EU to greenlight Chat Control tomorrow
patrick-breyer.de
patrick-breyer.de
"... As services which enable direct interpersonal and interactive exchange of information merely as a minor ancillary feature that is intrinsically linked to another service, such as chat and similar functions as part of gaming, image-sharing and video-hosting are equally at risk of misuse, they should also be covered by this Regulation. "
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
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It's a big framework to push the industry to have more "parental controls".
Everything is covered, but there the actual requirements make sense. See page 45.
It's still bad, because it's extremely tone-deaf (and playing with fire is bad), but it's written by and for policy idiots, who live in Word documents, and (un)fortunately rarely have contact with the outside world.
self hosted chats included? ;)
Arguably North Korea since their RedStar OS had a kernel module that scanned all files and text looking for keywords like 'torture'. And if you're being compared to one of the most brutal and isolated dictatorships on Earth, things are not good.
The justification is obviously a lie anyway. If CSAM were such a huge concern, you wouldn't have member states where distributing CSAM is about as severe of a crime as theft, which is the case in Germany.
Surely the first step would be to have actual significant criminal charges for these crimes in all member states.
Can GrapheneOS prevent detection of somebody sideloading Signal?
Seems like a good thing. If nothing else works at least that might bring some attention to this nonsense..
And so, 96% of people now think Signal is evil.
The overwhelming majority of people living in the EU won't really care or even notice this new law/directive/(?) because they don't really pay any attention to what the EU is doing but yeah for most of of the remaining ones that will probably suffice.
Ah who am I kidding, real journalism is pretty much dead
They'll just be blocked from the app store for EU users and their user base in the EU will drop to near zero within a year.
Hint: I'm taking Simons' role in this: They won't drop to zero.
The hardest to convince would be Whatsapp, but I think that Zuckerberg is one of the few big tech CEOs that still has principles, at least sometimes. I think it could happen.
"Still"? I'm not aware of a time when he's publicly shown any sort of principles.
Google or Microsoft would just give up data of their users at the first request to avoid a ban.
Sure, Meta can't * do it because of E2E, but that alone is much better than what Google does.
* without pushing a malicious update.
And I believe that is exactly what the court was demanding they do. Push an update to uncloak the users that the court determines should lose their privacy.
They are not somehow bluffing or threatening this simply to try to change the law. It's a principled stance that they simply cannot provide E2E encrypted chat under such conditions. So either they break their protocol in which case their claimed offer would be a lie, or they leave.
Seems like the only choice they have, really. Also, by "leave EU" I'm pretty sure they mean not offer their app in the EU, so yes I think they expect their EU user base to be zero in this scenario.
There are already anti-circumvention mechanisms built into Signal to facilitate use in places like China and Iran, so they've shown no interest in compliance where that goes directly contrary to their mission. Should they be removed from the App Store in Europe, I imagine they'll work on making use of the EU's own push to open iOS up for alternative app stores / PWAs. (It's clear that the EU is unhappy with Apple's current take on compliance, so we can expect that to open up further.)
That's not to say that the present proposals aren't already bad enough.
Large organizations will always try to grow in size and power.
We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal.
The entities that need to be circumscribed need to enforce a law that circumscribes themselves? Those incentives do not seem to align to form a stable structure.
There's a strong and widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance.
If a similar idea existed about privacy, these sneaky moves wouldn't be feasible and would leave a bad taste in the mouths even of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, many among us are of the "But I've got nothing to hide" persuasion.
That's not really true as far as it comes to the EU though? The EU parliament has always been a joke with limited power (both because of structural reasons and because most of it's members are clueless and extremely easy to influence) and besides that the EU population has no way to exert any direct influence on EU policies (they could do that through the council but they'd have prioritize the EU over domestic issues when voting in national elections which will never happen)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
The second your only recourse against authority is to politely ask it not to do something bad to you (maybe, for instance, on a piece of paper with multiple choice questions), you have no real autonomy.
The administrative budget of the EU should be cut by 3-4x times and the money should be spent on something more useful because clearly they are out of control and have nothing better to do. While we're at turning Belgium into something like DC and disenfranchising their government/people living there wouldn't be the worst idea since they clearly have been co-opted into propagating this nonsense.
That is to say, megacorps have way too much power and access and this must be globally curtailed. To achieve such a goal the EU cannot be going forward with these changes that put more power into the hands of megacorps who will have no problem complying, as they do in China.
Sure but privacy is still a selling point (e.g. Apple has different incentives than ad companies like Google and (regardless of how abusive their policies regarding app publishing are) was pushing the industry towards a positive direct on their own).
> achieve such a goal the EU cannot be going forward with these changes that put more power into the hands of megacorps who will have no problem complying, as they do in China.
I don't see how this policy specifically is putting more power into the hands of megacorps, it's hardly something they ever really wanted (even if it's certainly not a hill they are willing to die on). Don't get me wrong, their power needs to be curtailed but I just don't see how can we get just the DMA but no Chat Control (it's not like the EU bureaucrats are driven by anything besides self interest, they might get some things right now and then but IMHO consumers generally have more real direct influence on what the megacorps are doing than them).
Hopefully with more tech-savvy generations gradually taking power, this will happen without too many painful lessons.
Did we though? Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat (and I'm not talking about authoritarian regimes). It's a double-edged sword to be fair, enabling misinformation and chaos.
Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/e-s-v-a....
Not that I'm a particularly huge fan of some of the opinions that some of these people tend to express (to be fair in this case it's something that Muslims/their holy books acknowledge as well so it shouldn't be controversial at all...) but the whole idea of "balancing the rights to freedom of religion and expression" just seems extremely repulsive to me.
Of course this is a spectrum but having an (effectively) immutable constitution that guarantees freedom of speech is certainly worth something.
> spectrum
The spectrum is far too often simply colored by the politics one's interested in, i.e. Free Speech is simply a tool to attack another and provide justification for their own opinions. Not an actual Free Speech position.
I don't believe anyone truly has a Free Speech Absolutist position. It's always just a tool. When the speech is against you, everyone conveniently turns against it.
Anyone who defended that isn't even close to a free-speech absolutist.
>I don't believe anyone truly has a Free Speech Absolutist position
I do. It's what makes America great. Erosions like that jewish law are slowly weakening that.
You should be allowed to say whatever you want about White people, straight people, men, Christians, etc. and I should be able to say whatever I want about jews.
