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The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken. In fact, a huge reason that the EU is looking to move away from U.S

The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken. In fact, a huge reason that the EU is looking to move away from U.S. commercial providers is that they can’t guarantee they won’t be giving the U.S. govt information about EU users even if they setup completely independent EU based entities. The reason why it might appear that the EU is more heavy handed is because the EU is actually passing limited tailored laws, publicly, that explicitly state the limitations of those laws. The US govt, on the other hand, has already passed broad blanket laws that allow them to get any data from any U.S. corporate entity with the flimsiest of warrants which those entities are not even legally allowed to publicly reveal. The U.S. govt doesn’t need to pass any surveillance laws because they already essentially have unlimited power over the data being collected by US corporations.

TylerLives 10mo ago
What about censorship?
- akie 10mo ago
  What the US media (and Elon Musk) call EU censorship is actually a request to follow EU rules if they want to operate in the EU market. What, exactly, is controversial about that?
  - leishman 10mo ago
    What’s controversial is that EU rules force censorship.
    - twixfel 10mo ago
      It's not that controversial, every single country has limits on speech, including the US. So European countries control a little bit more than the US, largely when it comes to racial abuse and other hate speech. So? The American model when combined with social media and the internet appears to have disastrous outcomes, judging by who has been elected there. It clearly worked in the past, but not any more. Americans supposedly being outraged at other free, democratic countries (often in reality both more free and democratic than the US) having different laws regarding speech is really just a smoke screen for what they really want: for their social media companies and billionaires to completely control our media, so that we end up just as fucked up and insane as they are. In the end if we allow Americans to poison our countries, we will lose our freedoms and democracies. Why would we allow that? What do you expect? P.S. it's cringe to cry about lack of free speech in Europe as if we've changed. We never, ever had 100% free speech in Europe. Stop trying to hark back to some free speech utopia that literally never existed. This is the continent that up until 110 years ago was overwhelmingly ruled by kings and queens and indeed we are in many ways far more conservative than you are. Get over it and stop trying to turn us into you.
      - mapt 10mo ago
        Not at all. I would just like the early American project of liberal democracy and Constitutional rights to outlive American capitalism and American militarism, even if it means it survives it in some other country. Because it's looking pretty bleak over here.
        twixfel 10mo ago
        We ought to avoid repeating your mistakes, no? Maybe unlimited campaign donations and so on, all this wonderful "American free speech (money = speech)" is a fundamentally bad idea. Worked exceedingly well for ~225 years, now it has lead to the implosion of the empire by electing a sociopathic retard to the presidency. Yes to free speech, no to whatever fucked up shit the US, its billionaire "libertarians" and Christian nationalists are pushing for us to adopt here in Europe. If the likes of JD Vance are pushing for us to adopt his idea of free speech, you can be sure it's a bad idea.
        mapt 10mo ago
        The American political system didn't implode until its system of capitalism had the conditions necessary to escape its popular control. That wasn't necessarily an eventuality. We had a semi-functional campaign finance system in living memory. Without the protections the Americans tried to shove into the First Amendment (which did not include anything about corporations at the time, as they did not exist) being enshrined into law, I worry that your issues with capital-government overreach will arise even faster than ours.
        worik 10mo ago
        The USAnian system imploded dreadfully in 1861 It came very close in the 1930s, it is arguable that the New Deal headed off revolution The USA should have been considered a pariah state since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, now it is rapidly becoming one The USAnian system has been a corrupt oligarchy with only trappings of democracy since it's inception. Those "trappings" run deep, but are not allowed to unseat the true source of power: money The Founding Fathers [sic] gave that a lot of thought and worked very hard to make it that way from the very beginning
    - throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
      Ask Alex Jones about his free speech on Sandy Hook to understand how bad (EU) censorship really is! Jokes aside. Restriction of freedoms, including speech, is not bad by definition, it's the scale and intention behind it that matters but this aspect is always missing, kind of censored, in public debate. You may downvote me now :-) Edit: In the same sense, Alon does not cry about specific and obviously unjustified cases of EU censorship on X.
  - petcat 10mo ago
    Is this suggesting that China also does not require strict censorship / "follow the rules"?
