
  Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.
  - lucideer 1y ago
    To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
  - 1y ago
croisillon 1y ago
nitpick but the number of MEPs is not the same in some countries (Slovakia, Spain and a few more) on the summary card and on the representative list
shark1 1y ago
It's impressive how governments never quit trying to implement this harmful idea.
- palata 1y ago
  Because people keep believing that there must be a technical solution that will improve security without causing harm. They are just uninformed, IMO. Just like governments pretty much don't do anything about climate change and the mass extinction that is currently happening, even though they may well end up killing most people on Earth. If they understood how bad it is, they would act. But they don't.
rendall 1y ago
The landing page really should have an open graph image! It would help with sharing and promotion.
dachris 1y ago
Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead down this road. British humour I guess.
- vaylian 1y ago
  The chat control bill also has age verification to identify child users.
  - dan_can_code 1y ago
    I think the point was that the law is not in effect just yet.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  Can you imagine the UK having a vote in all of this? Terrifying.
mustaphah 1y ago
The EU: proudly defending human rights… unless you're trying to send a private message.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
midasz 1y ago
As disappointing as my national government (NL) has been and still is, at least our MEPs oppose this dragon of a proposal.
thesdev 1y ago
The individual MEPs' positions are wrong, it's not 1:1 with the national government's position as the website suggests.
alphazard 1y ago
So what is the real solution? Meaning the solution that an individual could use themselves, without further coordination, to insulate themselves from this policy. Is it an Android distribution? Jailbreaking? Custom builds?
- betaby 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution probably a solution
  - account42 1y ago
    A solution that laws like this will make very much harder to pull off if not impossible.
- r33b33 1y ago
  Solution is to move or cause resistance obv
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  When (rational) people make decisions they weigh the possible rewards of success against the possible costs of failure. We are in a situation where the costs are virtually zero ("oh no, we have to try again in 6 months!") while the rewards are immense: the potential to consolidate even more power to the rich and powerful elite. It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again, and they only need to succeed once. Social movements of the past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an extent that they couldn't be ignored. Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and violence.
- vaylian 1y ago
  The real solution is to stop the law while it is still being negotiated.
nomilk 1y ago
Laws generally recognise the sanctity of privacy - for example, so much as looking at someone for too long can be deemed sexual assault in some jurisdictions - yet law makers wish to legislate they be able to view everyone's nudes (and much more)! Weird contradiction.
latexr 1y ago
We do need to take action, but be mindful the data as presented isn’t yet entirely accurate. Note the text on the website: > Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in. In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance. Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
- ncr100 1y ago
  Make their job more servant to the public, and less profitable in the near and far term. Regulate the politicians.
ukprogrammer 1y ago
HN applauds this vibe-coded “privacy” site yet condemns decentralized messaging. States control what’s centralized; incentives ensure they keep doing so. Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat—it can’t hear you, and it’s built to tighten control. As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise. (Yes, I’m speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-crypto and pro-this seems big.)
- drapado 1y ago
  Genuely curious. What would the problem be if it was vibe-coded? It's an easy to read site that succeeds in communicating what it wants.
  - ukprogrammer 1y ago
    there's no problem with it being vibe-coded The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect some kind of durable societal change Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of the above actions are just low-effort cope
    - Nemo_bis 1y ago
      Can you suggest an alternative action?
      - trallnag 1y ago
        Maybe accelerating is an option
      - ukprogrammer 1y ago
        Decentralised messaging providers Can't enforce everyone to scan What are you going to do? Arrest everyone?
        jack1243star 1y ago
rossant 1y ago
Sometimes, very bad things are done in the name of "child protection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
gddgb 1y ago
[dead]
throwaway89201 1y ago
Please also fight mandatory age verification with prison sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely missed by news organizations and even interest groups. The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year." It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-0116_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...
- BiteCode_dev 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please don't berate other community members on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. HN is for curious conversation, not battle. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines in future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- MrDrMcCoy 1y ago
  Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for how nonsensical a law can be?
  - throwaway89201 1y ago
    Member states will implement this into national law. So in the case they will need to implement a maximum of one year or more (but not less). The final law as applied by a judge will just read "punishable by a maximum of [i.e.] fourteen months".
ncr100 1y ago
WTFF. Fight !! Why is this Thought Policing tolerated? Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement? Gestapo much, anyone?
- isaacremuant 1y ago
  > Why is this Thought Policing tolerated? Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing authoritarian policies. Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists, anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we have to protect kids, or fight racism... It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any of this.
  - account42 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - graemep 1y ago
    Yes, very few people want free speech for their opponents. They want free speech for what they agree with, or at least think tolerable. The principle of free speech as a right everyone has, has been lost.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Should I be allowed to go on national news and present irrefutable evidence (AI-generated of course) that the president is a lizard person? By default, I should, because it's a free country. But what if enough people start believing me that the country falls apart? Should the country let itself fall apart or should it perhaps try to stop the whole thing?
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      By default, you should be allowed to say that the president is a lizard person, and show your "irrefutable evidence". On national news? Only if you can persuade a national news show that they should (or unless you own a national network). But if you don't own them, they're not going to show your "proof" (except perhaps as comedy), because they have a reputation they need to maintain. And if you own them, they're still not going to, because they'd lose reputation (and therefore market share), and they'd get sued for slander and lose. That leaves you showing your "proof" to whoever you can persuade to listen, without going on national news. I'm not sure I see the problem with that.