You just don't want to acknowledge such a stance is possible because the people you agree with are in power, allow the speech you agree with, and censor the speech you don't disagree with, so you stand with nothing to gain by supporting free speech. That's a personal choice to have no integrity.
Because absolute free speech is allowing all that without consequence
Secondly, you're okay with someone inciting violence/vandalism/crimes, and people acting explicitly on that person's direction, as long as only the actual violence/vandalism/crime is punished?
Yes. Everyone has agency, if I tell you to commit a crime it's up to you whether to do so.
Maybe, maybe with an unwieldy amount of time the rubes would all die out as they administer snake oil to themselves and their families, the pyramid schemes all collapse under the weight of their inability to produce the results their funders sought, and the collective, unorganized and ungovernmented multitudes publicly shame and criticize those industry leaders who conducted research into the effects of their products, but decided instead to make some shit up to sell more.
Maybe more likely: as the divine wisdom of the heavenly free market dictates, a few really good liars get a massive foothold and build empires on it. And maybe in the truest American free market fashion, these opportunities to profit from fraud are available to everyone! Even if you’re not clever enough to build an empire, you can at least move state to state, lying, selling more slow-burn poison, all the while with the cops backing you up when the mob forms, because fraud and the affects of lying are as protected as saying something ignorant or mean.
I don't say it doesn't I don't say it does.
And liable isn't a crime? What's then stopping people from calling each other pedophiles which in turn causes them to lose jobs/relationships/etc.
Should Alex Jones have been convicted of liable due to his claims surrounding Sandy hook?
I'm no free speech absolutist, as you'll end up eating your own tail, but I'm a 100% believer in free speech that does not legitimize malicious use (just because you lie about someone doesn't mean you will be prosecuted that if there were to be a law enacted then free speech won't protect said lie), such as no liable, no threat of violence, no willfully scamming/swindling and no abuse of authoritative/alertive speech (as in saying fire in a theater when there is no fire).
But I submit that given our current state of affairs as a species, I don’t think we could handle that “yes”.
That “yes” coexisting in a harmonious world that is safe and sound would require that speech that incites violence or vandalism isn’t acted upon, for example. That the market could and would reliably be able to detect and counter deceitful manipulation. That somehow the market would be able to do the same with lies about a product or service.
It also suggests abdicating accountability for when such a seemingly perfect system would fail and result in harm.
These things seem implausible in our current reality. A lack of accountability seems undesirable generally and is already something that we suffer enough.
If you also abolish the notion of intellectual property as well as trade secrets, both of which are severe limitations on free speech, then sure. Otherwise it's just another case of wanting free speech when it suits the company but wanting to restrict it when it doesn't.
> Lies about your character? Your kids? made up stuff that whips up entire segments of your city to commit violence or vandalism against you?
Sure, as long as the actual violence and vandalism is harshly punished to discourage people from acting on falsehoods. The speech was never the real problem here.
You can’t undo that, not to mention it not illegal to fire someone because if you read some false facts in the paper
Both approaches rely on punishment disincentivizing others from behaving in the same way. Except that "hate speech" laws are a bludgeon that a) can be easily circumvented by clever speech that is still going to encourage violence and b) is guaranteed to be used sooner or later as a pretense to silence dissidents whose speech would not result in violence. They are really only one tiny step removed from trying to combat thought crimes. Better to disincentivize the behavior that is actually a problem for society (i.e. violence) rather than something as vague and subjective as "hate speech" that may or may not lead to it.
> Not to mention it not illegal to fire someone because if you read some false facts in the paper
Some countries have strong worker protections that actually make it quite hard to fire someone without a good reason.
Is basically the argument you’re making here. So I guess we shouldn’t have any punishment for any behaviour then eh?
Freedom of speech is absolutely not about freedom from consequences. Where and how did you ever get that idea?
Free speech means you can say anything you want, some very specific caveats aside, and you can't be prosecuted simply for saying them. But that doesn't mean you won't have to answer for what happens as a consequence.
As an example: You absolutely can go and make wild claims about your product to try and sell it, nobody can stop you from doing that. You absolutely can make bogus claims about someone, nobody can stop you from doing that either. However, you will be prosecuted for making false statements and defamation respectively by the people you harmed. Note what is prosecuted here: The effects of the false and perhaps even sinister nature of the statement, not the statement itself.
No True Scotsman.
> You just don't want to acknowledge such a stance is possible because the people you agree with are in power, allow the speech you agree with, and censor the speech you don't disagree with, so you stand with nothing to gain by supporting free speech. That's a personal choice to have no integrity.
... I am not American, neither do I have anyone in power who supports the speech I agree with. There's no need to attack me specifically. I am talking about the wider pattern. Free Speech Absolutists exist as long as the speech they support is being oppressed. Do you support Free Speech of the person screaming obscenities at your young child? False claims about you? Whipping up entire communities to attack you physically? Do you support speech that incites genocide?
Yes, some of those are crimes but I am not sure you'd care if you'd been attacked already. The damage is done.
Nope. If you support laws that censor criticism of israel you are not a free speech supporter, let alone an absolutist. The term has a very clear definition and it's the opposite of what the antisemitism law entails.
>... I am not American, neither do I have anyone in power who supports the speech I agree with.
Did I say you were American? All of Europe and many parts of Asia are way worse when it comes to free speech.
>Do you support Free Speech of the person screaming obscenities at your young child? False claims about you? Whipping up entire communities to attack you physically?
Yes. If it's just words and not a direct threat it's fine.
Direct threats are a fine exception because they promise crossing over from words into physical action, at that point the NAP is violated if you want to look at it that way. No need to wait and see if they're actually going to follow through.
Aside from that I really don't see any need for further exceptions.
I'd argue that someone who has effectively control over some kind of mob riling them up is quite a bit more threatening than a "direct threat" if they know that mob contains people that will (or even just are very likely to) commit violence as a result of it: instead of making one direct threat, they generate multiple (indirect and possibility silent) ones.
>Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
In my country (Macedonia), our then-Prime Minister a few years ago during the height of the pandemic, spoke (broken) English and funnily pronounced vaccines, something like "vac-signs" (or "vaksajns" in Macedonian). A guy made a website called vaksajns.com or .mk (can't remember the exact details) and if you visited it, it automatically redirected you to the Ministry of Health covid watch page. Police showed up at his door and he was taken to the police station to be questioned. This would never happen in a true free speech country like the United States.