    - clijsters 10mo ago
      Are you aware that china is not in EU?
      - petcat 10mo ago
        "just following the rules" is the same argument made to justify censorship in China as it is in the EU.
        acdha 10mo ago
        Yes? It’s not exactly a surprise that you are expected to follow the laws where you do business. This doesn’t mean those laws are inherently good or bad, that’s a judgement which requires analysis to make and businesses quite reasonably might choose not to stay in a market based on that decision as Google did with China.
        eloisant 10mo ago
        The EU rules that X was asked to comply to were not about censorship. There are plenty of articles released at that time that explain why.
  - miroljub 10mo ago
    That's the definition of censorship.
    - Attrecomet 10mo ago
      Of course not. It's only censorship if the rules are censoring rules. Just because a billionaire right wing extremist cries "cEnSoRsHiP" everytime people who criticise him aren't imprisoned doesn't mean it is.
      - miroljub 10mo ago
        ?
great69 10mo ago
I just assume it doesn’t matter where you live or who you are- anyone can have your data. It’s not admitting defeat. It’s just being safe and sane. To the point of the post though, please note that saying the internet is American (it’s not, it’s global) or publically giving up on the U.S. because of POTUS, three letter agencies, attitudes, etc. is not helping you win the many Americans over that may join you in some cause.
- patcon 10mo ago
  I don't mean this flippantly, but it's an odd framing you present. As in, when you yourself comment on the internet, do you think about winning Somalis to your cause? I just mean... the point of marginalising reliance on USA and USA companies is that others don't need to care about winning American citizens to any cause they pursue, because American infrastructure has minimal [or no] power over their lives. As in, your response comes from the old world ppl are trying to leave behind, no?
- u_sama 10mo ago
  My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case, and all efforts must be made to increase self-reliance and disentanglement from the US. Both parties of the US disrregard european interests. An argument can be made the Internet is actually Chinese because the atoms your bit relies on are mostly produced in China or Taiwan.
  - m3nat33 10mo ago
    > My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case So you are an enemy of someone because of where they were born?
    - Ygg2 10mo ago
      No, you become enemy if someone unlawfully, and uni-laterally annexes a part of your territory. For example see Ukraine.
    - ted_bunny 10mo ago
gradus_ad 10mo ago
Regulate (censor) =/= surveil
- Gormo 10mo ago
  Surveil ⊂ regulate.
throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
... and the reason why the US doesnt pass strong federal privacy laws is, the tech oligarchy has stronger lobbies or political ties in the US. It could be the other way around, if the US had a weaker tech sector and was leaking wealth/data to the EU, they could be protectionist. This is the common denominator. I disagree with your angle, that the EU is more corpo-sceptical, they are the same, just different lobbies.
Quothling 10mo ago
> The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken. Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.
- Fnoord 10mo ago
  If my choice is an American company which does tracking, and a European company which does tracking, then I as European prefer the European one. Because they can be held accountable in a court of law. In Russia or China, that isn't the case. And it doesn't seem like it remains the case in USA. SCOTUS, for example, has been a political instrument for a long, long time.
  - miroljub 10mo ago
    As an European I'd be rather tracked by an American (out Chinese, Russian, ...) company than by an EU or European regimes. Those companies are less likely to imprison or censor me than the regime who rules over Europe.
    - notrealyme123 10mo ago
      Yes, no imprisonment or censorship happening in the us.
      - hmry 10mo ago
        That's really not the point they were making. You are much more likely to be repressed/harrassed/arrested by your local government than a foreign government. So a local government knowing your behavior is more likely to lead to bad consequences than a foreign government knowing. Of course, that might change in the future. Hypothetical example, the US government bans you from using any US cloud services because of what you did in private. Though that's not exactly exclusive to governments either, Google banning you from GMail and Google Docs because of your YouTube uploads is already a thing.
      - g8oz 10mo ago
seec 9mo ago
The reason is money and control. That's it. Believing otherwise is foolish. They don't really give a shit about privacy or whatever is the supposed agenda of the day. It's about not paying as much to the US and being able to control the infrastruscture. I trust EU govs less than I trust US companies. At least I know that for the companies it's just about making more money and there isn't that many downsides for me outside of having to pay one way or another. EU govs are fundamentally destructive, so whatever they end up doing you can be sure it will terrible for everyone but themselves.

