The "EU" is not "greenlighting" that proposal this week. The Council of the EU will vote on their negotiation stance, which is merely one step in the legislative process, after which the Commission (which is pro-scanning) and the parliament (which is broadly against it) will get involved.
> As the commission is the executive branch, candidates are chosen individually by the 27 national governments. Within the EU, the legitimacy of the commission is mainly drawn from the vote of approval that is required from the European Parliament, along with its power to dismiss the body.
So, the part of the EU appointed by member governments is the part driving this. The EU (as often) is being used here as a scapegoat for anti-democratic policies desired by national governments.
It is still possible to contact your EU permanent representative group via email. Op link in "what to do" section has a precompiled email which you can send to your permanent representation group.
As little as it may be, I sent it to the Italian representative group, to the team that oversees telecommunications
Technically the commission came first, after this vote it'll go to parliament and then if there's a need for mediation the commission will be involved together with parliament and council
Well apparently NL is clear in opposing it but I am a citizen of Ireland (it's not really clear who my representation is in that case) so will try them...
I find it very funny that this law's entire purpose could very well be defeated by another recent-ish EU law, namely the Digital Markets act.
This law is somewhat workable if you assume that App Stores are the only way for mobile apps to be distributed. If users are allowed to sideload, as an app maker from a non-european country, you can just refuse to comply.
This isn't possible with Apple's current implementation of this law, but that implementation is extremely likely to be ruled noncompliant anyway based on what the EU authorities are saying.
Politicians in Europe generally do not appreciate mass, repetitive emailing. It might even have an adversarial effect.
If you want to be helpful, please consider more strategic alternatives such raising awareness among the general public, writing thoughtful arguments, or joining specialized non-profits or political parties.
> Politicians in Europe generally do not appreciate mass, repetitive emailing
Nobody likes this. A concise, thoughtful call or message carries a premium in the states, but only if you’re demonstrably a constituent.
The reason is simple: it shows conviction. If you’re willing to pick up the phone, you might be willing to stump for an opponent. If you’re unwilling to do that, or are raving at the politician such that you would never be won over by them, you’re messaging you’re a lost cause.
The joys of representative democracy. The people are told they are free, but it's the oligarchy in their ivory tower that decide for you.
Every few years you get told you can vote for the next liar to do their bidding in your name, and we, the people, keep the circus alive by telling each other "your vote counts! It's your fault if they're all thieves!"
Government won't stop monitoring each and every citizen, and citizens have stopped any form of resistance, political or technological. Even in tech niches like this, cryptoanarchist ideas get routinely derided as useless and scams. We have lost.
Has anyone in power thought through the scale of this? Even if it has a frankly exceptional error rate of just 0.001%, that still means tens of thousands of innocent Europeans will have their lives ruined every day. And, assuming there's a human in the loop, who are we going to traumatize to check The Machine's work? Is it going to be Kenyans again^, or Eastern Europeans this time?
In the proposal, they write that the service providers have to figure out a way to make the false positives reported to the police "minimal". This is obviously a major burden to put on the service providers, in effect completely excluding all small outfits (and I'm sceptical the large companies want to deal with this either).
Germany have had some similar tech in place according to Der Spiegel, but the entire increase in positives was found out to be legal dickpics and flirty messages between teenagers etc. The only result was that the police now have a huge database of teenager's naked pictures and kids on the beach, which can hardly be a good way to minimize pedophile activity.
It will be a shitshow beyond comprehension if this eventually gets implemented.
Life ruined as in being flagged and investigated? Or as in, you sent some medical pics of your son's crotch to the dokter and some sicko on the scanning program looks at that photo and spreads it in his network?
The folks over at Tuta interviewed Patrick Breyer about this yesterday and his explanation of Chat Control is downright sinister. Link here: https://youtu.be/wSEI-dg3Hpo
Let's keep spreading the word about this, the whole Chat Control debate seems to be ignored right now in the media.
ofc, some guy at every TV channel can't wait to call up his homie at that gov. institution that gets to process all that data. marketaching*can y'all here the cashier dancing?
Not for the masses. They cannot be bothered and most likely don't care until it is too late.
For the technologist, it is easy to circumvent in the private sphere of life at least.
I foresee however, a digital ID that will be tied to all your essential services, that you will be required to have in order to live, and that's the tracking and communication point that will be used to get a hold of you.