Free speech in principle is enshrined in the Macedonian constitution as a fundamental right (I studied law), but there are many hate speech laws (we have a complex ethnic structure and wars based on ethnic sides), making it so that free speech isn't a thing (I studies law, if I need to clarify once more.)
If you criticize someone based on their religion, ethnicity, or whatever else that they can't control, you will be fined, or worse (although this does get selectively applied, mainly based on how much political power the group has which the offended member is a part of. Roma people have no political power in this country, so this very rarely happens when they do get offended(I don't think it has ever happened to be honet))- this does not happen in the US where free speech rains supreme (to clarify, i don't think we should go around criticizing people based on things they cant control, *but once you start limiting things the people can and cannot say, you don't have free speech* in your nationstate, Period.)
And what's funny, nobody talks about freedom of speech. Ever. Every political party and politicians of opposing political parties, and even their supporters have seemed to implicitly agree that it's somehow not an issue at all that the all-good state can tell you what's right and what's wrong, and what can be said and what can not be said.
Another funny story. At around the same time when the previous story takes place, the government made an official dictionary of the Macedonian language, supposed to contain all of the known words, BUT excluded all of the offensive words. Talk about state censorship...
What I described, more or less applies to the entire EU. Hate speech laws reign supreme in Europe. Asian countries do not have a good track record of freedom of speech, to say the least, either. I'm not sure about Africa, though I'm sure, that in the countries that do have a stable government, things aren't dissimilar when compared to European and Asian countries.
I've also lived in the US, and I've observed that it's the only place in the world where free speech is, actually, free.
Anybody who disagrees hasn't lived in a country other than the US *and* experienced life there. No, going to a country for 3 months back in '98 when you were in college and only going to parties does not, alas, constitute experiencing life in that country - at best you experienced party life (if you were not blackout drunk), which is a very tiny subset of life.
And to the Europeans and other people except those who live in the US, trust me, you do not know, what free speech feels like, not until you can experience the true freedom to express yourself like you can in the US. If you've done extensive research on this topic, you may actually know what it is, but not the actual indescribable feeling.
Also, have you ever heard of what happened in Tiananmen square, in Hong Kong a few years ago, in Prague a few centuries ago, in Kent State in the US (mind you, one of these was taken much, much, inexplainably much more seriously than the other events.) But I guess you haven't, considering you're asking people to convince you that free speech is not valued that much in countries outside the US.
I suppose that's why a silly Canadian like me wouldn't know much about other countries. We just don't have free speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad...
You do not seem truly interested though. My guess is that you do not feel that your particular speech/expressions are under threat.
Your America-centric view of the world is pretty fun though.
Nowhere does
You're speaking of Canada, the same country where the (Canadian) Bill of Rights can be suspended (which to begin with, this document is not taken very seriously) along with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is present in your constitution, and free speech with it, for the "good of the people" of course... Yep, you're right, you don't have meaningful free speech, nor do you have that many rights compared to the US.
Oh, and, you're Prime Minister is also basically an absolute monarch compared to the US President, given how few meaningful checks there are limiting his power.
I admit, a few years ago I was naive about just how free Canada is, but once I started reading your statutes a lot of things started surprising me, in a not-so-good way.
(Now, don't take this the wrong way, you're still a freer country than fricking North Korea, but relatively speaking, for a Western democracy, you just ain't that free, bud.)
That's a significant disadvantage democracies that embrace freedom of speech have, though. China/Russia/other authoritarian shitholes have a very easy time shaping, blocking or severely limiting information spread from the outside world. Trying to play nice against a side which is cheating and playing dirty isn't exactly a winning strategy...
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Btw even Nazi radio broadcasting was not blocked during WW2 in GB.
No, they just executed their announcer for treason just for what he said on radio and accepting German citizenship (and it was not even clear he was legally a British subject to begin with...). Also jamming it back then wouldn't have been that easy and worthwhile also the Nazis occasionally allowed POWs to send messages to their families back home.
Btw the scale of censorship and other measures restricting the freedom of speech in Allied states during WW2 (or WW1 for that matter) were was extreme by modern standards.
American freedom of speech aka "you can literally be fired and see your life ruined for having a political opinion but you won't go to jail so be thankful"
The 1st Amendment guarantees you the right to say whatever the fuck you want, with some very specific caveats concerning disturbing the peace, but freedom is power and power is responsibility.
How is the US different from any other country in history in that regard?
You can be in North Korea and freely criticize the government, you're just not gonna be "free from the consequences".
Turns out, being protected from the 'consequences' is what actually matters.
Boe Jiden will probably sue you for defamation.
The courts will very likely give him the win, slamming you with a hefty fine and perhaps more such as prison time depending on the damages your speech incurred.
You can say Boe Jiden is a purple Martian born in Backwaterstan again, so long as you're fine going through that rigmarole again though you'll probably face even heftier penalties.
You are in no way prevented from voicing your thoughts because the 1st Amendment guarantees your right to do so. You can only ever be prosecuted for the consequences, such as the fallout from making false statements.
Again, freedom of speech exists in North Korea and it's protected by law, it's just that you're not free from the consequences of abusing freedom of speech.
Again, note precisely what is prosecuted here in the US where free speech is a guaranteed Constitutional right. You can with absolute power say whatever you want, but you will need to own up to it.
If you don't or can't own up to what you say, don't speak. This isn't a violation of free speech because nobody is prohibiting or otherwise compelling you from speaking.
Either we say that people are free to express their opinions, or we punish people for saying things we don't like. Can't have both at the same time.
The other guy used the argument "but the US constitution guarantees freedom of speech" yeah so does North Korean, argument invalid.
I don't understand why this step "if people can be punished for saying something then they don't have freedom of speech" isn't an obvious logical statement.
> but the US constitution guarantees freedom of speech" yeah so does North Korean, argument invalid.
Well courts in the US are somewhat independent and generally tend to usually adhere to that part of the US constitution when making decisions. North Korean courts? Not so much... Obviously it's a spectrum since the world is not black and white but I really don't quite understand what are you trying to say.
Are you seriously claiming that you don't see a fundamental difference between the US and North Korea in this case? Or do you just want someone to spend their time compiling a list of Supreme Court decisions relating to freedom of speech?
This is the problem because 99% of people are effectively dependent on their employers, and there's huge power imbalance between employers and employees.