TylerLives 10mo ago

What about censorship?

akie 10mo ago
What the US media (and Elon Musk) call EU censorship is actually a request to follow EU rules if they want to operate in the EU market. What, exactly, is controversial about that?
- leishman 10mo ago
  What’s controversial is that EU rules force censorship.
  - twixfel 10mo ago
    It's not that controversial, every single country has limits on speech, including the US. So European countries control a little bit more than the US, largely when it comes to racial abuse and other hate speech. So? The American model when combined with social media and the internet appears to have disastrous outcomes, judging by who has been elected there. It clearly worked in the past, but not any more. Americans supposedly being outraged at other free, democratic countries (often in reality both more free and democratic than the US) having different laws regarding speech is really just a smoke screen for what they really want: for their social media companies and billionaires to completely control our media, so that we end up just as fucked up and insane as they are. In the end if we allow Americans to poison our countries, we will lose our freedoms and democracies. Why would we allow that? What do you expect? P.S. it's cringe to cry about lack of free speech in Europe as if we've changed. We never, ever had 100% free speech in Europe. Stop trying to hark back to some free speech utopia that literally never existed. This is the continent that up until 110 years ago was overwhelmingly ruled by kings and queens and indeed we are in many ways far more conservative than you are. Get over it and stop trying to turn us into you.
    - mapt 10mo ago
      Not at all. I would just like the early American project of liberal democracy and Constitutional rights to outlive American capitalism and American militarism, even if it means it survives it in some other country. Because it's looking pretty bleak over here.
      - twixfel 10mo ago
        We ought to avoid repeating your mistakes, no? Maybe unlimited campaign donations and so on, all this wonderful "American free speech (money = speech)" is a fundamentally bad idea. Worked exceedingly well for ~225 years, now it has lead to the implosion of the empire by electing a sociopathic retard to the presidency. Yes to free speech, no to whatever fucked up shit the US, its billionaire "libertarians" and Christian nationalists are pushing for us to adopt here in Europe. If the likes of JD Vance are pushing for us to adopt his idea of free speech, you can be sure it's a bad idea.
        mapt 10mo ago
        The American political system didn't implode until its system of capitalism had the conditions necessary to escape its popular control. That wasn't necessarily an eventuality. We had a semi-functional campaign finance system in living memory. Without the protections the Americans tried to shove into the First Amendment (which did not include anything about corporations at the time, as they did not exist) being enshrined into law, I worry that your issues with capital-government overreach will arise even faster than ours.
        worik 10mo ago
        The USAnian system imploded dreadfully in 1861 It came very close in the 1930s, it is arguable that the New Deal headed off revolution The USA should have been considered a pariah state since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, now it is rapidly becoming one The USAnian system has been a corrupt oligarchy with only trappings of democracy since it's inception. Those "trappings" run deep, but are not allowed to unseat the true source of power: money The Founding Fathers [sic] gave that a lot of thought and worked very hard to make it that way from the very beginning
  - throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
    Ask Alex Jones about his free speech on Sandy Hook to understand how bad (EU) censorship really is! Jokes aside. Restriction of freedoms, including speech, is not bad by definition, it's the scale and intention behind it that matters but this aspect is always missing, kind of censored, in public debate. You may downvote me now :-) Edit: In the same sense, Alon does not cry about specific and obviously unjustified cases of EU censorship on X.
- petcat 10mo ago
  Is this suggesting that China also does not require strict censorship / "follow the rules"?
  - clijsters 10mo ago
    Are you aware that china is not in EU?
    - petcat 10mo ago
      "just following the rules" is the same argument made to justify censorship in China as it is in the EU.
      - acdha 10mo ago
        Yes? It’s not exactly a surprise that you are expected to follow the laws where you do business. This doesn’t mean those laws are inherently good or bad, that’s a judgement which requires analysis to make and businesses quite reasonably might choose not to stay in a market based on that decision as Google did with China.
      - eloisant 10mo ago
        The EU rules that X was asked to comply to were not about censorship. There are plenty of articles released at that time that explain why.
- miroljub 10mo ago
  That's the definition of censorship.
  - Attrecomet 10mo ago
    Of course not. It's only censorship if the rules are censoring rules. Just because a billionaire right wing extremist cries "cEnSoRsHiP" everytime people who criticise him aren't imprisoned doesn't mean it is.
    - miroljub 10mo ago
      ?