Kind of like the chinese social credit score, but in the EU of tomorrow, your digital EU idea will be the choking point. Do something out of line, and it can be revoked and with it, your bank, credit cards, health care, travel and other services.
Many, and most of them are easy enough that anyone seriously concerned with privacy or secrecy will use them. They do take effort though, which means that while journalists, lawyers, corporations, governments, privacy nerds, and criminals will use them, the average person will not.
What we would lose is that secure communication is actually mainstream now. Billions of people, many of whom don't even know what "end to end encrypted" means use messaging services with strong encryption including WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, even Facebook chat in some cases. These services make mass surveillance difficult or impossible, and targeted surveillance of their users requires significant effort, such as installing malware on a target's device.
"All services normally provided for remuneration (including ad-funded services) are in scope, without no threshold in size, number of users etc."
"Only non-commercial services that are not ad-funded, such as many open source software, are out of scope"
Weird right? But it would be weirder if they would outlaw the application of mathematical operations on your own messages... oh wait that's what they are proposing... Try and stop me. Are they going to put me in jail because I don't want them to read messages between me and my friends or my wife?
"Only non-commercial services that are not ad-funded, such as many open source software, are out of scope"
So, what's the use of this law anyway?
I do wonder what open source means though. Is Signal opensource? The client is, the server is not... Matrix is fully open source... And Whatsapp (which my country runs on) which has open source encryption...?
So I can set up a server for my family and do no scanning, and that's not illegal. Can I let my neighbour join. How far down the street am I allowed to offer this service before it becomes in scope? Can I make a preconfigured, plug-and-play appliance that runs an encrypted chat server on a home internet connection and give that to someone I know? Someone I don't know?
This is one of those extremely frustrating laws that's just going to hit everyone EXCEPT the ones who deserve it.
There is something weird about EU approach to online child protection. They project themselves as being hell-bent on solving the problem, yet, as with the US with the Jeffrey Epstein case, they are curiously inactive when it comes to prosecution of pedophiles. As if they're keen to find them, but not so keen to lock them up. WTF do they do with these pedophiles once they find them? Promote them to public office so they can be extorted and controlled? It doesn't add up.
Seems like there is something weird about EU and pedophilia. Coincidentally, it seems as if the EU is operating under the thumb of a foreign power. After being involved in the tech sector there, it has been a recurring theme. I never heard about that stuff when working for US tech companies. In other countries, they also handle the problem but they don't constantly virtue-signal about it. Also when I was in the crypto space working on EU-backed projects, I heard rumors that some of the founders had been victims (or maybe also the other way? Like a cult) I inferred that they were being extorted. When I read conspiracy theories about that sort of stuff, it oddly resonates with some of my experiences in the tech sector when you get close to the big money and big politics.
The increase of popularity of conspiracy theories and the recurring theme of pedophilia is also starting to seem suspicious.
How will this affect companies in a technical aspect? Just no more e2e encryption available in the clients? Or will it be some kind of weird e2e with a backdoor (which is not how encryption works)…
at some point we need to bring back the idea of direct democracy on the table (online voting with blockchain or whatever) so that "representatives" are not needed anymore and cant be lobbied year on year against individual interests
The problem with the current state of the EU is that it is governed by unelected politicians - the EU Comission, and they are very out of touch with reality. Plus the fact they managed to make themselves very hard to control or remove from power.
Latest example being farmers that are being targeted and until they did not come to Brussels to dump manure in the streets, the EU Comission did not care a bit of the harm they were causing them. And it did not care even then until France used its power to get it to listen.
The EU started as a nice project that is slowly becoming something thst not even in the wildest communist dreams was thought not possible.
In this specific example it's not the Commission that drives this initiative, but the Council, which is formed of head of states for the individual members.
one click there to get to your particular country.
It sure would be nice if it had a list of people to contact at the top.
Also HN is killing patrick-breyer's site, so it is even more difficult for all these committed people to find the place they should go look for who to contact.
Contact in Denmark - brurep@um.dk is evidently the one.
It feels so polarizing with the EU at one point they push for strong privacy laws the next they push shit like this.
It's like their gun law that was a response to the Islamic terrorists using smuggled ak47 from the balkans but the law flat out bans anything bugger than a pistol pretty much.
I've (with help of ChatGPT) written an email that I've sent to all representatives. Feel free to use it!
