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Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
- iamnothere 3mo agoFrom a post on Mastodon: > democracy is when you repeatedly push for unpopular laws until they pass, and the more times you do it the more democratic it is It is unlikely that 60 additional “no” votes can be found by Thursday to stop this.
- soco 3mo agoSo basically the people we elected will vote yes. How's that undemocratic? Because the majority doesn't vote the way I like it? I'm not even ironic, I truly don't understand those comments. You get what you voted for, garbage in garbage out.
- iamnothere 3mo agoAll votes have a certain margin or fluctuation, as individual representatives can be pressured, swayed, or coerced by any number of means. If a vote fails over and over again then eventually passes under dubious circumstances (start of vacation when attention is elsewhere), that seems to be against the spirit of democratic rule. At least to me, but what do I know? Maybe everyone loves this outcome and all the prior rejections were just a fluke.
- poly2it 3mo agoThe vast majority (72%) of European citizens are opposed to Chat control. Regardless, the proposal has been brought up and rejected relentlessly, mostly by action of politicians (commissioners) who are not directly elected to begin with. We have more than enough reasons to be furious. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/poll-72-of-citizens-oppose-eu-plans-to-search-all-private-messages-for-allegedly-illegal-material-and-report-to-the-police/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/poll-72-of-citizens-oppose-...
- delusional 3mo agoDid you read the question of that survey? Talk about poisoning the well.
- Gander5739 3mo agohttps://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks https://youtu.be/ahgjEjJkZks
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoWhat you have to understand about issue polling is that it's very easy to get whatever results you want if you simply instruct the pollster to ask in absurd ways. This was the question posed to respondents: > EUR02a. Some politicians are calling for the automatic searching of all personal electronic mail and messages of each citizen for presumed suspect content in the search for child pornography. Suspected cases will be notified to the police. An advantage of this could be that more offenders are caught. However, according to police reports, in the vast majority of cases innocent citizens come under suspicion of having committed an offence due to unreliable processes. Please place yourself in the position that your personal electronic mail and messages are searched for suspect content. What is your opinion? Obviously this is not a good faith attempt to understand if people support message scanning.
- iamnothere 3mo agoSince you don’t consider that “good faith” I have rephrased it for you, in a format you may prefer: > EUR02a. In the interest of protecting children, some politicians are calling for the automatic searching of all personal electronic mail and messages of each EU subject in the search for dangerous, illegal child pornography. Suspected cases will be notified to the police. An advantage of this could be that more offenders are caught and children protected. According to activists who defend child pornographers, police reports indicate that a few innocent people may be mildly inconvenienced due to unreliable processes. Please place yourself in the position of a law enforcement official trying to catch these evil people, who is currently obstructed due to false questions of “rights” and “privacy.” What is your opinion? I jest, of course, I’m sure you would prefer something more straightforward and less manipulative like “EUR02a. Do you support child pornography?”
- echelon 3mo agoThey keep voting on surveillance state measures that the oligarchy wants that will limit the freedom of the people. They keep voting and voting and voting until the energy of the people to protest diminishes or they find a way to get it in. There needs to be a counter-balance where politicians can be removed or even punished by the people for proposing unpopular bills.
- throwaway27448 3mo ago> How's that undemocratic? Because they're not representing the needs of their constituents? Democracy is more than just voting—and if it wasn't, most states we think of as authoritarian would also be democratic.
- arjie 3mo agoWell, you can imagine a bunch of scenarios that match the "try repeatedly until it succeeds". One good case: The original rule was good but had specifics that made it unpopular. Retrying repeatedly is a pathway to refining it into the minimal valuable version that is acceptable to all. One bad case: The original rule is terrible and progress was stopped only because of public outrage. The assumption of the public is that a groundswell of opposition will cause a fundamental rethinking. However, because such outrage cannot last, repeated attempts will cause fatigue in the public opinion and resignation to pass anything. If the situation is closer to the front it's "democratic". If it's closer to the back it's "not democratic". One represents a refinement to match the will of the people; the other relies on our human inability to focus tremendous energies continuously on a broad front. Both match a representative democracy repeatedly tabling (haha) a bill.