isaacremuant 1y ago
Sure. Fight it. And also Remember this moment next time you're calling people conspiracy theorists because your party politician or mainstream news says so. Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms. It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the worst. Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the greater good.
andrewinardeer 1y ago
Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Signal chat messages to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner? Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner? Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this encryption?
- ivanjermakov 1y ago
  Making it illegal to use "non-compliant" e2ee services and prosecuting those who does. Realistically, they couldn't, but could ban such apps in EU stores, making them less popular. They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat client for every user.
- danielheath 1y ago
  They can fine apple and google for offering signal in their app stores, until nobody has it installed. That doesn’t break your comms today - but later, you replace your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?
  - layer8 1y ago
    Not quite. It would be illegal for Signal to continue operating in the EU if they don’t implement the required scanning functionality. And Signal has already stated that they’d rather leave the EU.
    - account42 1y ago
      If the one western nation passes this then it's only a matter of time until the other ones do to. At that point Signal "leaving" means they may as well stop doing business. Companies like to say they won't bend the knee if it gets them support now but in the end they always do.
      - danielheath 1y ago
        I wouldn't believe a for-profit company claiming it'd stand firm. Signal is a 501c3 nonprofit. There isn't capital to lose
mettamage 1y ago
So as a Dutchie that opposes this, is there still something for me to do? The Netherlands opposes this, so... should I sway them to oppose it even more? Not really sure what my role should be.
- layer8 1y ago
  See https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo under “Is your government opposing?”.
  - mettamage 1y ago
    > Is your government opposing? → Great, but take a closer look at the reasoning: Some governments like Germany e.g. only object to the scanning of encrypted communications, but are fine with the indiscriminate scanning of other private and public communication, with the end of anonymous communication by requiring age verification, or with introducing a minimum age for “risky” communication apps. Also critical governments need to do more, exert their influence in the Council of the EU and agree on a joint list of necessary fundamental changes to the proposal. Absent such revision they should ask the European Commission to withdraw the chat control proposal as it stands. Just putted it here, for easier reading.
x775 1y ago
Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation. As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website. I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government. I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP. In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns. [0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bodies/law-enforcement-working-party/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bo... [1] https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-kritisieren-daenischen-vorschlag-zur-chatkontrolle/#2025-07-15_St%C3%A4V_RAGS_CSA-VO https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-... [2] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ [3] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-enforcement-wp-lewp-police-(358097)/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-e... [4] https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname_11492795.pdf https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname...
josh2600 1y ago
This is actually one of the major fights of our generation. If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right. IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society. In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who. Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.
- msgodel 1y ago
  It sounds to me like the Europeans need to have an actual fight (that is with bullets and artillery) with this weird EU pseudo government thing. It sounds like a loss for them to me.
  - miroljub 1y ago
    Many Europeans just wait for the Russia to come and save us from the totalitarian regimes once again.
    - kvgr 1y ago
      There is no alternative is there. Russia bad for obvious reasons. EU rules getting more and more tight. Lets see what happens with digital euro and forced investing in EU markets. Eu is ruled by gerontocrats and detached leftists. The extreme right is not solution. Most of EU MPs from small countries are literal nobodies, just bench warmers.
      - miroljub 1y ago
        Russia is bad as is. Currently, clearly worse than EU. But the problem is, the state of human rights and freedoms in the EU is deteriorating so fast, I'm not sure if it would still be better than Russia in ten years. And in 20 years, China may be the freedom benchmark for the EU.
hazek112 1y ago
The EU continues to become a hilariously Soviet nanny state. Beautiful land and country, but they're destroying their cultures with the third world and seem to just not care about the rights of their citizens.
tomgag 1y ago
I'm Italian. On my side, I did what I could do: I emailed Italian politicians explaining why they should reject the proposal. A drop in the ocean, and far from impactful, but if it can change the odds even by an epsilon, why not? https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol Big politics is not my thing, so for me the big effort was: 1) understanding who, among the zillions of politicians we have, could have a direct role in the decisional process and how; 2) searching and collecting the email addresses; and 3) funnily enough, picking the right honorifics (for example, I was not aware that "Onorevole" is reserved only to certain figures in Italian politics). I shared the resulting effort on my website, in the hope of making life easier for fellow Italians who want to do the same.
- amarino 1y ago
  Thank you for sharing this, it saved me quite some time and I coincidentally found a great resource (your blog).
colleenthom7 1y ago
Test
phendrenad2 1y ago
The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform. That might be fine in a world where every country is on-board, but now that the internet exists, countries with anonymous free speech will come out ahead. Here's a darker thought: The pre-internet US and UK had a crime problem. Crime was spiking through the 1980s and 1990s. People were disaffected, jaded, they felt that the halls of power were captured by corruption and their voice didn't matter. This is the environment that gave us the original Robocop movie, a hyper-violent celebration of the commoner over both criminals and corrupt government institutions. The internet economy revitalized the western world and helped us pull out of the crime doom spiral. Without that miracle, we were probably on track for ruthless Duterte-style governments, if not something worse like fascism. Anyway, I predict that the EU will stop short of actually passing this into law. They're not stupid, and they just want "good boy points" for trying (not from the voters, of course, but people with real political power).
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  Crime was spiking in those decades because everyone was getting pumped full of lead. Not because they didn't have anonymous reddit.
- wraptile 1y ago
  > The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. This would just end anonymity for normal people. All of the bots and bad actors will have no problem with comitting a crime because they are literally criminals.
