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Comment by pharos92 | Hacker News Reader

From my perspective, this is born out of NGO's and political elite. This is not an ask from or concern of the general population.

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> This is not an ask from or concern of the general population.

It isn’t, but when asked in a “Do you support saving children?” way a lot of people do support it. You might say that’s idiotic, and you’re right, but any campaign to reverse this stuff has to reckon with it.

Ditto for "do you want more secure software?" It turns out people don't realise that also means making software secured against their will.

Anyone who asks that is arguing in bad faith and using children as political weapons to achieve their ends. It's gotten to the point I outright dismiss anything the politicians say the second I hear the words "children" and "terrorists".

This is what I mean when I say it has to be reckoned with. You can outright dismiss it yourself but it doesn’t make it go away when a sizeable number of voters do not dismiss it.

Every authoritarian regime relies on large numbers of useful idiots.

Democracy seems increasingly defined by the citizens opposing some measure, and the politicians going ahead with it anyway.

Worse, Governments seem to have gotten the idea that it's their place to tell the population what to do and want when it should be the other way around.

Is it just me or is this demonizing of NGOs a very recent phenomenon trickling into the dialogue? I find it quite alarming.

It is more a long the lines that large document leaks have allowed people to see how NGOs have become vehicles for State Intelligence and corporate/political power.

Can you point me to some leaks you are referring to? Honestly curious. I have no doubt that there are some bad actors in this space, but Non Governmental Organizations is such a wide category I find it strange that that acronym keeps popping up like some evil entity rather than calling out the individual orgs.

For those paying attention, NGOs supported by the EU are good example.

Here's a news link https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/01/23/use-of-eu-fund...

I don't have time/will to find more consolidating information but some EU-Elites regularly use NGOs to support their own policy goals, against member states governments and their populations. They always excuse themselves by saying they fund everyone... but one side of the issue usually gets more funds than the other.

If I recall correctly in one "EU wants to monitor the internet" regulations, EU directly funded targeted AD campaigns to convinced some Member state populations to support it so the government would change its intended vote. They were caught and backed off. Then they funded some NGO to do it :D

"Non Government Organizations" that get (a lot of) public money and then get to use it in any clandestine way they feel like is worth demonizing.

It's more that NGOs previously got an undeserved level of trust because most people associate doing something for free with benevolence.

And not corporate despite the lobbying?

Afaik not a single serious ngo support this.

Lobbying only does something if government is corrupt.

This is either a tautology or meaningless, depending on semantics.

Q: Are there today, or have there ever been in history, any non-corrupt governments (that by your implication are invulnerable to lobbying)?

I’m pretty sure lobbying is a thing everywhere, regardless of corruption. People want the government to do stuff and will try to make it happen, from autocracies to direct democracies and everything in between.

Of course. Writing to your representative is you wanting the government to do something. There's nothing wrong with that. It's only when government is corrupt that it's a problem.

So you’re saying “lobbying can do something, even when the government is not corrupt”?

If so, then yes, that’s the point I was making, which refutes the statement that lobbying only does something if the government is corrupt. If not, then I’m confused, please help me understand what I’m missing.

It depends what you consider a “serious NGO,” but the NSPCC, the Molly Rose Foundation, the Breck Foundation, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, and other NGOs actively campaigned for and supported it.

Well sure, but no true NGO supports it.

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