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Yeah, you're right. It's totally fair to compare how the EU treats its people to how Iran is treating its people right now. Good job. :-/

ajsnigrutin 9mo ago
I live in EU and I oppose internet cenorship, privacy invasion and many other bad things the governments have been doing for years now. I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there, neither does anyone else commenting here it seems... but many of us do live in EU, and are bothered by EU doing the same thing as iran, even if it's on a smaller scale (for now). You can't support censorship at home and then act outraged when someone else just implements more of it... even though some do, as long as the censored things are the things they personally don't like. To be fair, i'm more worried about UK, since it's a "test ground" to see how things work before the bad thing are implemented elsewhere, but either way, in my small country we have a saying, that "people should first sweep infront of their own doorways", and yeah, EU and our censorship is my doorway in this case. TLDR: if we're bothered by internet censorship, we should first stop at 'at home'.
- Flatterer3544 9mo ago
  If not for EU there would already be multiple states with privacy invasive systems seen in UK.. We are close of getting there and they keep on trying, but so far the blocking states are enough as majority. Sure EU has some fkn horrible sides to it, such as the anonymous vote to get big stuff through when a majority should be enough as democracy depicts, but currently 2 states out of all EU states can block the big decisions...
- ericmay 9mo ago
  > I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there You also don’t live in the United States, or in Israel or Palestine but folks tend to forget that it seems. But you can do something anyway which is to be aware of the atrocities committed by Iran’s regime, make sure your government is aware of your opinion, you can protest outside the Iranian embassy in your country, help Iranian dissidents, help Iranians find sneaky ways to get internet access, &c. I’m not expecting anyone to do those things but I find this “I don’t live there” argument continue to creep up whenever it comes to Iran but it never enters conversation when it comes to specific other countries. > TLDR: if we're bothered by internet censorship, we should first stop at 'at home'. Sure but you don’t have to focus on one issue at a time. Honestly resorting Internet access in Iran is probably more important than whatever rules and things the EU is implementing because in Iran people are actually dying and you can always change the EU rules back through democratic processes.
  - ajsnigrutin 9mo ago
    But what can you do for iran? I mean... we can type text on forums and sites like this, that no one in iran can see... and in the meantime, EU will push for another chat control, some new "think of the children" thing will happen, suddenly the "show your real-identity ID to watch at porn" will turn into "show your ID to register on reddit". On the other hand, there are many people from EU here who need to hear it, that EU is doing the same as iran... censoring websites and more (IDs, chat control,...). Yes, maybe not at the same level, less sites are censored here, but censorship is still censorship, and the trend is going towards more control and more censorship. United states, israel (and palestine), etc. are different. Are we bothered by what israel is doing in palestine? Yes! (some of us). Can we actually do something about it? Sure... the germans can tell their government to stop selling weapons to israel [0], we can implement sanctions, tarrifs, etc. This is something that we can do "at home", something that can make some change. We did that for russia, we did that for iran, north korea etc (at various times and various levels), but we did something. We didn't really do that (at least not at scale) for isreal. US is doing that to us (EU) with tarrifs every two weeks, but we didn't really properly respond, even under the threat of an invasion on greenland. Yes, restricted internet in iran is bad, but we can't stop it. Sadly, changing back EU rules is similarly hard to do, which again, is something that should be fixed, by us, at home. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/war-in-gaza-germany-supplies-30-of-israels-arms-imports/a-69717540 https://www.dw.com/en/war-in-gaza-germany-supplies-30-of-isr...