- marcus_holmes 1y ago
  I think they'll pass it into law, and then find it's effectively unenforceable, same as all the other similar laws (the UK is busy discovering that age verification laws promote VPN use that circumvent all enforceability of any UK internet laws). The authoritarian mindset that thinks that making something illegal will stop people from doing it, doesn't really grok how that just doesn't work.
wizardforhire 1y ago
I just had this great idea reading this proposed law and the comments and concerns there of… here me out Lets just put everybody in the world in prison except for the people with net worths over some unattainable threshold… perhaps a hundred thousand dollars. Then we’ll just make everyone work for and take all of it for ourselves. That way we cam destroy their cultures and the genetic lineages and we can just kill all the people we dont like dont agree with especially if theyre skin color is one we dont agree with. The world will be a better place because the clearly superior people will be on top. We can breed the rest of humans and just eat them. We’ll call them eloi and we’ll be the morlocks.
renewiltord 1y ago
Man am I glad I live in America. Despite everything, it's still the land of the free and the home of the brave. The federal system here means that the majority of weird shit happens at the state level.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  The country that had prosecution of political opponents during the Red Scare and patriot act is better? The US is the country that started all this privacy invading BS and is still way ahead on that front. After all Chat Control hasn't actually passed yet.
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  The company lobbying for the proposal is a US surveillance company called Thorn. They have correctly identified that the EU is weak and you can just say "children" and politicians will agree to anything however. Even if it doesn't achieve anything. https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
- account42 1y ago
  I salute you sir, a true PATRIOT. Your PRISMatic view of the world truly knows no bounds.
- immibis 1y ago
  The more they have to tell you that you're free, and the more they make want to tell other people that you're free, the less free you actually are.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    Oh yeah definitely. And the more they tell you something is vanilla ice cream, the more non-vanilla-ice-cream it is. In this moment, you are euphoric.
chaostheory 1y ago
This just hammers the opinion that the GDPR was mainly just an EU economic protectionist policy and not actually about protecting privacy of citizens as promised.
- immibis 1y ago
  GDPR passed, Chat Control didn't (already rejected about 4-5 times but the evil people keep proposing it because re-proposing the same failed law has no cost). The chat control laws in the UK and USA also passed.
  - chaostheory 1y ago
    9 eyes supersedes the GDPR. 9 eyes has been active for years.
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago
I think the people behind this site did a really good job! Can we donate to them?
seydor 1y ago
Yup, that's where we should spend our energy
jlengrand 1y ago
*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. This alone tells me which way I should weigh in on this law. They know what they're doing.
- andrepd 1y ago
  The notoriously opaque EU institutions would sooner insist on reading your every message than actually be transparent themselves. This is beyond satire.
- arresin 1y ago
  Does it persist when they leave office?
renegat0x0 1y ago
How do you create an environment in which immoral actions become permissible? You legalize them.
random9749832 1y ago
When they locked everything down and forced you to wear masks they already told you who they are. They don't care about your freedom or you as an individual and your rights.
- account42 1y ago
  Spot on. They also showed how the constitution means nothing to them because once you win in court they already got what they wanted. What's more sad is that the general public has also responded that they are OK with this. Dissenters have become to be though of as a problem that needs to be corrected instead of as an indicator that what the government is doing is wrong.
- immibis 1y ago
  sorry, this is stupid. Preventing a pandemic (we failed to prevent a pandemic because large numbers of us deliberately chose not to prevent a pandemic) is not the same as the Nazis.
  - random9749832 1y ago
    Sorry but you are an idiot, no one brought up the Nazis except you. It is control in the name of safety one of which destroyed many businesses.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Those who would give up essential safety to obtain a little temporary liberty deserve neither.
trizuz 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
miroljub 1y ago
As much as we are fighting Chat Control, we also need a plan B. What do we do if EU regime really enact it? Which messengers could we use then? What were the practical alternatives? Self hosted, decentralized, encrypted, standard based, ... , the only thing that comes to mind is something like delta.chat for texts, which builds upon a standard mail protocol. Can we do something better than that?
- aprilfoo 1y ago
  Security is always a cat and mouse game, solutions already exist and more will come soon anyway. It's just technology after all. The problem now is not for the mice, it's a matter of defending basic human rights.
aprilfoo 1y ago
In short: everything and everyone is suspect and need to approved by technocratic superior authorities and zealot private organizations. Yesterday China, USA, Russia, UK, India etc and today the EU aligning with North Korean style of control on people. This is a mind boggling recipe for disaster, a worldwide dystopian nightmare coming true with an unprecedented but quite predictable series of consequences. Next step: compulsory installation of CCTV inside every home?
jenita25 1y ago
Haloo
jenita25 1y ago
I'm at least me what you
GatoMil 1y ago
PRIVACY IS A HUMAN RIGHT
bis8wb6dlwv6 1y ago
Sasa
oakhaven 1y ago
I sent the email and got response from Czech Pirate MEP: [..] The bad news is already circulating—the EU Council is now led by the Danes, who would like to push their position of unrestricted surveillance through among the other member states. Just a few months ago, however, a vote—only to reopen the discussion!—was supposed to take place, and most states blocked it. So the Danes may try to gain a majority, but we have no indication that the positions in the Council will change significantly. For now. The bad news, of course, is that as parliamentary elections take place in the coming years in the national states (for example in Czechia in a month), the positions of the states may change. [0] This needs to be noted, and if it starts to change to our disadvantage, sound the alarm with the new (czech) government. However, I also have some good news for you in general—for the next four years. :) Legislation in the EU is approved in such a way that the Parliament and the Council create a position, and then they must work together to reach a compromise. The current situation is blocked because there is no Council position. However, even if the Council were to finally approve a position and it were terrible, the Parliament's position is strongly against the proposal, and after discussions with other rapporteurs, I can assure you that nothing will change (only the KDU-CSL (a czech christian-democratic party) is causing problems ;)). So no "spying compromise" will pass through us. [end of translated citation] [0] There will be parliamentary elections in autumn 2025 in Czechia, and the populist parties are leading the polls, most notable Ano 2011 led by A. Babis (a mid-left party). I don't know what's their position on Chat Control, but I guess it will be whatever they estimate is going to gain them most votes in elections coming up next.