To: info.belgoeurop@diplobel.fed.be, mission.brusselseu@bg-permrep.eu, eu.brussels@embassy.mzv.cz, brurep@um.dk, info@bruessel-eu.diplo.de, permrep.eu@mfa.ee, irlprb@dfa.ie, mea.bruxelles@rp-grece.be, reper.bruselasue@reper.maec.es, courrier.bruxelles-dfra@diplomatie.gouv.fr, hr.perm.rep@mvep.hr, rpue.rpue@esteri.it, cy.perm.rep@mfa.gov.cy, permrep.eu@mfa.gov.lv, office@eu.mfa.lt, bruxelles.rpue@mae.etat.lu, sec.beu@mfa.gov.hu, maltarep@gov.mt, bre@minbuza.nl, bruessel-ov@bmeia.gv.at, bebrustpe@msz.gov.pl, reper@mne.pt, bru@rpro.eu, slomission.eu@gov.si, eu.brussels@mzv.sk, sanomat.eue@formin.fi, representationen.bryssel@gov.se
Subject: Urgent: Chat Control
Dear Representative,
I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding Chat Control. As a citizen of the European Union, I am committed to safeguarding our fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly the right to privacy and the protection of personal data.
The Chat Control Chat Control poses several significant risks:
Invasion of Privacy: The proposed measures would lead to the mass surveillance of private communications, undermining the privacy of all EU citizens. This broad surveillance is disproportionate and infringes on our fundamental right to private correspondence.
Security Risks: Weakening encryption to facilitate the monitoring of communications makes all users more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Encryption is essential for protecting sensitive data, including financial information, personal communications, and sensitive business data.
Potential for Abuse: Granting authorities the power to monitor private communications without adequate checks and balances can lead to misuse and abuse of power. This undermines trust in both governmental and digital platforms.
Stifling Innovation: Chat Control could have a chilling effect on tech innovation within the EU. Companies may be discouraged from developing new technologies or offering their services in the EU due to increased regulatory burdens and privacy concerns.
I urge you to oppose Chat Control and advocate for solutions that protect children online without compromising the privacy and security of all citizens. Alternatives such as targeted interventions, improved digital literacy, and support for responsible online behavior are more effective and less intrusive ways to achieve these goals.
Protecting the privacy and security of our digital communications is crucial for maintaining trust in the digital economy and upholding the values of the European Union. I hope you will consider these points and vote against Chat Control.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter.
Yours sincerely,
[your name/address/etc.]
If you are outside the EU, change the first paragraph to:
I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the proposed Chat Control legislation, despite not being a resident of the European Union. As someone who values privacy and security in digital communications, I believe this legislation has far-reaching implications that extend beyond the borders of the EU.
What's Switzerland's stance on this (message scanning)? From what I have seen this entire topic keeps coming up in the US, the UK and some European countries and is just impossible to keep dead, because some citizens are strongly lobbying in favor of it.
1- if you talk to a person from eu, your data will be affected
2- nobody guarantees switzerland will not want to do the same thing, just like UK.
3- switzerland is not part of eu, but certain behavior of sw is influenced by the eu's decisions, since basically all the border is shared with eu countries and those can put pressure on switzerland to adapt certain laws (ofc not openly)
Considering the current relationship between the Federal Council and the EU, I don't think it would be close this time around.
Edit: Actually there was a votation for adhesion to the European Economic Area in 1992, but also for full adhesion to the EU in 2001 (rejected at 76.8%). Switzerland is not even close to become a member state.
As a Norwegian, I’m not sure this matters. You think app publishers are going to release a Swiss/Norwegian version that doesn’t have that? Nah, they’ll just release the same version with chat control in all of Europe. (Besides the fact that Norway usually rubber stamps EU rules without much consideration, which maybe isn’t a problem in Switzerland)
> Utterly revolting how the EU has become an authoritarian and socialist project expanding its power over EU citizens and countries.
As the link explains, the Commission is proposing this at the behest of member states. You have it completely backward. Your elected national representatives are trying to force this through, and ironically, your elected MEPs (European representatives) are trying to save you.
Anti-EU people are often so unbelievably misinformed.
this is not a socialist decision. In fact, this is a decision that benefits big corpos and certain substrate of ppl that want to stay in power (while socialism means that decisions should benefit general population)
Please don't conflate socialism with authoritarianism. There's non-authoritarian socialists; there's non-socialist authoritarians. They are two independent axis.