In Europe there's a specific list of reasons which can result in work contract termination. This means that the employer cannot fire me just because I posted on Facebook "vote for party X for better future". This means that I feel free to post this because I know nobody will ruin my life over that.
In most US states there's a specific list of reasons why people cannot be fired - which means they can be fired for all other reasons, and "posting on Facebook that you support given party" does not belong to that list, which means that you can be fired for that, which effectively makes you think twice before you say things publicly.
I really don't think that "you don't go to jail but you have your life ruined by being fired and becoming unemployable" is such a fantastic deal and an example of freedom of speech.
That's the real issue, however fundamentally I don't really see an issue if saying certain things publicly makes you effectively unemployable.
> In Europe there's a specific list of reasons which can result in work contract termination.
It varies by country but I'm not sure it applies to illegal/banned speech? Also in Europe you can be convicted and fined for quoting the Hadith while not being a Muslim* and the ECHR doesn't see a problem with that (which unfortunately proves that "freedom of speech" is just not a thing in Europe).
Germany is putting people in prison (for as long as 5 years) just for their speech (as false and repulsive as it might be. How is that better than making those people "unemployable"? Which probably wouldn't even be the case since there (unfortunately) are still plenty of people who'd hire nazi apologists (both in US and Europe).
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.S._v._Austria_(2018)
> is such a fantastic deal and an example of freedom of speech.
IMHO it really depends on what opinions exactly did you express. Again I don't see how is it any fairer to impose your personal controversial views on your employer (even if indirectly).
You are still failing to understand that nobody is prosecuted for what they say in the US. What is prosecuted is the damages incurred from what is said, such as damage to reputation in the case of defamation or physical/financial harm in the case of false marketing.
If you can't understand that, you need to go back and do your homework before you continuing discussing freedom of speech.
How about just political opinions? How quickly we forgot "free speech zones." This is the government actually limiting public speech in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
BTW, I am not for this regulation in any way. I just don't see the connection to hate speech.
https://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/in...
Maybe it's easier to see if you're not American and thus aren't covered by the first amendment.
To just think that a bunch of people not liking something means that something is inherently bad is missing the context for why those people think something is bad, and who told them to think that.
If a billion people think you're an asshole for no objective reason, then you are just doing something they are emotional about.
Plenty of methaforical ideological death marches on different topics could have been avoided by social gatekeepers not having the social power to silence their friends or party co-members.
Pretending the question is really about someone being rude is patronizing by XKCD.
The concept of 'showing the door' is fine for practical reasons but the other present at the party need to follow in protest on any just so slightly transgression of power.
So now when authoritarianism and racism are in fashion again in ”the West”, those political movements that oppose it are in a quite bad spot, since freedom of thought and expression have been turned down to do a shortsighted delay of the shift in the first place.
Of course unless you are trying to win an internet argumet about free speech with a gotcha that makes you feel smart then you will realize that free speech doesn't just mean preventing the government from directly interfering with your speech but is a much broader concept.
Really because all the people I've seen who bitch about both the lack of their freedom to speak and of being accused of hate speech never shut up, in fact it's seemingly their entire career now to make public appearances at venues and complain about how silenced they are, into hot microphones, for an audience.
I’m also in this camp and have been down-voted into oblivion many times for just saying something like “I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
It’s not fun to be a defender of truly free speech because you get painted into the same camp as the bad guys.
If you disagree with me on major issues, I will defend your right to state that. But if I find myself in a place full of hate, be they nazis, or tankies, or whatever, I leave and don't come back.
> Would you defend my right to call your little brother or sister terrible disgusting names? Threaten you or your family's lives? Say that your entire ethnicity doesn't deserve to exist?
Out of these three examples, the first and third are totally legal in the U.S.
I don’t agree with or like any of the things you say but I would rather live in a world where you can say them instead of being arrested.
And turns out very few people want actually free speech. We're in a forum with strong moderation and the discussion is better for it. Most communities self-enforce norms even without central moderation. There's no easy answers when you have to reckon with the real effects speech has. Germany wasn't special, they weren't even alone at the time. What folks call "fascism" naturally precipitates under the right conditions and I can't think of any time in history where it's been dealt with by the socratic method and not violence of a kind.
But once you have a word you can accuse someone of with actual repercussions folks acting in bad-faith try to fit people they don't like into the mould. We think ourselves so much better than those silly puritans accusing people of witchcraft but we just changed the words. I'm sure you could name five off the top of your head that people level without any kind of justification.
Big online forums with any kind of global popularity already have an inherent problem despite the moderation, not because of hate speech but because of ragebait and other forms of grifting. Especially with anonymous users.
Firstly, that Germany's descent into fascism and anti-semitism were both helped by the lack of free speech. Blasphemy laws prevented the anti-semitism preached from the pulpits to be challenged, and hate speech laws actually helped the Nazis publicise their movement[1].
> Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews.
As to norms, they can be self-enforced because free speech allows such a choice, otherwise it would be the case that those norms were imposed or not even available. Most likely, they'd be someone else's norms.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v... Interview with Fleming Rose about his book.
I guess the analysis about Nazis in the Weimarer Republik are far more complex than a matter of free speech. It tells a lot that I never heard historians seriously discussing it in this context.
> It tells a lot that I never heard historians seriously discussing it in this context.
If you got the first part wrong then the second is only telling in the other direction.
It's difficult to explain why this is wrong because the very premise that ideas are even in competition in the manner you're suggesting just isn't true. There isn't some arena where scribes record victories and losses. And even on the individual level it doesn't work, that someone when presented with the truth will change their opinion. People won't even change their opinion even when it stands to benefit them personally.
I think folks get this idea of "marketplace of ideas" in their head and assume that "fitness" for an idea correlates with correctness. That better ideas spread and survive. No — entertaining ideas, ideas that conform to our existing biases, ideas that we were conditioned to think, ideas that get repeated over and over by someone with a big enough megaphone, ideas that sound plausibly correct, ideas that make people feel clever for thinking them, ideas that fit a particular narrative you believe, propaganda that is spread far and wide.
Being right has never and will never be enough. No one, not you, not me, not anyone is immune to taking on bad ideas. It took 40 years of the entire god damn western world organizing itself around a single message to get a critical mass people to believe that homosexuals were regular people and it still hasn't fully worked. Women have the rights we do because of the feminist movement in the 1970s. Slavery was abolished in 1865 and folks still think black people are inferior.