Fight Chat Control

1493 points by tokai 1y ago

righthand 1y ago

This is a list of countries not to visit with tourism money as a foreigner you’re no longer safe.

isoprophlex 1y ago

God fucking damn it not again This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?

ath3nd 1y ago
They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.
- mantas 1y ago
  The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick another figure head. And we can’t even get the names who want to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were redacted for their privacy :D
  - morkalork 1y ago
    When the people orchestrating something like this can hide behind a veil of anonymity as well as bestow exemptions from monitoring upon the political class, it looks deeply wrong and conspiracy worthy. :D indeed.
    - Geezus_42 1y ago
      The exemptions for politicians is straight out of 1984.
      - thfuran 1y ago
        They weren’t exempt in 1984.
        ElectroBuffoon 1y ago
        Upper class could completly turn off their telescreens, meaning they have partial exemptions at least. For middle class they were always on. Proles had no telescreen because they were considered to lack brains. Even the Party had levels, Inner and Outer, with different rules. 1984 would be incomplete without the hypocrisy of "rules for thee not for me".
  - croes 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
  - nickslaughter02 1y ago
    Context: https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/111499769526754966 https://digitalcourage.social/@echo_pbreyer/1114997695267549...
- ncr100 1y ago
  Yup. Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power. Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
- miroljub 1y ago
  > They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it. I wouldn't call login political career or being cancelled and voted out "real repercussions". They can pretty much retire and enjoy the rest of their lives with all the lobby money and EU rents. Real repercussion would mean prison time and losing their property, but we all know that won't happen anytime soon.
9dev 1y ago
They only need to succeed one time. People are generally preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this is their lucky shot…
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- zubspace 1y ago
  It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one time while the other side needs to succeed over and over again. What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    > What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules authorities, but it's usually limited to once per "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar legislation. It can easily be argued that passing something that failed to pass before, multiple times, should require supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where you can move that something "should not" be passed without a supermajority in the future. It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions. At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules with a supermajority.) I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure as I would like to, though.
    - Telemakhos 1y ago
      Is there no way to codify a negative right, like “The right of the European people to privacy in their communications and security in their records through encryption shall not be infringed?” Negative rights reserved to the people should be more important than positive laws granting power to the government.
mantas 1y ago
As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it later…
- uncircle 1y ago
  Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things. It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy. Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.
  - croes 1y ago
    People don’t want change. If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too. People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
    - mantas 1y ago
      People don’t want change, yet politicians are pushing sleazy changes left and right. Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change, wow.
      - croes 1y ago
        That are alibi changes because the real necessary changes are too unpopular
        mantas 1y ago
        Then don’t do any changes. Such BS changes are counter-productive and just a waste of resources.
idiotsecant 1y ago
The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware and will never go away. We exist constantly balanced on the razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else. Self-governing humans are not a stable system.
- swayvil 1y ago
  Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.
  - idiotsecant 1y ago
    Is it? Every human society has been an incredibly brief enterprise, on the scale of, for example, geologic time.
swayvil 1y ago
The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.
- ncr100 1y ago
  Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate. Watchlist? Easy. Mislead? Easy. We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
brikym 1y ago
What do they gain? The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. If there was a conspiracy like that would they be acting much differently?
- palata 1y ago
  > The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. Then you lack imagination :-). Let me give one example: "I am a fundamentally good guy, and I want to protect the people. If I was given access to all the communications of everybody, it would be easier for me to do my job and to improve the security for everybody". Of course, (as you know) this is flawed, be it just because you can't guarantee that a surveillance system will only ever be used by fundamentally good guys in the eyes of their people. Or said differently, if you create a backdoor for the good guys, you also create a backdoor for the bad guys. But it's easy to be well-intentioned and not understand that it's impossible to build cryptography only for the good guys. No need to invent a deep state when the simplest explanation is "the people who believe it are uninformed".

cobbzilla 1y ago

Is Europe sliding into feudalism? The impression is that the government/megacorp complex are the lords, everyone else should accept their place as a serf and do whatever they’re told.

croes 1y ago
Where is the difference to the US, China or the UK? Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against organized crime, terrorism, child abuse. But in the end it’s just used for the heavy crimes like copyright infringement
- cobbzilla 1y ago
  The US, at least, has a Bill of Rights that would make this illegal, it would definitely violate the 4th Amendment and maybe the 1st too.
  - Nifty3929 1y ago
    I hope you're right.
  - cobbzilla 1y ago
    That said, it’s not all roses in the US. There are many backdoors the government uses like issuing subpoenas to tech companies to get their data. Sometimes (like the notorious NSLs, National Security Letters) the order is secret and the company can’t even talk about it. This is also why the Snowden revelations were significant— arguably what the NSA is doing (mass, untargeted surveillance) is illegal, but so far (iirc) courts have said nobody has standing to challenge it. Various groups are still trying.
  - lawn 1y ago
    The administration and the people will just shrug and move on, like they've done with all the other crap they've shrugged at.
  - croes 1y ago
    The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that make that illegal. Still they try because there is always an exception that allows breaking those laws. Chat control isn’t something the EU invented, they tried to implement CSAM in Apple devices and the whole chat control thing in the EU was heavily lobbied by Thorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)

Disposal8433 1y ago

I'm French and every idiot supports it, even the so-called left. There is nothing I can do except donate money every month to GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/donate https://grapheneos.org/donate). Democracy is dead for me.