- boobsbr 3mo agoI didn't vote for the person that was elected. Where's my representation?
- ryandrake 3mo agoThey only have to win once. You have to win every time.
- charcircuit 3mo agoTo repeal it you only need to win once too.
- debugnik 3mo agoNot quite, the EU parliament can't propose new laws nor repeal existing ones, only amend them and vote on proposals from the commission. The Stop Killing Games campaign, for example, has noticed that the EU commission keeps repeating lobbyist lies and has no expectations of new laws actually passing, so they're focusing on amending existing law through parliament.
- inigyou 3mo agoThe repeal would have to be proposed by the same people who proposed the law in the first place. The European Parliament can't initiate the process on its own.
- dyauspitr 3mo agoI want them to win. The internet is stupid right now. A culture eating its own tail.
- goolz 3mo agoPray tell, how would stepping closer to a dystopian hellscape help the internet from eating itself? Somehow, having omnipotent watchers is going to make the internet... more fun and welcoming?
- pizzaman1 3mo agoI think he means that maybe it‘s for the best if „the internet“ in its current state dies, i.e. people move on from the current platforms towards other ones or real life.
- belowavgiq 3mo ago"The procedure now chosen gives the proponents of Chat Control a significant tactical advantage. Since the law is in its second reading, an absolute majority of 361 votes of all parliament members is required for amendments or a renewed rejection on Thursday. In contrast, a simple majority of the MEPs present is sufficient for the other side. As many parliamentarians have historically already departed by the last day before the summer break, the re-enactment of the regulation is considered almost unavoidable." So, if I'm reading this correctly, Chat Control is bound to become law? and this is after I think 2/3 rejections, how democratic of the EU. Oh, and parliamentarians starting their summer break whenever they want will never not be funny.
- skeptic_ai 3mo ago[flagged]
- khurs 3mo agoOne of reasons the the EU exists is so domestic prime ministers can deflect blame and say "not me, it was them over there in the EU parliament and my hands are tied"
- wongarsu 3mo agoThat's the British approach In Germany it's usually the other way around: the EU tries to force us to do objectively good things, while national and regional governments drag their feet implementing EU law or complying with regulations. We regularly have headlines about how we might have to pay fines to the EU, and every time it's for something where the EU seems clearly on the morally right side And all that despite our government's best efforts to send their worst politicians to represent us in the EU. Describing von der Leyen as a disgraced politician who just failed upwards would not be entirely inaccurate
- khurs 3mo ago"In Germany it's usually the other way around:" Germany is one of most wealthy, powerful and biggest contributors to the EU budget. They can't be bullied round easily. "We regularly have headlines about how we might have to pay fines to the EU" The state controls the media... a lot of headlines are orchestrated. But it is done so well, unless you know, you don't know... Where Germany doesn't agree, it has sway. Where Germany and France don't agree, it is unlikely, and where Germany, France and Italy don't agree it's not going to happen as some countries matter more than others.
- miroljub 3mo ago[flagged]
- iamnothere 3mo agoIt’s a good time to download the source code for software that allows locally encrypted messaging, particularly without central infrastructure. Delta Chat works with any email server and has a rich feature set, Bitchat is also good to have on hand. And of course the old standby GPG, flawed as it may be. Also NNCP (https://nncp.mirrors.quux.org/ https://nncp.mirrors.quux.org/) in case sneakernet solutions are ever needed.