    - ericmay 9mo ago
      > I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there (Just a reminder that the above is what I responded to) > But what can you do for iran? You can encourage your governments to take action against Iran as well. Further sanctions, diplomatic pressure, providing support to the Iranian people, &c. In my case as an American I am encouraging my government to take the toughest action possible to stop Iran. Much of the blood of dead Palestinians can be placed at their feet too since they arm and support Hezbollah and Hamas who are doing what they can to keep killing people and keep the conflict active. Just because you personally don't know what can be done doesn't mean something can't be done, and at a minimum you can encourage your government to continue to do the things it's already doing. You don't have to know what can be done, you can leave that up to others while demanding that the Iranian regime halt its indiscriminate mass murder of Iranian civilians before they make the number of people killed in Gaza look like a warmup. Not living in Iran doesn't mean you (an EU citizen I presume) can't do anything about the actions of that regime. It's simply not a valid argument.
breppp 9mo ago
it's a very weird kind of propaganda I see a lot of lately. Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic. Doubt it? be showered with cherry picked micro facts that on the surface are similar. This rests on the fact that in order to establish a big picture you have to take small facts and agree on the big picture, and that leap from small and verifiable to large and analytic is the place you can inject faith and emotion
- Nursie 9mo ago
  This seems to happen a lot. The UK is doing some shitty stuff and a man was arrested for wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt a few weeks ago, “Palestine Action” being a proscribed group in the UK, and showing support being an offence. When the mistake was realised he was released after a few hours with an apology. These things are objectively terrible, shouldn’t be happening. The UK government is under popular and legal pressure to un-proscribe the group as hundreds (thousands?) have been arrested and charged. But it is not the same as someone being ‘disappeared’ in South American dictatorships, where they would be taken and denied process for years if not killed outright. Yet people here drew that comparison. He was arrested for inconvenient speech! It’s the same! And then I came under fire for defending the actions of the UK, having done nothing of the sort. It’s really weird to watch.
  - roenxi 9mo ago
    The people complaining probably live in the UK or are related to it somehow. Then it would make sense that they are more worried about authoritarianism in the UK rather than in South America. And even if the man was wearing a proper "Palestine Action" shirt that'd still be pretty concerning. It is an insane stretch to say that wearing a shirt represents a matter for police action. How far the world has moved on from when the UK could be considered a forward-thinking bastion of liberalism.
    - Nursie 9mo ago
      The people complaining were American AFAICT and weren’t worried by either, they were just drawing hyperbolic equivalences between suppression of speech and state orchestrated mass kidnapping and murder.