tatjam 1y ago
Looking at the supporting members, this appears to be supported by "both parties" across many many countries, what a sad thing to unite over...
dabber21 1y ago
what are the arguments?
- realusername 1y ago
  France is just very regressive when it comes to the internet, any laws which can make the situation worse is usually voted by all parties (see neighbouring rights or any anti-piracy laws), I don't think there's any real reasoning.
  - KennyBlanken 1y ago
    The country is predominantly Catholic. So both prudish views on sexual content, but also wanting to pretend sexual abuse by priests in their religion, and their religion protecting those priests, isn't the problem - nope, it's the interwebs creating child abusers. That is coupled with racist fear of terrorist attacks being committed by the African and middle eastern immigrant populations. Sure are a lot of white elephants in the room with you...
    - rdm_blackhole 1y ago
      As a French person, let me tell you you are wrong. French people mostly don't give a shit about religion and do not have any prudish views. We have many nudists beaches and women are regularly topless on the beach. Talking about sex if accepted in society and between friends and family. So it's not about that at all. What most French people are though is little children that need to be guided and protected by the state. Without the state they are lost. If you look at the news, the most recurring theme is: "why hasn't the government solved this problem for us poor souls? We are helpless, help us!" Therefore French people accept the state and all that it encompasses. They have little protests here and there and sometime they succeed in making the state back down but in the end the state usually wins. It's a form of learned helplessness and a very sad and toxic relationship between the French state and it's citizens.

Centigonal 1y ago

In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety. Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?

nosioptar 1y ago
I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its citizen. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at all waking hours.
ragmodel226 1y ago
This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted. It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its communications against government interference ever again. One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.
- protocolture 1y ago
  Australia already has this capability and is likely using it for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.
  - ragmodel226 1y ago
    Australia can’t get technical capability notices for anything that matters, maybe some local trash only. (Don’t use Australian software or products folks). American tech will tell them to pound sand, and you got another international incident in the media.

rdm_blackhole 1y ago

[flagged]

9dev 1y ago
No, that’s the worst conclusion to draw. The EU is the only hope we have if we don’t want to become a toy for the US and China. We need to save the EU from these people!
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
  They already see us as a toy. Even Russia can't take EU serious. We could have economic and military cooperation without this circus. It's not even actually democratic and veto powers of tiny countries like hungary have turned common foreign policy into a joke.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Wasn't Ireland threatened with not being allowed in (a hypothetical) EU 2.0 at some point, unless they backed down on some issue.
- gardenhedge 1y ago
  there's no 'saving' the EU imo. I would consider voting to exit if given the opportunity
  - 9dev 1y ago
    To what end though? What is your country’s opinion worth globally without the EU? It’s not that I like the current state of affairs, but the alternative is so much worse.
    - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
      If not being in the EU is so awful, you should tell the Swiss about it. They must have missed it. /s On a serious note, I think EU was a good idea but it has decayed a lot, especially after how the Greek crisis was handled and because of multiple legal design flaws. It needs a big restructuring, otherwise it will continue to decline and be used as a dumping ground for unpopular laws like Chat Control.

kratom_sandwich 1y ago

Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could support with a donation?

lostmsu 1y ago
Pick any decentralized IM project
- nickslaughter02 1y ago
  You cannot fight this with technology. What will you do when they make connecting to instant messager servers without scanning illegal? VPN? They are already going after VPNs. "VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge"" https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-services-may-soon-become-a-new-target-of-eu-lawmakers-after-being-deemed-a-key-challenge https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
  - lostmsu 1y ago
    You don't need to ask anyone to connect to a decentralized IM. This all the way till encryption is banned for personal use.
Nemo_bis 1y ago
EDRi. https://edri.org/about-us/victories/ https://edri.org/about-us/victories/
kratom_sandwich 1y ago
Kind of answering my own question, but in Germany there seem to be: https://freiheitsrechte.org/ https://freiheitsrechte.org/ https://chat-kontrolle.eu/ https://chat-kontrolle.eu/ Can anyone comment on the reputability of these initiatives?

pmlnr 1y ago

I don't remember the link to the essay that defined public, private, and secret information. Essentially it said that public is ok for anyone to hear, private is something that shouldn't concern others, whereas secret is something that needs to be kept under wraps. Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others. Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.) I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data. Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?

tough 1y ago
you cannot enforce law globally online there's no internet police
- pessimizer 1y ago
  You didn't even need the word "online." There's no global police.

futurecat 1y ago

Thank you for sharing.

101008 1y ago

I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't continue, it boiled my blood. > *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.

lordnacho 1y ago
Can't make this shit up. The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves. But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself? How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it would delegate that to service providers - the organizations managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the foundation for the signal app is ecc
- shark1 1y ago
  It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from stealing, for example. By doing it, you will not be a lawful citizen.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    You mean "an illegal?"
    - bombela 1y ago
      nah they meant unlawful. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/unlawful https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/unlawful

setnone 1y ago

Excellent resources section [0] including "Digital technologies as a means of repression and social control" study from European Parliament [0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources

lucideer 1y ago

A little context here since this website is highly misleading: - EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament - EU Council is pushing this regulation - this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown" Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.

beberlei 1y ago
Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works. If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.
x775 1y ago
Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.
- lucideer 1y ago
  To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
- 1y ago

croisillon 1y ago

nitpick but the number of MEPs is not the same in some countries (Slovakia, Spain and a few more) on the summary card and on the representative list

shark1 1y ago

It's impressive how governments never quit trying to implement this harmful idea.