In the case of the EU, it's a capitalist authoritarian project.
Socialist?? The EU is still primarily a neoliberalist institution, I can't think of a single socialist reform it upheld. It's all about enforcing privatization of what wasn't yet and fostering economic competition among its members. Are you just throwing words you don't understand?
> Utterly revolting how the EU has become an authoritarian and socialist project expanding its power over EU citizens and countries.
Sounds word by word like a Nigel Farage speech campaigning for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
It seems that his populist speech lingers a bit after achieving his goal, Brexit.
Nevertheless, years after such an event, there can be no doubt that he did not have the citizens' interests at heart. Of course, neither he nor the other parrots who spread that kind of discourse have faced the consequences of their vile actions.
Also it's the link to the generic page, not a news article (which has been debated several times in the past days)
OTOH this generic page seems to explain it better and in a less sensationalistic way
(on the other other hand I feel that privacy advocates should hire some PR companies to enhance the job of raising awareness - the pro-scanning NGOs put a lot of money on it)
Why is anyone surprised about this? This will be a global phenomenon since LLMs together with ubiquitous surveillance brings down the costs of policing to 0. Just add police drones and you have a foolproof system. There is not a single country in this world whose leaders will decide that "nah we dont need perfect surveillance"
> Just add police drones and you have a foolproof system
except you don't.
And this is exactly the issue here: by removing police from the streets, doing policing work, not repression as they do in the US, people started feeling less and less secure, which is somewhat also kinda true and they will gladly accept anything that promises more security, which in turn will increase the sense of insecurity and promote more technological surveillance, in a never ending shitty feedback loop.
I'm going to be the controversial one here and just claim that more harm is currently done by unrestricted social media than any privacy invasions. Predators have free reign to do whatever they wish anonymously and get away with it.
I don't want a dystopian big brother watching over my back, but that's where we are going if somebody doesn't come up with alternatives to control the abuse.
I would personally vote for government issued public/private key cryptography. Sign with your key to verify that you are a citizen of such and such state, gaining a trusted unique identifier without subjecting yourself to a privacy invasion outside a court order. Or a similar system. I'm not an expert on the matter.
Free spaces are still allowed, but as you don't have an pseudonymous identifier, nobody will trust you and should not. Also legislation around this should be built.
This sounds like the privilege of never having been persecuted by your own government. And the lack of empathy towards and acknowledgment of those who are.
thing is, this chat control will not help. Criminals will use illegal tools while all the rest of the population will be subject to gov investigation (including monitoring political adversaries). And that's one thing - if the system is wrongly implemented, this backdoor could be accessed by 3'rd parties/hackers and at that point it would be a clown show.
Unrestricted social media is another problem that should be solved, it'll not be solved by this law, in fact it may worsen it if certain actors will want to alter backdoor mechanism so that the access to all the data will not be shared only with govt
I'm not specifically talking about tfa, but I defo feel less enthused about net neutrality and such these days.. For a few reasons.
1. Internet is bad now
In the 80's a new and truly utopian vision of personal computers, the internet, the web, was actually realised. But since then it's been taken over by monster corporations, the net has simply gone through the same process as systems before it (telegraph, telephone, TV) as described in "The Master Switch" by Tim Wu. In reality, for most users in 2024 it's no longer a utopian freeing force, its the opposite, a completely locked down system governed by utterly ruthless and reckless megacorps.
2. Internet is harmful
There's loads of data appearing about the negative health effects of social media, screentime, etc.
3. Geopolitics
The era of the peace dividend seems to be drawing to a close, and a new era of great power struggles beginning. Western democracies vs Autocracies (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) It seems the autocratic countries are taking advantage of the weakness of the open net of the west, and using it to spread chaos and discord and destroy them from the inside. Stuff like the "Internet research Agency".
Having the internet restricted by relatively trustworthy regulators like the EU, seems preferable to me to letting megacorps dominate and abuse it, causing harm for profit, or to let autocracies use it to sow chaos.
I actually think it'd be a good idea nowadays to ban social media tbh.
