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The European Union debates a new law that could force platforms to scan all private messages for signs of child abuse. Its most prominent advocate is the actor Ashton Kutcher.

Hollywood has been influenced by the Pentagon for a long time.

To put more context in this: movies made with military equipment need special approval by the us military, and they will not generally approve “unpatriotic” movies and blacklist studios who do make movies they disapprove of… from Defense dot gov:

“ The Defense Department has a long-standing relationship with Hollywood. In fact, it’s been working with filmmakers for nearly 100 years with a goal that’s two-fold: to accurately depict military stories and make sure sensitive information isn’t disclosed.”

https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/blog/article/2062735...

If this is information anyone can get by flying a drone around military equipment or buying old equipment offered for sale, this seems like a startling suppression of first amendment rights

How so? Hollywood wants to make money. And most Hollywood decision makers want to brag about having Important Friends in High Places (like the DoD). Producing anti-war movies (or otherwise making the DoD look bad) would get them ~nothing that they really want.

That goes down the same conspiracy theory rabbit hole like claiming that all state employee bureaucrats just try to bloat their dept. to have more power which ultimately wastes tax money.

Some people have standards and want to do good. Some of them work in Hollywood. And some of them in your city's administration. Not everybody is as selfish and unethical as portrayed here.

Maybe it reflects on the person expressing such theories though.

The theory is actually that some people have standards, some people just want to advance, and in the long run the latter will inevitably dominate the organization.

Yep. About as "conspiracy" as "managers in the XYZ Corp. Sales Dept. are all eager to make XYZ Corp's products look good".

Meanwhile...the US Army's Public Affair Dept. is headed by a 2-star general (same rank as the top general in command of an entire Army Division), and its mission is:

"Public affairs fulfills the Army's obligation to keep the American people and the Army informed, and helps to establish the conditions that lead to confidence in America's Army and its readiness to conduct operations in peacetime, conflict and war."

(Source: https://www.army.mil/publicaffairs/ I'd guess that the Navy, Air Force, etc. all have similar...)

Not necessarily. Good company leadership pushes against this and keeps the people with standards.

This kind of statement assumes a too simple model of the involved actors.

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