palata 1y ago
Because people keep believing that there must be a technical solution that will improve security without causing harm. They are just uninformed, IMO. Just like governments pretty much don't do anything about climate change and the mass extinction that is currently happening, even though they may well end up killing most people on Earth. If they understood how bad it is, they would act. But they don't.

rendall 1y ago

The landing page really should have an open graph image! It would help with sharing and promotion.

dachris 1y ago

Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead down this road. British humour I guess.

vaylian 1y ago
The chat control bill also has age verification to identify child users.
- dan_can_code 1y ago
  I think the point was that the law is not in effect just yet.
nickslaughter02 1y ago
Can you imagine the UK having a vote in all of this? Terrifying.

mustaphah 1y ago

The EU: proudly defending human rights… unless you're trying to send a private message.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

midasz 1y ago

As disappointing as my national government (NL) has been and still is, at least our MEPs oppose this dragon of a proposal.

thesdev 1y ago

The individual MEPs' positions are wrong, it's not 1:1 with the national government's position as the website suggests.

alphazard 1y ago

So what is the real solution? Meaning the solution that an individual could use themselves, without further coordination, to insulate themselves from this policy. Is it an Android distribution? Jailbreaking? Custom builds?

betaby 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution probably a solution
- account42 1y ago
  A solution that laws like this will make very much harder to pull off if not impossible.
r33b33 1y ago
Solution is to move or cause resistance obv
_Algernon_ 1y ago
When (rational) people make decisions they weigh the possible rewards of success against the possible costs of failure. We are in a situation where the costs are virtually zero ("oh no, we have to try again in 6 months!") while the rewards are immense: the potential to consolidate even more power to the rich and powerful elite. It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again, and they only need to succeed once. Social movements of the past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an extent that they couldn't be ignored. Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and violence.
vaylian 1y ago
The real solution is to stop the law while it is still being negotiated.

nomilk 1y ago

Laws generally recognise the sanctity of privacy - for example, so much as looking at someone for too long can be deemed sexual assault in some jurisdictions - yet law makers wish to legislate they be able to view everyone's nudes (and much more)! Weird contradiction.

latexr 1y ago

We do need to take action, but be mindful the data as presented isn’t yet entirely accurate. Note the text on the website: > Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in. In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance. Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.

ncr100 1y ago
Make their job more servant to the public, and less profitable in the near and far term. Regulate the politicians.

ukprogrammer 1y ago

HN applauds this vibe-coded “privacy” site yet condemns decentralized messaging. States control what’s centralized; incentives ensure they keep doing so. Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat—it can’t hear you, and it’s built to tighten control. As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise. (Yes, I’m speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-crypto and pro-this seems big.)

drapado 1y ago
Genuely curious. What would the problem be if it was vibe-coded? It's an easy to read site that succeeds in communicating what it wants.
- ukprogrammer 1y ago
  there's no problem with it being vibe-coded The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect some kind of durable societal change Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of the above actions are just low-effort cope
  - Nemo_bis 1y ago
    Can you suggest an alternative action?
    - trallnag 1y ago
      Maybe accelerating is an option
    - ukprogrammer 1y ago
      Decentralised messaging providers Can't enforce everyone to scan What are you going to do? Arrest everyone?
      - jack1243star 1y ago

rossant 1y ago

Sometimes, very bad things are done in the name of "child protection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

gddgb 1y ago

[dead]

throwaway89201 1y ago

Please also fight mandatory age verification with prison sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely missed by news organizations and even interest groups. The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year." It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading. [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-0116_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...

BiteCode_dev 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please don't berate other community members on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. HN is for curious conversation, not battle. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines in future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
MrDrMcCoy 1y ago
Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for how nonsensical a law can be?
- throwaway89201 1y ago
  Member states will implement this into national law. So in the case they will need to implement a maximum of one year or more (but not less). The final law as applied by a judge will just read "punishable by a maximum of [i.e.] fourteen months".

ncr100 1y ago

WTFF. Fight !! Why is this Thought Policing tolerated? Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement? Gestapo much, anyone?

isaacremuant 1y ago
> Why is this Thought Policing tolerated? Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing authoritarian policies. Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists, anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we have to protect kids, or fight racism... It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any of this.
- account42 1y ago
  [flagged]
- graemep 1y ago
  Yes, very few people want free speech for their opponents. They want free speech for what they agree with, or at least think tolerable. The principle of free speech as a right everyone has, has been lost.
- immibis 1y ago
  Should I be allowed to go on national news and present irrefutable evidence (AI-generated of course) that the president is a lizard person? By default, I should, because it's a free country. But what if enough people start believing me that the country falls apart? Should the country let itself fall apart or should it perhaps try to stop the whole thing?
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    By default, you should be allowed to say that the president is a lizard person, and show your "irrefutable evidence". On national news? Only if you can persuade a national news show that they should (or unless you own a national network). But if you don't own them, they're not going to show your "proof" (except perhaps as comedy), because they have a reputation they need to maintain. And if you own them, they're still not going to, because they'd lose reputation (and therefore market share), and they'd get sued for slander and lose. That leaves you showing your "proof" to whoever you can persuade to listen, without going on national news. I'm not sure I see the problem with that.

isaacremuant 1y ago

Sure. Fight it. And also Remember this moment next time you're calling people conspiracy theorists because your party politician or mainstream news says so. Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms. It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the worst. Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the greater good.

andrewinardeer 1y ago

Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Signal chat messages to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner? Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner? Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this encryption?