You're taking on the fallacy that progress just happens and isn't the result of a fuckton of work and sacrifice by people who consciously made it happen and who are out in the fields weeding constantly.
"When your crops are so bad you need to use herbicides to kill weeds lest they immediately take over your farm, it's time to change your crops."
Progress is relative.
In real life on the other hand I want to be able to say stupid things and even if I might be more sensible to others' "hate speech" I would not want that to be banned.
So the free speech absolutist groups got infiltrated by those that wanted to dog whistle and (almost) never tailored arguments to those who were strongly opposed; and worse, those who need free speech the most.
The same often goes for encryption. And we have to deal with adversaries that are willing to straight up lie and promise things that sound nice and sound accurate (things that follow when using basic logic but don't if nuance is incorporated). There are no universal optimas, things with no downsides/costs. But most importantly we have to tailor arguments to audiences, not expect them to be just taken and understood like we do. The priors are different and their objective functions may be different as well. So often people will argue what they think is most important to fall of deaf ears because people don't consider that thing important (at least in context).
The government should not make any speech illegal on a federal level, but individual private businesses or websites (like HN) can still decide what's tolerated on their property.
And the corollary -- I believe in free speech but there are some people I'll never listen to, even though I believe in their right to speak.
https://opentodebate.org/debate/mock-trial-murthy-v-missouri...
The first debater said it was okay because the companies complied voluntarily. I found myself at first nodding along.
Then, at least for me, after hearing more arguments I was like, "okay, she's basically saying if President Trump calls Musk and says (please censor anything pro-Biden)" that's fine as long as there's no "or else". To me it seemed wrong for that to be ok.
The other debater also pointed out that even if there was no explicit "or else" the twitter files made it clear the people there thought there was an implicit "or else".
It's a hard problem.
This whole thing is a question of degrees. I think "common carrier" was a useful concept: loss of control traded for immunity.
Edit: That said postal systems are generally owned by the government. So I suppose ultimately (if nothing else) it would be up to their T&C. But I don't see how they could reasonably justify monitoring the traffic. It's not like it's a PR issue for them what users share through their tubes. I would imagine it'd make sense to have them regulated similarly as the postal system (ensuring private communications).
The early internet was like a race track for experienced drivers. Nowadays even kids are allowed to participate so all cars are heavily speed limited, with soft bumpers and a huge framework of regulations and protections.
That's fine in itself, but more importantly (to the point) it doesn't mean that pure race tracks should be banned. That's where all the interesting stuff happens.
Many free speech absolutists would agree that Hacker News should not be compelled to publish off-topic or rule-breaking discussions any more than a cake shop owner should be compelled to sell you a cake displaying a message that the cake shop owner doesn't agree with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v_Ashers_Baking_Company_Lt...
I think one of the main problems "free speech absolutist" have is that they chose such an awkward phrase to self-identify themselves. The word "absolutist" is so unambiguous that it implies that seemingly no one would qualify for it besides true loons which makes the whole idea easy to dismiss.
When you really get down to it, almost everyone supports some type of restriction on speech. This should be especially apparent when discussing legislation like this in which the goal is preventing the distribution of child porn. How can a "free speech absolutist" be okay with a government making certain images and videos illegal to share? Wouldn't a true absolutist fight for people's right to distribute child porn?
The ambiguity of "absolutist" ends up making any reasonable "free speech absolutist" debate the meaning of the word "speech". Suddenly things like child porn, defamation, threats, fraud, and/or the location of Elon Musk's private plane need to be debated as whether they qualify as "speech". The chosen phrase necessitates that the "absolutist" need to weaken the idea of "free speech" in order to seem reasonable. Which in turn makes people who are ostensibly pro-free speech start to question whether something like hate speech should even qualify for free speech protections.
So a "free speech absolutist" either needs to argue some truly extreme views like why child porn should be legal or they weaken the overall pro-free speech side of the whole debate.
separately, you say, 'I think it is fundamentally dishonest to point to a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph as any sort of representative example of "child porn".' however, the thing you think is dishonest is something you made up, not something i said, suggested, implied, or agree with
Without responsibility there is no free speech. Making bunch of regulations, collective guilt etc. wont learn those few abusers why their actions might harm others.
Free speech absolutism is also known as 'Meiklejohnian absolutism' which pertains to the 1st amendment with a particular opposition to the liberal interpretation of 'clear and present danger'. Heather Lynn Mac Donald is prominent person who holds similar views on speech and she makes the case that calling for end of Israel is protected free speech since there is not a 'clear and present danger'. The people calling for that genocide are presently unable to carry it out. It's actually one of the things I agree with Claudine Gay about. The problem in Harvard's case is that it's selective free speech but that is a different issue.
The liberal interpretation of the 'clear and present danger' carve out for the 1st amendment is the reason why there is so much emphasis on tying speech to violence. This is why safe spaces must be created where views that could make things unsafe are not permitted. For example, misgendering people could cause them to commit suicide therefore you are in effect murdering people with your words. It's a total stretch of the 'clear and present danger' but it is done at such a scale that is has been effective.
The last thing I fought against was the removal of The Daily Stormer from the internet. I figured it set a bad precedent which was sure to be abused. Once services have signaled that they can be swayed then immense pressure would be brought to bear to sway them further. Another reason is that I think it's important to hear what people say instead of what some people say about what some other people say. I think the Taliban and ISIS should also have websites. I also figured it was very counter productive. If you're going to do it once, fine, but don't keep doing it. By first forcing the most extreme people out of mainstream and onto alternate sites the character of those sites will change to be more extreme. By subsequently forcing less extreme people out of mainstream these people have no where to go except for the already extreme sites where they will be outnumbered and they will see the existing extreme views as the new consensus. Slowly salami-slicing the mainstream fosters the creation of a large and very extreme population which is extremely counter productive. A similar effect can be seen in prison populations where many people who go to prison are forced to join dangerous gangs for their own protection and instead of becoming rehabilitated they become far more dangerous than when they went in.
I think cynical political operatives knew this and did this intentionally as part of the 'pied piper' strategy where the 'basket of deplorables' needs to both be large and unpalatable to the rest of the population in order for that group to be effectively disenfranchised. The problem is when that basket gets too big and is no longer able to be disenfranchised and instead elects the pied piper president. I think Q-anon is an soviet style 'Operation Trust' that basically sent a substantial portion of the population insane - intentionally. One would think that they would have learned their lesson the first time when Trump got elected, but having succeed the second time they're going to try for a third time. This whole process is immensely damaging. Even now the attempts to destroy Trump are counter productive and instead helping him.