ajsnigrutin 9mo ago

I live in EU and I oppose internet cenorship, privacy invasion and many other bad things the governments have been doing for years now. I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there, neither does anyone else commenting here it seems... but many of us do live in EU, and are bothered by EU doing the same thing as iran, even if it's on a smaller scale (for now). You can't support censorship at home and then act outraged when someone else just implements more of it... even though some do, as long as the censored things are the things they personally don't like. To be fair, i'm more worried about UK, since it's a "test ground" to see how things work before the bad thing are implemented elsewhere, but either way, in my small country we have a saying, that "people should first sweep infront of their own doorways", and yeah, EU and our censorship is my doorway in this case. TLDR: if we're bothered by internet censorship, we should first stop at 'at home'.

Flatterer3544 9mo ago
If not for EU there would already be multiple states with privacy invasive systems seen in UK.. We are close of getting there and they keep on trying, but so far the blocking states are enough as majority. Sure EU has some fkn horrible sides to it, such as the anonymous vote to get big stuff through when a majority should be enough as democracy depicts, but currently 2 states out of all EU states can block the big decisions...
ericmay 9mo ago
> I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there You also don’t live in the United States, or in Israel or Palestine but folks tend to forget that it seems. But you can do something anyway which is to be aware of the atrocities committed by Iran’s regime, make sure your government is aware of your opinion, you can protest outside the Iranian embassy in your country, help Iranian dissidents, help Iranians find sneaky ways to get internet access, &c. I’m not expecting anyone to do those things but I find this “I don’t live there” argument continue to creep up whenever it comes to Iran but it never enters conversation when it comes to specific other countries. > TLDR: if we're bothered by internet censorship, we should first stop at 'at home'. Sure but you don’t have to focus on one issue at a time. Honestly resorting Internet access in Iran is probably more important than whatever rules and things the EU is implementing because in Iran people are actually dying and you can always change the EU rules back through democratic processes.
- ajsnigrutin 9mo ago
  But what can you do for iran? I mean... we can type text on forums and sites like this, that no one in iran can see... and in the meantime, EU will push for another chat control, some new "think of the children" thing will happen, suddenly the "show your real-identity ID to watch at porn" will turn into "show your ID to register on reddit". On the other hand, there are many people from EU here who need to hear it, that EU is doing the same as iran... censoring websites and more (IDs, chat control,...). Yes, maybe not at the same level, less sites are censored here, but censorship is still censorship, and the trend is going towards more control and more censorship. United states, israel (and palestine), etc. are different. Are we bothered by what israel is doing in palestine? Yes! (some of us). Can we actually do something about it? Sure... the germans can tell their government to stop selling weapons to israel [0], we can implement sanctions, tarrifs, etc. This is something that we can do "at home", something that can make some change. We did that for russia, we did that for iran, north korea etc (at various times and various levels), but we did something. We didn't really do that (at least not at scale) for isreal. US is doing that to us (EU) with tarrifs every two weeks, but we didn't really properly respond, even under the threat of an invasion on greenland. Yes, restricted internet in iran is bad, but we can't stop it. Sadly, changing back EU rules is similarly hard to do, which again, is something that should be fixed, by us, at home. [0] https://www.dw.com/en/war-in-gaza-germany-supplies-30-of-israels-arms-imports/a-69717540 https://www.dw.com/en/war-in-gaza-germany-supplies-30-of-isr...
  - ericmay 9mo ago
    > I can't do anything about iran, i don't live there (Just a reminder that the above is what I responded to) > But what can you do for iran? You can encourage your governments to take action against Iran as well. Further sanctions, diplomatic pressure, providing support to the Iranian people, &c. In my case as an American I am encouraging my government to take the toughest action possible to stop Iran. Much of the blood of dead Palestinians can be placed at their feet too since they arm and support Hezbollah and Hamas who are doing what they can to keep killing people and keep the conflict active. Just because you personally don't know what can be done doesn't mean something can't be done, and at a minimum you can encourage your government to continue to do the things it's already doing. You don't have to know what can be done, you can leave that up to others while demanding that the Iranian regime halt its indiscriminate mass murder of Iranian civilians before they make the number of people killed in Gaza look like a warmup. Not living in Iran doesn't mean you (an EU citizen I presume) can't do anything about the actions of that regime. It's simply not a valid argument.

breppp 9mo ago

it's a very weird kind of propaganda I see a lot of lately. Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic. Doubt it? be showered with cherry picked micro facts that on the surface are similar. This rests on the fact that in order to establish a big picture you have to take small facts and agree on the big picture, and that leap from small and verifiable to large and analytic is the place you can inject faith and emotion

Nursie 9mo ago
This seems to happen a lot. The UK is doing some shitty stuff and a man was arrested for wearing a “Plasticine Action” t-shirt a few weeks ago, “Palestine Action” being a proscribed group in the UK, and showing support being an offence. When the mistake was realised he was released after a few hours with an apology. These things are objectively terrible, shouldn’t be happening. The UK government is under popular and legal pressure to un-proscribe the group as hundreds (thousands?) have been arrested and charged. But it is not the same as someone being ‘disappeared’ in South American dictatorships, where they would be taken and denied process for years if not killed outright. Yet people here drew that comparison. He was arrested for inconvenient speech! It’s the same! And then I came under fire for defending the actions of the UK, having done nothing of the sort. It’s really weird to watch.
- roenxi 9mo ago
  The people complaining probably live in the UK or are related to it somehow. Then it would make sense that they are more worried about authoritarianism in the UK rather than in South America. And even if the man was wearing a proper "Palestine Action" shirt that'd still be pretty concerning. It is an insane stretch to say that wearing a shirt represents a matter for police action. How far the world has moved on from when the UK could be considered a forward-thinking bastion of liberalism.
  - Nursie 9mo ago
    The people complaining were American AFAICT and weren’t worried by either, they were just drawing hyperbolic equivalences between suppression of speech and state orchestrated mass kidnapping and murder.