- patrakov 3mo agoI am not a lawyer, but, as a Russian citizen, let me warn you. The very fact that your comment criticizing the EU regime, that you yourself admit could send you to jail, is online and not deleted by Thursday, makes it a "lasting crime". For lasting crimes, it does not matter that the regulation criminalizing the action or state of affairs was not in force when they started. What matters is that the condition defined as illegal (comment existing) is true when the regulation outlawing it is in force - i.e., that you did not cease and desist. Yes, this is a creative way authorities circumvent the ban on ex post facto laws - they say "it is not ex post facto". Commented on Tuesday, deleted the comment on Wednesday, the regulation is enacted on Thursday => OK. Commented on Tuesday, did not delete before Thursday => jail (and it does not matter that you can't delete it anymore because it has a reply). Sarcasm of course, as Russian laws do not apply here.
- 73738384 3mo agoGotta love the downvotes. At least we have free healthcare folks (for now lol).
- lostmsu 3mo agoYou can't have access to the free healthcare until you get a mandatory calming vaccine.
- raverbashing 3mo ago
- artisinal 3mo ago[flagged]
- harrisoned 3mo agoEven if you are not in the EU, this will affect you. Some countries really like to copy such regulations from others. Once services starts complying, other governments will go like "if you did for them, you can do it for us, right? so it's not technically impossible", and things only get worse from there. Not all services will simply block the EU as well, which would be better to send a stronger message if approved. I really fear where this is headed.
- pr337h4m 3mo agoCentralized messaging services won't last long, their capture is sadly inevitable. In the long run, only self-hosted/decentralized protocols can resist what's coming. In the meantime though, Signal specifically should not do something stupid like blocking the EU, which is basically surrender. They are a non-profit headquartered in the US, so there are zero business risks to non-compliance - nothing in the EU to fine or seize. And the EU has no jurisdiction over servers in the US, all they can do is build their own Great Firewall. (However, they might pressure AWS to deplatform Signal - hopefully the team is prepared for the possibility that self-hosting will be necessary soon.)
- earth-tattoo 3mo agoIf I was signal CEO I would have self hosted years ago! There's many reasons for signal to be not on AWS.
- harrisoned 3mo ago> Centralized messaging services won't last long, their capture is sadly inevitable. In the long run, only self-hosted/decentralized protocols can resist what's coming. Very much. I also fear they coming for this, we already have instances of where using secure alternatives tags you as a criminal[0], so i don't doubt a future where non-approved applications will get you in trouble. With everything happening around Android locking itself down[1] and Windows being a spyware[2] anybody who wants privacy will be 'different', and can be tagged and excluded from parts of society for not using the same services. [0]: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1940440326830989549 https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1940440326830989549 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48801059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48801059 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815196
- nekusar 3mo agoThe cypherpunks were right. Rights to encryption are only a part of what we need. The other part is steganography, or hiding real messages within a innocuous anodyne message stream. And encryption can be used in conjunction as part of hiding said messages. It can be within pictures with the lowest bit values. It can be constructed punctuation and spaces. Lots of things. But hidden and plausibly deniable messaging is the ONLY way to defeat a government(s) that want to invade every communication aspect for humans.
- nullorempty 3mo agoThat's an excellent take. Unfortunately, verified devices will close that loophole.
- osigurdson 3mo agoWhat I don't understand is, what kind of legitimate criminal would not use such techniques? Are bank robbers planning things out on iMessage? If so, presumably they won't be criminals for very long. Therefore these types of initiatives only impact the innocent and inept but still active criminals.
- iamnothere 3mo agoThe purpose of these efforts is not to catch criminals, at least not primarily, it’s to map the spread of “dangerous” ideas and the networks behind them. In other words, to prevent effective political change. Found a new problematic meme? Someone leaked a video of you taking a bribe? Someone published a photo of damage from a missile strike? Add it to the database of forbidden media and quickly track down the source.
- cucumber3732842 3mo agoThey'll make sure to catch just enough criminals that when you say it's all bullshit some snooty waste of oxygen on HN can say "well akshually" and link you to some cherry picked news story that makes it all look like a good thing because they caught some small time house painter dumping waste paint in the sewer or nabbed someone for selling vapes to teenagers.