It's not one or the other. No fundamental law states that the internet must be controlled by either powerful corporations or powerful governments. If governments did their job and enforced anti-trust and other consumer protection laws then neither would be the case.
all of this will not be solved by this law. In fact it'll make internet worse. Having a backdoor opens possibilities for hackers/third parties to try to circumvent it and gain access to the data (while with e2ee it's much much harder). Big players/corpos can alter the system in a way so that not only govs will have access to this data and to share it with 3'rd parties to enhance the ads business. Also - govs will get huge power with this law and in case some country/group of countries will get ppl like orban/putin in power - consequences may be drastic since nothing will stop them to abuse their power
wasmitnetzen|1 year ago
bigfudge|1 year ago
> As the commission is the executive branch, candidates are chosen individually by the 27 national governments. Within the EU, the legitimacy of the commission is mainly drawn from the vote of approval that is required from the European Parliament, along with its power to dismiss the body.
So, the part of the EU appointed by member governments is the part driving this. The EU (as often) is being used here as a scapegoat for anti-democratic policies desired by national governments.
Jensson|1 year ago
amarcheschi|1 year ago
As little as it may be, I sent it to the Italian representative group, to the team that oversees telecommunications
Edit if you're Italian you can find the email(s) here, scroll to trasporti e telecomunicazioni https://italiaue.esteri.it/it/chi-siamo/
arlort|1 year ago
tdsone3|1 year ago
thefz|1 year ago
Let your voice be heard! Contact your representatives (bottom of the page)!
CalRobert|1 year ago
I started here:
https://op.europa.eu/en/web/who-is-who/organization/-/organi...
Then checked Netherlands under sublevels and wound up here:
https://op.europa.eu/en/web/who-is-who/organization/-/organi...
and that seems to have the email address bre@minbuza.nl ?
and finally I end up at https://www.netherlandsandyou.nl/web/pr-eu-brussels which has no contact info.
I'll try that email address anyway.
I guess this is who I contact? https://www.netherlandsandyou.nl/web/pr-eu-brussels
edit:
Well apparently NL is clear in opposing it but I am a citizen of Ireland (it's not really clear who my representation is in that case) so will try them...
pimterry|1 year ago
rvnx|1 year ago
If you go against what people voted for, isn't it denying democracy and the votes of the people ?
miki123211|1 year ago
This law is somewhat workable if you assume that App Stores are the only way for mobile apps to be distributed. If users are allowed to sideload, as an app maker from a non-european country, you can just refuse to comply.
This isn't possible with Apple's current implementation of this law, but that implementation is extremely likely to be ruled noncompliant anyway based on what the EU authorities are saying.
xalava|1 year ago
Politicians in Europe generally do not appreciate mass, repetitive emailing. It might even have an adversarial effect.
If you want to be helpful, please consider more strategic alternatives such raising awareness among the general public, writing thoughtful arguments, or joining specialized non-profits or political parties.
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
Nobody likes this. A concise, thoughtful call or message carries a premium in the states, but only if you’re demonstrably a constituent.
The reason is simple: it shows conviction. If you’re willing to pick up the phone, you might be willing to stump for an opponent. If you’re unwilling to do that, or are raving at the politician such that you would never be won over by them, you’re messaging you’re a lost cause.
Xelbair|1 year ago
tough luck, it's their job. if they lash out due to that they are unfit to be in positions of power.
lannisterstark|1 year ago
egorfine|1 year ago
sph|1 year ago
Every few years you get told you can vote for the next liar to do their bidding in your name, and we, the people, keep the circus alive by telling each other "your vote counts! It's your fault if they're all thieves!"
Government won't stop monitoring each and every citizen, and citizens have stopped any form of resistance, political or technological. Even in tech niches like this, cryptoanarchist ideas get routinely derided as useless and scams. We have lost.
hnthrowaway0328|1 year ago
1f60c|1 year ago
^ https://theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/02/ai-chatbot-tr...
l33tman|1 year ago
Germany have had some similar tech in place according to Der Spiegel, but the entire increase in positives was found out to be legal dickpics and flirty messages between teenagers etc. The only result was that the police now have a huge database of teenager's naked pictures and kids on the beach, which can hardly be a good way to minimize pedophile activity.
It will be a shitshow beyond comprehension if this eventually gets implemented.
Rinzler89|1 year ago
Why would they? People in power and judges are always exempt from warrantless mass surveillance. They get actual privacy.
teekert|1 year ago
Both I guess...
madaxe_again|1 year ago
BobFromEnzyte|1 year ago
Let's keep spreading the word about this, the whole Chat Control debate seems to be ignored right now in the media.
generic92034|1 year ago
Maybe it is not purely by chance that the EU is dealing with this topic during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2024 ? ;)
luudrubics|1 year ago
matricaria|1 year ago
abc123abc123|1 year ago
For the technologist, it is easy to circumvent in the private sphere of life at least.