great69 10mo ago

I just assume it doesn’t matter where you live or who you are- anyone can have your data. It’s not admitting defeat. It’s just being safe and sane. To the point of the post though, please note that saying the internet is American (it’s not, it’s global) or publically giving up on the U.S. because of POTUS, three letter agencies, attitudes, etc. is not helping you win the many Americans over that may join you in some cause.

patcon 10mo ago
I don't mean this flippantly, but it's an odd framing you present. As in, when you yourself comment on the internet, do you think about winning Somalis to your cause? I just mean... the point of marginalising reliance on USA and USA companies is that others don't need to care about winning American citizens to any cause they pursue, because American infrastructure has minimal [or no] power over their lives. As in, your response comes from the old world ppl are trying to leave behind, no?
u_sama 10mo ago
My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case, and all efforts must be made to increase self-reliance and disentanglement from the US. Both parties of the US disrregard european interests. An argument can be made the Internet is actually Chinese because the atoms your bit relies on are mostly produced in China or Taiwan.
- m3nat33 10mo ago
  > My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case So you are an enemy of someone because of where they were born?
  - Ygg2 10mo ago
    No, you become enemy if someone unlawfully, and uni-laterally annexes a part of your territory. For example see Ukraine.
  - ted_bunny 10mo ago

gradus_ad 10mo ago

Regulate (censor) =/= surveil

Gormo 10mo ago
Surveil ⊂ regulate.

throwawayqqq11 10mo ago

... and the reason why the US doesnt pass strong federal privacy laws is, the tech oligarchy has stronger lobbies or political ties in the US. It could be the other way around, if the US had a weaker tech sector and was leaking wealth/data to the EU, they could be protectionist. This is the common denominator. I disagree with your angle, that the EU is more corpo-sceptical, they are the same, just different lobbies.

Quothling 10mo ago

> The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken. Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.

Fnoord 10mo ago
If my choice is an American company which does tracking, and a European company which does tracking, then I as European prefer the European one. Because they can be held accountable in a court of law. In Russia or China, that isn't the case. And it doesn't seem like it remains the case in USA. SCOTUS, for example, has been a political instrument for a long, long time.
- miroljub 10mo ago
  As an European I'd be rather tracked by an American (out Chinese, Russian, ...) company than by an EU or European regimes. Those companies are less likely to imprison or censor me than the regime who rules over Europe.
  - notrealyme123 10mo ago
    Yes, no imprisonment or censorship happening in the us.
    - hmry 10mo ago
      That's really not the point they were making. You are much more likely to be repressed/harrassed/arrested by your local government than a foreign government. So a local government knowing your behavior is more likely to lead to bad consequences than a foreign government knowing. Of course, that might change in the future. Hypothetical example, the US government bans you from using any US cloud services because of what you did in private. Though that's not exactly exclusive to governments either, Google banning you from GMail and Google Docs because of your YouTube uploads is already a thing.
    - g8oz 10mo ago

seec 9mo ago

The reason is money and control. That's it. Believing otherwise is foolish. They don't really give a shit about privacy or whatever is the supposed agenda of the day. It's about not paying as much to the US and being able to control the infrastruscture. I trust EU govs less than I trust US companies. At least I know that for the companies it's just about making more money and there isn't that many downsides for me outside of having to pay one way or another. EU govs are fundamentally destructive, so whatever they end up doing you can be sure it will terrible for everyone but themselves.