My primary concern is for the health of the middle class and I worry about mass immigration undermining that. I say this as an immigrant with the understanding that I would be personally worse off were it not for immigration. I think those in the middle class have legitimate grievances and ignoring the issue of mass immigration and deriding those opposed to it as hateful bigoted stay at home xenophobes has lead to the success of populists parties. Attempts at disenfranchising those populists parties with coalitions has only delayed the now seemingly inevitable.
I'm vehemently against hate speech laws, they start out as hate speech modifiers and through that simple existence now require the courts to establish thoughts through invasions of privacy. I think this rises to the level of thought crime in effect and is of course very Orwellian. Once the notion of hate speech crimes has been established it was just a matter of time before legislation makes it official, if not at the federal level then at the state level. I think the new 'anti-Zionism is antisemitism' conflation in combination with 'antisemitism is hate speech' in effect now makes criticism of Israel illegal, it'll be interesting to see how that is enforced as it's such a ridiculous notion. Predictably the left is now on the receiving end of the very policies there were instrumental in establishing. They have been hoisted by their own petard.
The attempt to stamp out 'hate' makes as much sense as the Soviet attempts in their creation of the 'New Soviet man' free from 'greed'. There are already proposals to stop companies from being 'greedy' though legislation.
I find it rather interesting that Popper's paradox espouses the idea that one must be 'intolerant of the things that threaten tolerance' sounds really similar to George Lincoln Rockwell's philosophy of 'you must hate the things that threaten what you love.' In both cases giving people license to do what they wanted to do anyway.
For me the battle is over, limited to posts like this, my focus these days is to avoid the crushing of the middle class by being as economically far away from the middle class as possible.
That's how you get another level of super-government, i.e. one more tyrant in the chain
Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence .
Maybe checks and balances would work as a system, but the EU has neither
This sort of rhetoric is dangerous.
> Maybe checks and balances would work as a system
It does seem to be working well in America.
For governments.
> It does seem to be working well in America.
They say ignorance is bliss.
Ahh yes, because only government officials die in war.
> They say ignorance is bliss.
Who's ignorant?
How?
Could provide an constructive alternative viewpoint instead of calling plain facts of history "dangerous" or "rhetoric" as if acknowledgement of history is dangerous?
It does not state "revolution and violence is the only way forward"
This is a really unfair reading of my stance, and I'm fairly confident you knew what I meant - especially since I spelled it out in my last comment.
Acknowledgement of history is fine. Implications that the way things have always went is the only way it can go is silly at best and dangerous at worst.
I apologize if I was unfair, I'm just trying to have a provocative conversation, no offense intended.
Calling an acknowledgement of history either dangerous, rhetoric, or weighed with the burden of intangible implication seems like a way to shame the observer for observing what is obvious. Just mentioning historical violence is not an endorsement of it or a suggestion that it's the only tool available to the slighted. I find that reaction itself to be the actual danger.
As for my position being dangerous... I don't see how that's the case. Again, as I've clarified, I do not find it dangerous to acknowledge history (of course that would be dangerous itself) just using history to imply dangerous things.
It's probably worth pointing out that this is a common propaganda tactic of the powerful.
WalMart is the largest private spender in the world at around ~$400B per year. The US Federal Government alone spends >$400B per month...
That doesn't even include state and local governments which basically doubles that.
I could easily see a self-employed Google user who decided to cut all ties with Google basically having to build a new life from scratch.
This already exists in the EU, the EU charter of Fundamental Rights https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat.... states "Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications", however it seems to have been ignored.
EU politicians should keep their over inflated salaries, and stick to what they are good at. Meeting with Google and Microsoft lobbyists at the best Brussels luxury restaurants.
Are you talking about the same EU that just passed the DMA? That must have been some really nasty food poisoning then!
If Chat Control goes ahead long-term that will outweigh any benefits DMA might have.
My bet is that they'll only allow "Trusted Partners" to interact with their network, and you'll need to sign a contract with one of these partners to connect to WhatsApp. This contract will have pretty much the same terms as signing up with Meta directly.
Wasn't that NATO (aka mostly the US)?
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.
I think that one needs strong economic ties, but it seems to only truly work with democratic societies.
Economic interdependence is a deterrent against war, not an absolute barrier.
If you can easily swap trade partners for example, it's less of a deterrent. Which is one of the reasons why EU has gone beyond simple import/export agreements.
The concept of the ECSC/EEC/EU as a political federation was always a goal of some small number of federalists (mostly in the beginning communists who were imprisoned on Ventotene during the war), but they didn't have any support for that from the people of Europe themselves, which is why the history of the EU is full of the people building it saying explicitly that they have to lie about their true intentions and can only expand its powers during a crisis.
Certainly there was absolutely no intent anywhere immediately after WW2 to create a political federation. Far from it.
“There will be no peace in Europe if the States are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty, with all that that entails in terms of prestige politics and economic protectionism. The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the prosperity that modern conditions make possible and consequently necessary. Prosperity for the States of Europe and the social developments that must go with it will only be possible if they form a federation or a "European entity" that makes them into a common economic unit.”
Federation was always the goal and it was in direct response to WWII.
I only make the point because the current EU is so far removed in scope from the initial post-WW2 version
As so many things, the organization we now call EU has changed over time. Pretending it formed ex nihilo in 1993 is at least as silly as ignoring what came before.
Reality is messy and drawing hard lines can easily discard a lot of nuance. But if I have to, I would place the foundation of the EU in the post-war era, not at the Maastricht Treaty
Pretending is believing the EU is just a handful of countries getting together to form a farming union to feed their people, in 2024. The EU is a totally different beast. To imply or believe otherwise is delusional
And "x86" is not the same term as "8086"
Yes and it was/is very successful at that. The overpaid and incompetent bureaucracy in Brussels seems to be mostly tangential if not detrimental to that.
Also to be fair your take is also very shallow and provides little value.
The EU's mutual defense clause is an empty shell
The previous Portuguese PM António Costa, who had to resign amid a corruption inquiry...Has just been announced today for an EU role that will triplicate his previous annual salary as Portuguese prime minister
"Portuguese PM António Costa resigns amid corruption probe" - https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-prime-minister-anto....