I foresee however, a digital ID that will be tied to all your essential services, that you will be required to have in order to live, and that's the tracking and communication point that will be used to get a hold of you.
Kind of like the chinese social credit score, but in the EU of tomorrow, your digital EU idea will be the choking point. Do something out of line, and it can be revoked and with it, your bank, credit cards, health care, travel and other services.
hans_castorp|1 year ago
zaik|1 year ago
Zak|1 year ago
What we would lose is that secure communication is actually mainstream now. Billions of people, many of whom don't even know what "end to end encrypted" means use messaging services with strong encryption including WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, even Facebook chat in some cases. These services make mass surveillance difficult or impossible, and targeted surveillance of their users requires significant effort, such as installing malware on a target's device.
tdsone3|1 year ago
constantcrying|1 year ago
I presumed self hosting a chat service becomes illegal with these laws?
teekert|1 year ago
"All services normally provided for remuneration (including ad-funded services) are in scope, without no threshold in size, number of users etc."
"Only non-commercial services that are not ad-funded, such as many open source software, are out of scope"
Weird right? But it would be weirder if they would outlaw the application of mathematical operations on your own messages... oh wait that's what they are proposing... Try and stop me. Are they going to put me in jail because I don't want them to read messages between me and my friends or my wife?
teekert|1 year ago
So, what's the use of this law anyway?
I do wonder what open source means though. Is Signal opensource? The client is, the server is not... Matrix is fully open source... And Whatsapp (which my country runs on) which has open source encryption...?
rvense|1 year ago
This is one of those extremely frustrating laws that's just going to hit everyone EXCEPT the ones who deserve it.
quectophoton|1 year ago
> "End-to-end encrypted messenger services are not excluded from the scope"
This was probably added precisely to include Signal, XMPP with OMEMO, etc.
> "Hosting services affected include web hosting, social media, video streaming services, file hosting and cloud services"
So not even self-hosting NAS, since this probably will be interpreted as "sharing with your family is still providing a file hosting service to them".
1ark|1 year ago
Flatfoot5676|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
cryptica|1 year ago
Seems like there is something weird about EU and pedophilia. Coincidentally, it seems as if the EU is operating under the thumb of a foreign power. After being involved in the tech sector there, it has been a recurring theme. I never heard about that stuff when working for US tech companies. In other countries, they also handle the problem but they don't constantly virtue-signal about it. Also when I was in the crypto space working on EU-backed projects, I heard rumors that some of the founders had been victims (or maybe also the other way? Like a cult) I inferred that they were being extorted. When I read conspiracy theories about that sort of stuff, it oddly resonates with some of my experiences in the tech sector when you get close to the big money and big politics.
The increase of popularity of conspiracy theories and the recurring theme of pedophilia is also starting to seem suspicious.
waspight|1 year ago
ChrisArchitect|1 year ago
Incorrect link to match title, lots of recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40710993
CodinM|1 year ago
type0|1 year ago
ekianjo|1 year ago
hcks|1 year ago
ExoticPearTree|1 year ago
Latest example being farmers that are being targeted and until they did not come to Brussels to dump manure in the streets, the EU Comission did not care a bit of the harm they were causing them. And it did not care even then until France used its power to get it to listen.
The EU started as a nice project that is slowly becoming something thst not even in the wildest communist dreams was thought not possible.
mariusor|1 year ago
bryanrasmussen|1 year ago
https://op.europa.eu/en/web/who-is-who/organization/-/organi...
one click there to get to your particular country.
It sure would be nice if it had a list of people to contact at the top.
Also HN is killing patrick-breyer's site, so it is even more difficult for all these committed people to find the place they should go look for who to contact.
Contact in Denmark - brurep@um.dk is evidently the one.
voytec|1 year ago
"Guilty until proven innocent" seems to be the new reality.
doublerabbit|1 year ago
"Your child could be used in pornography"
"Criminals are selling weed via text message for €5 a gram"
The Simpsons "won't someone think of the children" meme demonstrates it well.
bratwurst3000|1 year ago
https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho...