- hlieberman 3mo agoIs this Chat Control 1.0 or Chat Control 2.0?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- MaKey 3mo agoThis is about Chat Control 1.0 (voluntary scanning).
- storus 3mo agoFirst they tried to approve software patents during an agriculture and fisheries council session, now they are bending procedural rules to hack it in before summer vacations. Some weird form of democracy™.
- iamsaitam 3mo agoThe real joke is that these MEPs leave for summer break like they are school children and their attendance doesn't matter to the whole.
- cynicalsecurity 3mo agoLocal governments are likely to block the initiative. We need a Polish based messenger that won't bend to chat control fascist initiatives.
- DocTomoe 3mo agoNothing is brought to the Commission that local governments do not secretly want, but publically rage against because the voters are against it. When Brussles then decides, 'there's nothing we can do, it's an EU thing' ... and a moustache-twirl. The only thing that can stop this is to completely dismantle the EU. Which means, unfortunately, voting for people any good person should rightfully despise.
- cynicalsecurity 3mo agoDismantling the EU is like burning down your own house to get rid of flies. That is absolutely not the right solution. Without the EU, chat control would already have been implemented in its worst form everywhere, just as it already is in the UK. The UK left the EU and implemented its own version of chat control.
- DocTomoe 3mo agoThe UK is a silly place[1] and has been pretty Orwellian for a long time. It is not a sensible idea to extrapolate their approach to a post-eu situation in the current member states. As for burning down the house ... as it apparently seems to be the only legal route to stop the flies, alas, I'm willing to pay that price. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Npo0cmp-VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Npo0cmp-VY
- aquir 3mo agoHopefully this could be the first good thing about Brexit...this might not get implemented in the UK or there will be a delay!
- graemep 3mo ago> Hopefully this could be the first good thing about Brexit Was having lots of people's lives saved by a much faster vaccine rollout not a good thing?
- miroljub 3mo ago[flagged]
- MyMemoryfails 3mo agoUK already technically banned encryption, causing Apple to remove the encrypted cloud service for UK customers. Check UK's "Investigatory Powers Act (IPA)"
- Havoc 3mo agoThe way the uk is legislating online stuff lately I’m expecting UK version to be worse than EU
- rollulus 3mo ago“We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back.” And “If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'.” - Jean-Claude Juncker
- raverbashing 3mo agoAnd the worse part is: they do that because the alternative means you're building a railway on a surface tunnel because some people don't like it (or worse, not building anything)
- usrnm 3mo agoMost infrastructure in Europe predates the EU by quite a bit
- raverbashing 3mo agoI'm taking about HS2
- big85 3mo agoThe Wikipedia entry on Chat Control doesn't go into enough detail on what exactly it does, only the history of its legislative process. Can someone update it?
- miroljub 3mo agoJust assume the worst: all your private messages would be read and shared between all governments and corporations in the world.
- big85 3mo agoNo, I want to know specifically.
- miroljub 3mo agoThe answer is already specific, but not complete.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoYou're looking for an answer that doesn't exist. The term "Chat Control" was coined by the opponents of these proposals to express their worst case assumptions; they reject the idea that the specifics matter, because they fear that any kind of chat scanning can be abused in basically the same ways. Supporters of chat scanning proposals don't call them "Chat Control" or view all such proposals as part of a unified whole.
- gmueckl 3mo agoAs I understand it, chat platforms provider will not be held in violation of the data privacy laws if they add automatic detection and reporting of unlawful content to their platforms. E.G. a CSAM detector in a client app for an end-to-end-encrypted messaging service would be lawful.
- philjohn 3mo agoChat Control 1.0 is essentially the existing derogation that allowed cloud providers and messaging apps to do what they do in the rest of the world - voluntarily scan shared media against NCMEC hashes and novel CSAM image classifiers. We're not talking about E2EE here, we're talking people sharing CSAM on Kik, or Snapchat, or sending it via gmail, or uploading it to DropBox etc. etc.