"Portugal's Antonio Costa expected to be next head of European Council" - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portugals-antonio-costa...
"...Costa's appetite for a top European position has been an open secret for years. In March 2022, amid speculation Costa was angling for a Brussels job, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned him that he would call an election if he were to leave his post early..."
It is a graft and of the worst kind, and naive takes like yours is what led to scenarios like Brexit. It's a jobs for the boys organization and you are not part of the club.
No they should be kept accountable for their actions and the money they waste. Currently there is no mechanism for that, but i m sure hordes of them would quit if we made one
It's really disappointing that Sweden are behind this as they have some extremely talented people only they aren't being listened to.
Only this isn't something which can be solved by technical measures without abandoning "Liberté, égalité, fraternité". This is something for China/Russia/Iran/North Korea/England, not France.
I sent something I composed myself, but this template looks good if you need inspiration.
https://nextcloud.pp-eu.eu/index.php/s/cwyRic7cC5zcfHk?dir=u...
It's going to be awful not having Patrick Breyer reporting these activities.
Really his snide at the right gaining traction in his post shows that he still doesn't get it.
I know there are alternatives to Facebook - I've pitched all of them to my friends, but people my age are still only on Facebook.
[1] https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
Apple: Their CSAM detection system that was lambasted not too long ago[0]
[0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
The Apple system was pretty much the best way this could be done short of having a 100% reliable "AI" system on-device detecting bad stuff.
It wasn't 100% reliable and in fact people quickly found collisions. Which you should expect to be able to with an even more advanced system.
> Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics of 2021
There's much nicer ways to say this that is congruent with community standards[0]. If you believe I have misunderstood then try pointing out specifically what I have misunderstood instead of just making an assertion.
But the question was if anyone was aware of any client side scanning technology that could in fact check for stuff such as CSAM. In fact, the Apple system was developed explicitly for this purpose, so yes, this does exist. While Replay doesn't have this explicitly feature stated (that I'm aware of), it is not a big step to think that you can just smash the two things together. As Apple shows a system detecting based on images and Replay is taking images of one's computer.
They forgot that:
a) It required _multiple_ matches before it was mathematically possible for Apple to see any of the photos
b) AFTER the multiple matches to known and verified CSAM signatures there would be an actual human looking at the picture (at reduced resolution or something like that)
c) Only after the human factor they would consider getting law enforcement involved.
Now your fancy collision has slightly inconvenienced a minimum wage CSAM checker for 15 seconds.
Not exactly a master plan for getting people SWATed for CSAM possession =)
--
And the "Misunderstanding Olympics" was referring to the fact that I think I was one of 12 people in the world who actually read the specs of how the system was designed and didn't just imagine in my head how they might've done it and started panicking about "Tim Apple looking at every photo on my phone!!11".
It is about how such a technology can enable abuse. It does not matter if the technology is exclusively used for good if the harm it does if abused is too great. And we have plenty of evidence to see that irrespective of which country you reside in, that the scope of such projects typically widens. We also live in a global world and we are not exclusively subjected to the laws of our own governments. We don't have to go far back in history to see examples of the government turning on its own citizens. It is not just the US, it is not just German, not just Russia, not just China, but such actions have been prolific. I do not believe the is sufficient reason to believe your own government is incapable of abusing such power and I'd accuse you of lunacy if you claim that no government would seek to abuse it. Was not the US founded on the explicit principle of treating the government as an adversarial entity? Because if not, well then one of us must be illiterate, since Federalist 10 and 51 famously write this explicitly. Not to mention a litany of quotes by Jefferson.
experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny
This may be true, and yet it's also true that it was still a terrible plan. This is exactly why it simply shouldn't be done at all.
In the "think of the children" scenario the parents are incentivized to consent to some filter. (So they or someone(!!!) gets an alert if the boogeyman is talking to their kids, asking them to send nudes, or sending dick pics.)
See recital 13 on top of page 7 for the definition.
And see 17 on bottom of page 8 for this:
"To allow for innovation and ensure proportionality and technological neutrality, no exhaustive list of the compulsory mitigation measures should be established"
and
(page 46) "... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
This is a framework. It seems to be coming from overly-anxious law nerds who can't stop thinking of the children. (And yes, this usually makes them a problem, because they're nigh unreasonable.)
It seem to be set up as a DIY thing for providers. And, again, for parents it makes sense, let your kids surf on the marked-safe-for-kids part of the Internet. (And nowadays kids really spend most of their time on (in!) certain apps, not in a web browser.)
The ugly part is that there are fines to compel the providers to adjust their risk metrics. (page 104, page 110 mentions max 6% of global turnover)
This clearly seems to be a softish push to assign a cost to internet ecosystems for online child sexual abuse.
On page 45 there are some requirements.
The provider needs to think about risks (but guidelines will come from authorities anyway), have some appropriate budget to actually work on this it the context of its own service, and then if it looks like there are problems it should spend money on remediation. (Ie. spend on content moderation, work with other providers in the industry, have a team and provide UX to notify that team, and allow users to limit what they share with others based on age.)
A pretty common example in my circle is parents taking pictures of baby rashes/pimples/blisters etc to send to family doctor or doctor friends.
It sounds like a situation where every parent with a toddler will end up on some list.
One page 17 section 28 says "... constantly assess the performance of the detection technologies and ensure that they are sufficiently reliable, as well as to identify false positives and avoid to the extent erroneous reporting to the EU Centre, providers should ensure human oversight and, where necessary, human intervention, adapted to the type of detection technologies and the type of online child sexual abuse at issue. Such oversight should include regular assessment of the rates of false negatives and positives generated by the technologies, based on an analysis of anonymised representative data sample"
and for the draft law language see page 60 which says that after the user reported something the provider forwards is anonymized to this new EU Centre, where there human verification has to take place.
So supposedly this means our tax will pay for folks to look at a ton of rashes and pimples.
Here's the only relevant section, which links to an article [1] that says only that discussion will continue on the 19th June:
According to documents leaked by netzpolitik.org, the COREPER 2 meeting in which they will put it [compromise proposal] to a vote will already take place on Wednesday, 19 June.
[1] https://netzpolitik.org/2024/anlasslose-massenueberwachung-f...
> If Chat Control is endorsed by Council now, experience shows there is a great risk it will be adopted at the end of the political process.
meaning: there will be little opposition to the proposal once it reaches the MEPs.
meaning: because the dust hasn't settled on the EU parliamentary elections, MEPs could vote without giving full attention to the law.