ivanjermakov 1y ago
Making it illegal to use "non-compliant" e2ee services and prosecuting those who does. Realistically, they couldn't, but could ban such apps in EU stores, making them less popular. They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat client for every user.
danielheath 1y ago
They can fine apple and google for offering signal in their app stores, until nobody has it installed. That doesn’t break your comms today - but later, you replace your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?
- layer8 1y ago
  Not quite. It would be illegal for Signal to continue operating in the EU if they don’t implement the required scanning functionality. And Signal has already stated that they’d rather leave the EU.
  - account42 1y ago
    If the one western nation passes this then it's only a matter of time until the other ones do to. At that point Signal "leaving" means they may as well stop doing business. Companies like to say they won't bend the knee if it gets them support now but in the end they always do.
    - danielheath 1y ago
      I wouldn't believe a for-profit company claiming it'd stand firm. Signal is a 501c3 nonprofit. There isn't capital to lose

mettamage 1y ago

So as a Dutchie that opposes this, is there still something for me to do? The Netherlands opposes this, so... should I sway them to oppose it even more? Not really sure what my role should be.

layer8 1y ago
See https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo under “Is your government opposing?”.
- mettamage 1y ago
  > Is your government opposing? → Great, but take a closer look at the reasoning: Some governments like Germany e.g. only object to the scanning of encrypted communications, but are fine with the indiscriminate scanning of other private and public communication, with the end of anonymous communication by requiring age verification, or with introducing a minimum age for “risky” communication apps. Also critical governments need to do more, exert their influence in the Council of the EU and agree on a joint list of necessary fundamental changes to the proposal. Absent such revision they should ask the European Commission to withdraw the chat control proposal as it stands. Just putted it here, for easier reading.

x775 1y ago

Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation. As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website. I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government. I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP. In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns. [0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bodies/law-enforcement-working-party/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bo... [1] https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-kritisieren-daenischen-vorschlag-zur-chatkontrolle/#2025-07-15_St%C3%A4V_RAGS_CSA-VO https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-... [2] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ [3] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-enforcement-wp-lewp-police-(358097)/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-e... [4] https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname_11492795.pdf https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname...

josh2600 1y ago

This is actually one of the major fights of our generation. If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right. IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society. In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who. Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.

msgodel 1y ago
It sounds to me like the Europeans need to have an actual fight (that is with bullets and artillery) with this weird EU pseudo government thing. It sounds like a loss for them to me.
- miroljub 1y ago
  Many Europeans just wait for the Russia to come and save us from the totalitarian regimes once again.
  - kvgr 1y ago
    There is no alternative is there. Russia bad for obvious reasons. EU rules getting more and more tight. Lets see what happens with digital euro and forced investing in EU markets. Eu is ruled by gerontocrats and detached leftists. The extreme right is not solution. Most of EU MPs from small countries are literal nobodies, just bench warmers.
    - miroljub 1y ago
      Russia is bad as is. Currently, clearly worse than EU. But the problem is, the state of human rights and freedoms in the EU is deteriorating so fast, I'm not sure if it would still be better than Russia in ten years. And in 20 years, China may be the freedom benchmark for the EU.

hazek112 1y ago

The EU continues to become a hilariously Soviet nanny state. Beautiful land and country, but they're destroying their cultures with the third world and seem to just not care about the rights of their citizens.

tomgag 1y ago

I'm Italian. On my side, I did what I could do: I emailed Italian politicians explaining why they should reject the proposal. A drop in the ocean, and far from impactful, but if it can change the odds even by an epsilon, why not? https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol Big politics is not my thing, so for me the big effort was: 1) understanding who, among the zillions of politicians we have, could have a direct role in the decisional process and how; 2) searching and collecting the email addresses; and 3) funnily enough, picking the right honorifics (for example, I was not aware that "Onorevole" is reserved only to certain figures in Italian politics). I shared the resulting effort on my website, in the hope of making life easier for fellow Italians who want to do the same.

amarino 1y ago
Thank you for sharing this, it saved me quite some time and I coincidentally found a great resource (your blog).

colleenthom7 1y ago

Test

phendrenad2 1y ago

The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform. That might be fine in a world where every country is on-board, but now that the internet exists, countries with anonymous free speech will come out ahead. Here's a darker thought: The pre-internet US and UK had a crime problem. Crime was spiking through the 1980s and 1990s. People were disaffected, jaded, they felt that the halls of power were captured by corruption and their voice didn't matter. This is the environment that gave us the original Robocop movie, a hyper-violent celebration of the commoner over both criminals and corrupt government institutions. The internet economy revitalized the western world and helped us pull out of the crime doom spiral. Without that miracle, we were probably on track for ruthless Duterte-style governments, if not something worse like fascism. Anyway, I predict that the EU will stop short of actually passing this into law. They're not stupid, and they just want "good boy points" for trying (not from the voters, of course, but people with real political power).

SchemaLoad 1y ago
Crime was spiking in those decades because everyone was getting pumped full of lead. Not because they didn't have anonymous reddit.
wraptile 1y ago
> The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. This would just end anonymity for normal people. All of the bots and bad actors will have no problem with comitting a crime because they are literally criminals.
marcus_holmes 1y ago
I think they'll pass it into law, and then find it's effectively unenforceable, same as all the other similar laws (the UK is busy discovering that age verification laws promote VPN use that circumvent all enforceability of any UK internet laws). The authoritarian mindset that thinks that making something illegal will stop people from doing it, doesn't really grok how that just doesn't work.

wizardforhire 1y ago

I just had this great idea reading this proposed law and the comments and concerns there of… here me out Lets just put everybody in the world in prison except for the people with net worths over some unattainable threshold… perhaps a hundred thousand dollars. Then we’ll just make everyone work for and take all of it for ourselves. That way we cam destroy their cultures and the genetic lineages and we can just kill all the people we dont like dont agree with especially if theyre skin color is one we dont agree with. The world will be a better place because the clearly superior people will be on top. We can breed the rest of humans and just eat them. We’ll call them eloi and we’ll be the morlocks.

renewiltord 1y ago

Man am I glad I live in America. Despite everything, it's still the land of the free and the home of the brave. The federal system here means that the majority of weird shit happens at the state level.