- tadasZ 3mo agoi'm so tired of this bs, these elected people act as tsars, even when said NO they try again and again while employing shady tactics and there is no way of punishing these a*holes. Elections exist, but when same 35% (number taken out of butt, but point is - it's low) of people vote we get same sht who elects same sht to EU. And i don't know about other countries, but my country sends complete degenerates to EU, like litteraly degenerates.
- miroljub 3mo ago> ... these elected people act as tsars, ... They are not elected. Even the EU is illegal, since joining the EU was rejected by people of many European countries, but that was ignored. They just do what they want and do thorough media coverage. In rare cases that doesn't work, people just dissapear.
- tadasZ 3mo agoi'm so tired of this bs, these elected people act as tsars, even when said NO they try again and again while employing shady tactics and there is no way of punishing these a**holes. Elections exist, but when same 35% (number taken out of butt, but point is - it's low) of people vote we get same sh*t who elects same sh*t to EU. And i don't know about other countries, but my country sends complete degenerates to EU, like litteraly degenerates.
- varispeed 3mo agoEffect of law enforcement not doing their jobs. Chat Control is illegal in many countries including Germany and that includes preparation for the roll out. Just need a prosecutor with a spine.
- musha68k 3mo agoThis is the anti-EU move but they simply don't understand that. Authoritarian centralization efforts need to be fought Huang style - with an European twist - as we might be behind on a lot of axis but we "Didn't Wake Up a Loser". China / US leadership must not be the carte-blanche to formalize whatever low bar in how we handle our own privacy; going straight for the "self own" I guess? Sorry for prompt mode but I hope this is at least somewhat legible to fellow Europeans, if not please listen to antirez in original Italian or auto translated: https://youtu.be/cmYiWsFn3GM https://youtu.be/cmYiWsFn3GM I hear quite a few tangents in there; the main one being: especially in EU we need to go "agentic". Don't wait for politics to do The Right Thing. They should play retrospective backup at best. I'm thinking they might be actually thankful for having been provided vision / imagination. Team up with the bureaucrats after the fact but don't listen to them too much - again - to Do The Right Thing. Especially when they are potentially infected by lobbyists... FFS I hate this timeline; we really need to show up for real. Again and again and again and again...
- gmueckl 3mo agoHuang style? What does this mean?
- musha68k 3mo agoMaybe a "lousy analogy" but here you go ;) https://youtube.com/shorts/u3SY8nvjhQA https://youtube.com/shorts/u3SY8nvjhQA Don't give up on core tenets basically; the EU is a (comparatively) great place to live because it's a free place. We can't have multitudes, be "antifragile" etc through centralization and surveillance. Even if we were to believe this to be a winning move, it's not how this European project was envisioned and we won't ever be able to truly "compete" at that game. In these times hence we IMO should be doubling down on the core tenets; freedom being chief amongst them. Akin to how Huang in that interview alludes to globalization and how it made him / USA a winner.
- zuzululu 3mo agoTalked to a fellow European coworker recently and they seem very supportive of chat control and that it was necessary to stop "far right nationalism" and then I pressed on for them describe what it is and they got angry and refused to clarify. I think this is a good snapshot of where Europe is right now that chat controls have become politically weaponized and people who are supportive of it seem clueless as to what it actually is proposing. Future looks very dim for EU as a whole, I'm glad I left it for America
- RamblingCTO 3mo agoyou're right, the US is totally freedom and stuff. no problemo that you gotta show your social media accounts when entering, so you can get checked for alignment with the regime. no problem at all. both suck atm, that's the truth
- asxndu 3mo agoWhy are we so passive to the promotion of such scams? I keep telling people about such things and I am looked at as nerdy, geeky or boring. But this stupid reaction finally explains to me why human life for ordinary people will always largely be a life of suffering.