Call me an optimist, but I still hold hope that that's not the case.
Will TLS have to be redone with a third snooping party in the mix? Is that what we're going for here?
So whenever you send anything to example.com you also send it to government-snooping-service.org?domain=example.com.
And if you refuse to adjust your app you will get fined I guess.
Will curl have to self report every request? Lol...
Every client? Like will axios need to self report?
For actual details in the draft see
page 45 and 46 ... https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
...
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
No, it's client side scanning - you have a database with bad material / a neural network trained to detect such material. Only when it detects a positive match, it will contact the government server.
So app developers would be required to add code that will scan every message you send for "sensitive" content (which can be defined however the politicians like and be changed any time), and the app will report your message to the government.
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-p...
- providers spend money on having a counter-abuse team
- providers and authorities cooperate to identify risks
- providers implement proportional controls based on the risks
users can continue to run their own private stuff.
it seems this has almost nothing do with the organized sex crime stuff, it's about catching those lone pervs who realized they can send dick picks to minors all day.
see page 45 and 46 https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
[0] yes, amazing name, I know, I know, thank you
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
for more details on this thing see page 45 and 46
in general this is a framework to
- have big players to spend money, have a team that for this, and have effective "parental controls" (have more age-appropriatedness controls, more tagging options for users/content, etc)
- have an EU center that works on the technological part of the problem
So regular folks would get scanned, but the bank's private messaging service isn't included. Just like the child pornographer's private messaging service won't be included either.
Look what we got…
I am sure that no single implementation is as sophisticated as Apple had.
Preventing the spreading of CSAM is one of the key ideas behind the regulation.
I wonder what happens with pictures sent as base64 text blobs though.
Welcome all ye bards!
The relentless push, I feel may mean some American contractors are demanding their pound of flesh.
https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters/going-dark
They should be checking the bank statements of those on the EU payroll, and who are relentlessly pushing this. Make sure everything is above board.
Ahem what? Last I checked any EU country can veto anything on its own.
> Belgian EU Council presidency
It's Council of the EU, not EU Council, that's the heads of state who don't have any legislative role. But the Council only does inter-country treaties, how is this even their thing?
Only on certain topics, which have been narrowed down over time. For most areas (including something like chat control), it comes down to Qualified Majority Voting, which needs at least 55% of countries representing at least 65% of EU population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
Feels like they did this shit deliberately though, as it would never pass the Parliament for sure.
Other matters, notably foreign policy, require unanimity.
Some questions I have from reading Patrick's website:
- How do you even ensure a client is actually self-reporting? On-device attestation doesn't really work.
- As a provider of E2EE chats, should the client report to you or to a third-party (Who?)? If the client reports to you, you are now possessing CSAM. Since even possession of CSAM is illegal, how does that work?
- If a photo are flagged, will it appear in a GDPR access request?
see page 39 "5. Without prejudice to Article 10a, this Regulation shall not prohibit or make impossible end-to-end encryption, implemented by the relevant information society services or by the users"
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
see also page 46
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
also, it's a big framework without any tech requirements (see page 8 recital 17)
> Only non-commercial services that are not ad-funded, such as many open source software, are out of scope
> How do you even ensure a client is actually self-reporting?
This is an interesting technical question whether or not it's covered by the actual proposal. How do you ensure that Messenger for instance is
1. actually doing the reporting, and not someone simply bypassing the app to keep sending e2ee chats without them being client-side scanned. That would most likely be against ToS and accounts would maybe get banned if doing so
2. prevent against spam reporting, where someone could basically DoS the reporting service with false positives
> If a photo are flagged, will it appear in a GDPR access request?
There are a bunch of dispositions in the draft concerning personal data protection (ctrl+f personal data to find the relevant articles). It also states pretty much everywhere that processing should be done in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679, more commonly known as GDPR.
[0] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
What really bugs me though, is this:
> Having regard to the availability of technologies that can be used to meet the requirements of this Regulation whilst still allowing for end-to-end encryption, nothing in this Regulation should be interpreted as prohibiting, requiring to disable, or making end-to-end encryption impossible. Providers should remain free to offer services using end-to-end encryption and should not be obliged by this Regulation to decrypt data or create access to end-to-end encrypted data
I believe this was added as a request from France, which didn't want E2EE to be undermined by this proposal. However, the provider would need to "create access to end-to-end encrypted data" to report it to the EU Centre. Although the following article states that E2EE can still be used if you don't send images, videos and URLs, so I guess that's the compromise?
Sorry, I don't follow. Am I misreading something? To me the the quoted text says the opposite.
"Providers should remain free to [...] and should not be obliged by this Regulation to [...] create access to end-to-end encrypted data"
> prevent against spam reporting, where someone could basically DoS the reporting service with false positives
Yep, probably there's no way to do this. (Likely this whole thing will be a lot of money spent to realize this.)
Yeah me too. But how would the provider report CSAM content if they are not obliged to break encryption? I don't really follow the Regulation on that part.
It's a broad framework and - based on my cursory reading:
- providers have to set up a counter-abuse team and fund it
- authorities and industry-wide cooperation on trying to come up with guidelines and tech
- counter-abuse team needs to interpret the guidelines, do "due diligence"
- provider needs to have monitoring to at least have an idea of abuse risks
- if there are, work on addressing them if possible without breaking privacy
There's a section about penalties and fines, up to 6% of global revenue, if the provider doesn't take abuse seriously. And - again, based on my understanding - this is exactly to prod big services to make these "safer, but less profitable" options.
"The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save."
"Numerous deaths can be attributed to the interruption of normal social life and routine regular social interactions. The direct factors are [25,26]:
increased mortality due to postponement of diagnoses and routine treatments increase in mortality due to non-arrival at hospitals increase in mortality due to a decrease in the level of income and as a result—use of less safe cars, reduction in the scope of physical activity, etc. “deaths of despair” caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide following loss of social-economic status increase in violence, including domestic violence; dismantling of families severe health damage to the elderly in particular—physical and mental deterioration (usually irreversible) due to loneliness, lack of movement, and routine supportive care."
[1] - Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368251/#:~:tex....
https://dsa-observatory.eu/2023/02/21/the-dsas-crisis-approa...
Not to mention that under the DSA plattforms have to delete "misinformation" in a short time span, whatever that is.