_Algernon_ 1y ago
The country that had prosecution of political opponents during the Red Scare and patriot act is better? The US is the country that started all this privacy invading BS and is still way ahead on that front. After all Chat Control hasn't actually passed yet.
nickslaughter02 1y ago
The company lobbying for the proposal is a US surveillance company called Thorn. They have correctly identified that the EU is weak and you can just say "children" and politicians will agree to anything however. Even if it doesn't achieve anything. https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
account42 1y ago
I salute you sir, a true PATRIOT. Your PRISMatic view of the world truly knows no bounds.
immibis 1y ago
The more they have to tell you that you're free, and the more they make want to tell other people that you're free, the less free you actually are.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  Oh yeah definitely. And the more they tell you something is vanilla ice cream, the more non-vanilla-ice-cream it is. In this moment, you are euphoric.

chaostheory 1y ago

This just hammers the opinion that the GDPR was mainly just an EU economic protectionist policy and not actually about protecting privacy of citizens as promised.

immibis 1y ago
GDPR passed, Chat Control didn't (already rejected about 4-5 times but the evil people keep proposing it because re-proposing the same failed law has no cost). The chat control laws in the UK and USA also passed.
- chaostheory 1y ago
  9 eyes supersedes the GDPR. 9 eyes has been active for years.

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1y ago

I think the people behind this site did a really good job! Can we donate to them?

seydor 1y ago

Yup, that's where we should spend our energy

jlengrand 1y ago

*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. This alone tells me which way I should weigh in on this law. They know what they're doing.

andrepd 1y ago
The notoriously opaque EU institutions would sooner insist on reading your every message than actually be transparent themselves. This is beyond satire.
arresin 1y ago
Does it persist when they leave office?

renegat0x0 1y ago

How do you create an environment in which immoral actions become permissible? You legalize them.

random9749832 1y ago

When they locked everything down and forced you to wear masks they already told you who they are. They don't care about your freedom or you as an individual and your rights.

account42 1y ago
Spot on. They also showed how the constitution means nothing to them because once you win in court they already got what they wanted. What's more sad is that the general public has also responded that they are OK with this. Dissenters have become to be though of as a problem that needs to be corrected instead of as an indicator that what the government is doing is wrong.
immibis 1y ago
sorry, this is stupid. Preventing a pandemic (we failed to prevent a pandemic because large numbers of us deliberately chose not to prevent a pandemic) is not the same as the Nazis.
- random9749832 1y ago
  Sorry but you are an idiot, no one brought up the Nazis except you. It is control in the name of safety one of which destroyed many businesses.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Those who would give up essential safety to obtain a little temporary liberty deserve neither.

trizuz 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

miroljub 1y ago

As much as we are fighting Chat Control, we also need a plan B. What do we do if EU regime really enact it? Which messengers could we use then? What were the practical alternatives? Self hosted, decentralized, encrypted, standard based, ... , the only thing that comes to mind is something like delta.chat for texts, which builds upon a standard mail protocol. Can we do something better than that?

aprilfoo 1y ago
Security is always a cat and mouse game, solutions already exist and more will come soon anyway. It's just technology after all. The problem now is not for the mice, it's a matter of defending basic human rights.

aprilfoo 1y ago

In short: everything and everyone is suspect and need to approved by technocratic superior authorities and zealot private organizations. Yesterday China, USA, Russia, UK, India etc and today the EU aligning with North Korean style of control on people. This is a mind boggling recipe for disaster, a worldwide dystopian nightmare coming true with an unprecedented but quite predictable series of consequences. Next step: compulsory installation of CCTV inside every home?

jenita25 1y ago

Haloo

jenita25 1y ago

I'm at least me what you

GatoMil 1y ago

PRIVACY IS A HUMAN RIGHT

bis8wb6dlwv6 1y ago

Sasa

oakhaven 1y ago

I sent the email and got response from Czech Pirate MEP: [..] The bad news is already circulating—the EU Council is now led by the Danes, who would like to push their position of unrestricted surveillance through among the other member states. Just a few months ago, however, a vote—only to reopen the discussion!—was supposed to take place, and most states blocked it. So the Danes may try to gain a majority, but we have no indication that the positions in the Council will change significantly. For now. The bad news, of course, is that as parliamentary elections take place in the coming years in the national states (for example in Czechia in a month), the positions of the states may change. [0] This needs to be noted, and if it starts to change to our disadvantage, sound the alarm with the new (czech) government. However, I also have some good news for you in general—for the next four years. :) Legislation in the EU is approved in such a way that the Parliament and the Council create a position, and then they must work together to reach a compromise. The current situation is blocked because there is no Council position. However, even if the Council were to finally approve a position and it were terrible, the Parliament's position is strongly against the proposal, and after discussions with other rapporteurs, I can assure you that nothing will change (only the KDU-CSL (a czech christian-democratic party) is causing problems ;)). So no "spying compromise" will pass through us. [end of translated citation] [0] There will be parliamentary elections in autumn 2025 in Czechia, and the populist parties are leading the polls, most notable Ano 2011 led by A. Babis (a mid-left party). I don't know what's their position on Chat Control, but I guess it will be whatever they estimate is going to gain them most votes in elections coming up next.