- cindyllm 3mo ago[dead]
- kingleopold 3mo agoaverage people never have skin in the game too. They barely understand a lot of the things that make things possible
- dsign 3mo ago> I keep telling people about such things and I am looked at as nerdy, geeky or boring. Hm, yeah, we have our work cut out for ourselves. Politicians can't do nerdy nor geeky, but it's their job to talk in a way that moves people. That's why we keep electing absolute idiots that can't even speak that well, all things considered, but who can "charm", for a given definition of charm of course. To be heard we need to remain nerdy and geeky at our core, but talk in a way that moves people. In this concrete instance, what I do when somebody brings Chat Control to the conversation and other listeners start to roll eyes, is to derail the conversation with colorful yarns about how we did surveillance in the old days of the Soviet Union, and what we did with anybody who was rattled for giving a foul mouth to the Party. "Yes, we didn't have Siberia, but the heat and the savage ants in those sugar cane plantations were damn fine, and honestly you don't need any particular geography for a good old beating... Catching them dissidents was the hard thing, but it all would be so much easier these days... Hey, have you noticed how you talk about one thing and Facebook start popping ads about it almost at once? Does it listen to all our diatribes? I'm pretty sure that's the stuff Chat Control wants..."
- 0dayz 3mo agoYou have to dumb it down and make it more oriented around some kind of nefarious long game.
- Krasnol 3mo agoI'm always astonished how democratic politicians willingly allow for tools which might be misused by a future undemocratic party. I'm not a politician or some civil rights activist but I can see that. It's right there. We have a similar situation in Germany these days. We'll be giving more rights to the Federal Intelligence Service ( foreign intelligence) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (domestic intelligence). Basically allowing them to act more offensive (or offensive at all). We're one or two elections away from having fascists in the government again. Is it already a conspiracy theory if I suspect them of doing that deliberately because I can't imagine them being stupid?
- 2847372828273 3mo ago[flagged]
- sunshine-o 3mo agoSo now that this is done the first thing we need is a list of platform covered and potentially covered by Chat Control. It is still unclear to me if Proton Mail, Tuta, SimpleX servers, Signal, etc. fall under this or might. Do they even have to officially declare if they are complying?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- yreg 3mo agoI was curious to see how the MEPs voted, you can check it here. https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195338 https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195338 For once I'm pleasantly surprised that everyone I voted for was against.
- mosselman 3mo agoThis is so cryptic that I wouldn't even know if for or against would mean for or against 'chat control'
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoI genuinely mean no disrespect here, but if the title reads as cryptic, your sources haven't been fully informing you about the issue. "Derogation from certain provisions of the ePrivacy Directive" is just what Chat Control (or at least Chat Control 1.0) means.
- yreg 3mo ago"For" means that the MEP voted for extension of Chat Control 1.0 "Against" means that the MEP voted against the extension of Chat Control 1.0
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- sfdlkj3jk342a 3mo agoPart of me wants Chat Control to get passed so that there is more incentive for at least the tech literate to start using more decentralized messaging tools.
- Cider9986 3mo agoThey won't. But afaik Chat Control 1.0 was/is in effect but expired. It's not relevant to Signal or Whatsapp because they're e2ee, it's relevant for eBay, Linkedin, perhaps SMS.
- biglost 3mo agoI might be wrong, but i read it as the application reads the message before any encrytion actually happens
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dineshmendhe 3mo ago[flagged]
- cherryteastain 3mo agoReminder that EU institutions were designed from ground up to smother democracy: - Members of EU Parliament cannot propose regulation, only the unelected Commission can, MEPs can only vote yes/no - EU Parliament is the only parliament in the world where an absolute 50%+1 is needed to reject a bill, ignoring how many MEPs are present/voting. In every other parliament, a quorum requirement plus a majority vote is needed to pass a bill.
- gmueckl 3mo agoThis is all fixable by changing the treaties. The first step to fixing it, however, is to give up fundamental opposition to its existence and instead support the underlying ideals and approach the shortcomings from a constructive angle. The alternative is feeding nationalistic right wing extremism, which we really don't want in Europe.