0dayz|1 year ago
It's like their gun law that was a response to the Islamic terrorists using smuggled ak47 from the balkans but the law flat out bans anything bugger than a pistol pretty much.
art0rz|1 year ago
sakex|1 year ago
the_mitsuhiko|1 year ago
Moldoteck|1 year ago
Pooge|1 year ago
Considering the current relationship between the Federal Council and the EU, I don't think it would be close this time around.
Edit: Actually there was a votation for adhesion to the European Economic Area in 1992, but also for full adhesion to the EU in 2001 (rejected at 76.8%). Switzerland is not even close to become a member state.
LadyCailin|1 year ago
generic92034|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
abc123abc123|1 year ago
[deleted]
lawn|1 year ago
munksbeer|1 year ago
As the link explains, the Commission is proposing this at the behest of member states. You have it completely backward. Your elected national representatives are trying to force this through, and ironically, your elected MEPs (European representatives) are trying to save you.
Anti-EU people are often so unbelievably misinformed.
palata|1 year ago
Then talking about the far right in the EU... the US has nothing to brag about. You guys don't have a left side at all: it's right vs far right there.
preisschild|1 year ago
There are other political parties against authoritarianism (such as chat control), like the liberal Renew Europe or Volt.
Moldoteck|1 year ago
malermeister|1 year ago
In the case of the EU, it's a capitalist authoritarian project.
piva00|1 year ago
tomalbrc|1 year ago
skinpop|1 year ago
thrance|1 year ago
mytailorisrich|1 year ago
[deleted]
drtgh|1 year ago
Sounds word by word like a Nigel Farage speech campaigning for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
It seems that his populist speech lingers a bit after achieving his goal, Brexit.
Nevertheless, years after such an event, there can be no doubt that he did not have the citizens' interests at heart. Of course, neither he nor the other parrots who spread that kind of discourse have faced the consequences of their vile actions.
iLoveOncall|1 year ago
It hasn't happened, it is postponed to tomorrow.
raverbashing|1 year ago
OTOH this generic page seems to explain it better and in a less sensationalistic way
(on the other other hand I feel that privacy advocates should hire some PR companies to enhance the job of raising awareness - the pro-scanning NGOs put a lot of money on it)
tdsone3|1 year ago
questinthrow|1 year ago
peoplefromibiza|1 year ago
except you don't.
And this is exactly the issue here: by removing police from the streets, doing policing work, not repression as they do in the US, people started feeling less and less secure, which is somewhat also kinda true and they will gladly accept anything that promises more security, which in turn will increase the sense of insecurity and promote more technological surveillance, in a never ending shitty feedback loop.
mellosouls|1 year ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40710993
127|1 year ago
I don't want a dystopian big brother watching over my back, but that's where we are going if somebody doesn't come up with alternatives to control the abuse.
I would personally vote for government issued public/private key cryptography. Sign with your key to verify that you are a citizen of such and such state, gaining a trusted unique identifier without subjecting yourself to a privacy invasion outside a court order. Or a similar system. I'm not an expert on the matter.
Free spaces are still allowed, but as you don't have an pseudonymous identifier, nobody will trust you and should not. Also legislation around this should be built.
growse|1 year ago
Moldoteck|1 year ago
everyone|1 year ago
1. Internet is bad now
In the 80's a new and truly utopian vision of personal computers, the internet, the web, was actually realised. But since then it's been taken over by monster corporations, the net has simply gone through the same process as systems before it (telegraph, telephone, TV) as described in "The Master Switch" by Tim Wu. In reality, for most users in 2024 it's no longer a utopian freeing force, its the opposite, a completely locked down system governed by utterly ruthless and reckless megacorps.
2. Internet is harmful
There's loads of data appearing about the negative health effects of social media, screentime, etc.
3. Geopolitics
The era of the peace dividend seems to be drawing to a close, and a new era of great power struggles beginning. Western democracies vs Autocracies (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) It seems the autocratic countries are taking advantage of the weakness of the open net of the west, and using it to spread chaos and discord and destroy them from the inside. Stuff like the "Internet research Agency".
Having the internet restricted by relatively trustworthy regulators like the EU, seems preferable to me to letting megacorps dominate and abuse it, causing harm for profit, or to let autocracies use it to sow chaos. I actually think it'd be a good idea nowadays to ban social media tbh.
idle_zealot|1 year ago
Moldoteck|1 year ago