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diskopanzer

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> glad that the European Union wants to protect me from bad words

What is your view on fraud?

> when people I've never voted for protect me from things I've never asked for

Not how a republic works.

the:

> people I've never voted for

Is bullshit. What about government officials from parties you haven't voted for? Or even the ones in the party you voted for you didn't vote for with preferential votes? It's the same mechanism.

> I am so glad that the European Union wants to protect me from bad words.

You're making it sound like disinformation campaigns driven by hostile state actors are free from any negative impact.

In the meantime, false advertisement is already ilegal in any remotely civilized country, and boosting hate speech is obviously far more damaging to a society than buying subpar shampoo.

> It's always good when people I've never voted for protect me from things I've never asked for.

I don't know what you are talking about. Every citizen of a member-state of the European union votes not only for their representatives in the European union but also for their own government institutions, and all executive positions are either elected by members of the European Parliament or by representatives of all member-states.

As you said, he did not voted for those guys:

  all executive positions are either elected by members of the European Parliament or by representatives of all member-states.

… I mean, that’s how pretty much all representative democracies work. In presidential systems, the head of the executive is directly elected, but there are no true presidential system states in the EU (France and some of the Eastern European states are hybrids), so it’d be a little odd if the EU worked that way. And even in presidential systems, it’s only the _head_ of the executive who’s elected; I’m not aware of anywhere which directly elects ministers (you could, and I actually would, make an argument that presidential systems are _less_ democratic than parliamentary systems in this regard, in that, once the president is installed, they typically have almost complete control over ministerial appointment, whereas in a parliamentary system it tends to involve an element of compromise between elected representatives).

The EU system has problems (in particular, it’s rather complex, and people don’t understand it well enough or take it seriously enough - in many countries turnout for European elections is miserably low), and IMO it would be good to transfer more power from the Commission to the parliament (the Lisbon Treaty did this to some extent, but further efforts _really_ annoy the eurosceptics, and are unlikely to happen in the short term), but the idea that it’s especially undemocratic is pretty weird.

> (...) but the idea that it’s especially undemocratic is pretty weird.

Based on the Russia disinformation campaign plaguing Brexit, and how this brand of bullshit was a pervasive aspect of the propaganda effort and a constant on extremist far-left/far-right parties linked to Moscow throughout europe, I would strike this as another example of this attack.

> As you said, he did not voted for those guys:

Not really. That's not how it works, and it's a very puerile and cynical take that can't be taken seriously.

Just because you didn't held a referendum to pick what brand of stationary an office clerk should buy that does not mean you didn't voted for the executive branch.

It is not how it works, yet it is true.

Here in France, the people have only one political right : give up all the power to other people (from a preselected list). Said people will then do whatever the hell they want.

So, while we accept that deal when we vote, the fact is that we do not vote for the actual things.

In just the past few days it has been reported there is a surge of influence campaigns, recruitment of saboteurs, assassination plots, hacking attacks, etc. by Russia on the EU and US.

This is why disinformation is created and spread. It has a purpose. It comes from existential adversaries. Take it seriously. If you do, and you think countermeasures are not needed, you have made a choice.

Where do you draw the line? Terrorism? Porn? Child porn?

CP are not words, that is a completely different area. Here, too, it is questionable whether this can be regulated by the state at all. But of course there is a need for investigative authorities who at least try to look into it. But do we necessarily need preventive censorship and breaking up E2E communication on WhatsApp? These are the ideas for regulating such things.

There is no need to regulate legal pornography.

With terrorism, e.g. propaganda, it is difficult. But in the end, the idea of freedom of information prevails. Of course, platforms should have the ability to regulate violent content (e.g. ISIS beheading videos), but we shouldn't give the state the ability to regulate that, because the definition of terrorism can be expanded very quickly if necessary.

I am glad to be protected from idiots who read Russian propaganda and then go marching on the streets calling for terrorism and then commit terrorism. I'd like to ban the idiots instead of banning the propaganda, but eugenics has already been ruled out.

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