- StrLght 3mo agoThis is a false dichotomy. There's way more options on this spectrum than 2 extremes.
- xyzsparetimexyz 3mo agoIf we're gonna be undemocratic, can we at least also get have bullet trains and expanded social programs?
- dgellow 3mo agoI wish… instead in Germany we are getting Merz disdain and mandatory doctor approval for sick days…
- jmward01 3mo agoAll new laws should be given a trial period where the lawmakers are forced to live with them for 90 days before the public is subjected to them. At any time during that period lawmakers can change their vote.
- mosselman 3mo agoThis is an incredibly good idea. 90 days is too short to feel the effects of some things though. Better make it a year. The downside is "lets try giving everyone basic income of $100k/week". But apart from that great!
- layer8 3mo agoThe other downside is that even good laws would not pass, because it would mean for MEPs having to constantly identify themselves as such.
- dgellow 3mo agoIn addition there should be pretty specific criteria to determine if the law is successful or not. After 90 days it can be evaluated, and either rolled back or extended
- sucrosesucrose 3mo agoNo one will do anything to stop it, nor ChatControl 2.0 in the future. No one will revolt, or seize the government in response to anything that happens. The world that Liberal Democracy has built has escape valves (tv/streaming/videogames/entertainment, the illusion of democratic choice, mass media and information overload, public demonstrations) for the anger of the massed which despite in older times caused a government to fall or a revolution to start, today cause nothing and are comfortably absorbed or even assimilated for profit by the system itself.
- lukan 3mo agoIn your doomed reality maybe, but in this reality it was already stopped a couple of times and chances are good, that it will be stopped again - unless people believe all is doomed.
- iamnothere 3mo agoIf this is true, then the system will eventually collapse upon itself, as its governance feedback loops have been broken. No defeat is permanent.
- brikym 3mo agoExactly. And don't forget complaining on the internet. But algorithms will ensure few will see it.
- Cider9986 3mo agoIs anyone working on a "No chat control at all, ever law"? If these can be defeated, presumably one of those could become law.
- theragra 3mo agoThis happened in Switzerland with cash.
- layer8 3mo agoA “no ever” law requires a constitutional majority. And for this concrete case, some member states effectively already have that via privacy guarantees in their constitution. Finally, it’s important to realize that the power of laws is limited to the extent that people are able and willing to enforce them. Some dictatorships have wonderful things in their constitution that are not heeded at all.
- pcrh 3mo agoI would have thought that the right to privacy as a fundamental human right would have been sufficient. But apparently not.... Equally, there is abundant precedent for forbidding interference with old-fashioned postal communications, that seemingly doesn't translate to electronic communications...
- shevy-java 3mo agoLobbyists running the show. It's kind of a copy/paste of the US system.
- himata4113 3mo agoThe more people become criminals the harder it becomes to enforce the law. This is especially ironic because criminals that genuinely matter and cause wide-scale harm won't even be impacted by this.
- dgellow 3mo agoYeah. That’s really the dumbest part. Criminal will be using systems that don’t follow EU rules
- himata4113 3mo agoI think this all came from trying to enforce rules on people that shit talk on the internet which is especially pointless now cause you may be trying to enforce law on a random AI agent.
- sensanaty 3mo agoHilarious that the politicians, the very people who are pretty much always ousted as some form of degenerate pedophile the world over, are the ones pushing for this bullshit and explicitly carving out enclaves where their messages don't get scanned. Absolute fucking joke
- Zufriedenheit 3mo agoIt is really worrisome to me that such a procedure is even possible. I don't understand all the EU voting rules, they are so complex that it feels to me like if they want to push something through there is always some way to do it even though the vast majority of people don't want it.
- golem14 3mo agoHeinrich Heine, 1848 (Vormai) penned this: "Memories from Krähwinkels days of terror" (my translation - the original is of course leages better) We, Burgomaster and Senate, Are hereby proclaiming this mandate, With great paternal care addressed To all classes, east and west. 'Tis mostly nasty foreign folk, Who brashly dared to wildly stoke Rebellion. Such sinners, let us pray to God, Are seldom born upon our sod. There too are atheists, you will find; Those who leave their God behind, Who, in the end, will be as prone To defy our own earthly throne. Obeying authority is the key For Jew and Christian, bond and free. Let everyone close up their shop When twilight falls, head home chop chop. If three are gathered in the street, They must disperse with flying feet. And after dark, upon the lane, No lightless soul shall walk again. All weapons must promptly be surrendered To the Guildhall, to be tendered; And every sort of ammunition Is subject to the same condition. Who argues in the street shall face A firing squad in an open place; Arguing with gestures also must, Be punished harshly, as is just. Put your trust in the Magistrate, Who guards the pious, loving state Through gracious rule, most wise and kind; Your duty: simply to not mind. It's sad to see we pretty much have forgotten the history leading to this poem and how we are reverting so much as a society.
- einpoklum 3mo ago> Meta, Google or Microsoft ... to voluntarily search private chats, emails, and messenger services for material related to [excuse] Look, there are no private chats on any platform or app provided by Meta, Google or Microsoft. They are known to send a copy of everything at least to the US government (the Snowden revelation). So, what's it to them to also do searches on behalf of European authorities? Plus, what do you mean, you don't want to? Are you for the pedophiles? Maybe you're a pedophile yourself! Search his chat logs, tout de suite! We must really get the people around us to stop using WhatsApp, Teams, GMail, and all of that junk. There are excellent alternatives - we are only a laziness' reach away from actual half-decent privacy.
- advisedwang 3mo agoSo many comments about the EU constantly re-trying the same law with minor tweaks, and about how legislatures do this in general. I wanted to provide an explanation for this behaviour. The way legislation is expected to proceed in countries with parliamentary systems, especially with strong civil services, is that 1) a problem is identified. This can be the civil service detecting it on their own, petitioning from groups impacted by the problem (lobbying, the public etc). 2) The government prioritizes problems to solve according to political imperatives. 3) The civil service and/or parliamentary committees gather evidence on the problem and possible solutions. 4) the civil service and/or committee report on the issue. In practice this always finds the solution that the government wanted. 5) A bill is drafted based on the report. 6) The bill then proceeds through parliamentary committee, legislative votes, and whatever else is part of the lawmaking process. When we see this issues fail, it's typically at step (6). But the problem still exists, and the issue is still on the agenda. It's still a priority to solve. So steps 4-6 are re-tried with different parameters that hopefully allow the bill to pass and the problem to be solved. Just failing to pass parliament is not enough. You also need the political leadership to redirect their prioritization and implicit preferred solution. I'm not saying this is good, just this is what happens.
- gillesjacobs 3mo agoExcept the only need Chat control is fulfilling is the governments and bureaucrats need to control and check all civilian communications.
- mr_toad 3mo agoStep 6 is entirely missing in the EU. The parliament doesn’t form a committee to debate and perhaps refine the law, it just votes on what is put before it.
- advisedwang 3mo agoWhich makes this effect even strong, because the civil service and it's internal priorities are long lasting and don't change with elections.
- 3mo ago
- moomoo11 3mo agoLife in EU seems like a mother-in-law simulator. Like cool you get leftovers you can warm up (never something fresh, innovative), but then you also have to deal with the drama and cringe.
- lenerdenator 3mo agoSo, private companies can't track you, but the people with the state's monopoly on violence can? This is how everything seems to go with the EU. Great idea followed by something objectionable.
- coldtea 3mo agoCombine with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48823557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48823557 Orwell
- luciana1u 3mo ago[flagged]
- someguyornotidk 3mo ago"No means yes" in government form.
- wetpaws 3mo ago[dead]
- okokwhatever 3mo ago"perché uno uomo che voglia fare in tutte le parte professione di buono, conviene rovini infra tanti che non sono buoni."