rdm_blackhole

The EU is pushing to intercept and scan all private chat messages and all emails to "protect" the children and give all this information to Europol to keep in perpetuity so they can build a profile on you but sure everything is peachy.

Then you have the German chancellor saying that we should all have our real names attached to all our online accounts but rest assured, nothing nefarious going on here.

France arrested the Telegram founder a few months ago for no apparent reason and the French Justice minister also not long ago wanted to ban EtoE because it makes their job harder so wouldn't it be nice if everyone could just simply share their private life with the government voluntarily?

The UK is looking into getting rid of VPNs to, you guessed it, "protect the children" and Denmark has re-introduced blasphemy laws.

Finally there is the DMA that has been approved the EU which outlaws hate speech on online platforms except that hate speech is never defined in the text so you can pretty much use this law to ban any content you want without due process and without consulting the population.

The US has many flaws, nobody is denying that but to assume that the EU has better privacy is a mirage from a bygone era. The EU politicians are now looking at what China is doing and use that as playbook.

> In politics, we engage in debates in our society using our real names and without visors. I expect the same from everyone else who critically examines our country and our society.

Whats the problem with this exactly? As a politician who is part of the government then every action by these people should be scrutinised intensely. We should know who they meet, when and what was agreed.

Nobody is forcing these people to become politicians but expecting transparency from people who govern us is the least we should expect from them.

We as citizens, get to criticise the decisions they take but we are not the ones in power so expecting the same transparency is completely unwarranted.

> Merz warned that liberal democracy was at risk and said he had underestimated the extent to which algorithms and artificial intelligence could be used for targeted influence campaigns.

What a bad take. As if governments would not use these same tools to shape opinions.

> He said such tools made it possible to manipulate opinion and to undermine the foundations of a free society.

Friendly newspapers and public funded news channels have been used by various governments to manipulate opinions just as much in the past.

To claim that suddenly anonymous comments on social media will bring the end of democracy as we know it is just pure fear mongering and speculation.

If Mertz feel so inclined to only engage with people who post under their real names, he can just sign up to a social media service that requires this from their users and see what happens.

Europe is really turning into a China light these days with their dreams of client side scanning of messages and the end of privacy on the internet.

Why always bringing back everything to racism? The people of Switzerland want to maintain the look an feel of their country as it is. How is racism the first thing you think of when no one mentionned race?

Those same methods of identification are created by the same people who just a few months ago were arguing if it was legal to read all your private messages in case you are criminal of some sort without warrant , without due process. You'll understand if I don't trust them.

It's funny how pointing a fact is called whataboutism.

You trust the EU's pinky promise a keep their word that your ID will be safe and secure and never tied to what you say, the content of your messages or who you send them to. If that is so, then go ahead and use it. That's your business.

> whatever negative aspect

The EU literally wants to read your personal messages because it doesn't trust that you are not some criminal in disguise. Instead of the state having to prove that you are criminal breaking the law, it wants to read everything you send and store the data permanently in case you break the law one day. If you think that is acceptable and that is an entity that can be trusted, then I don't know what to tell you.

What happens when the governments around the world decide to ban something that you care about? Will you be so eager to agree with them or will you cry that your rights and your freedom are being taken away?

Don't like social media, fine, nobody is forcing you to use it.

> Direct your anger at the geriatrics in government who don't understand the risks of these laws first.

No offence but I think you are being extremely naive if you think that the people in power and the lobbyists who have spent the last 10 years relentlessly pushing for ID verification online and mass content scanning in the US and in the EU do not know what they are doing.

Here is the thing, most people are increasingly unhappy about the way things are going whether they are on the right or the left of the political spectrum. Governments can see that and don't want to see what happened in Nepal recently repeat itself. So they are getting ahead of the curve.

First require everyone to ID themselves online, then tie everything you say to your ID then use that against you one day if you decide that enough is enough.

The western countries are looking at what China is doing and simply iterating on it. They wrap it in a nit little bow to either "fight terrorism" TM or "protect the children" TM.

This is a pure power play meant to save their asses and the people who have been warning that this was always going to be going in that direction have been ridiculed and called conspiracy nuts but here we are.

Look at OFCOM in the UK. First it was to protect children form porn. Now they are looking to expand their powers to moderate speech online based on what THEY think is acceptable. If the EU gets it's way, you'll have client scanning in all messaging apps across the EU. And it won't stop.

This sort of thing is never about protecting kids, reducing harm or whatever they call it. It's about control about what you see, what you write, all done with the purpose to determine if you as an individual will become a problem for them in the future.

The same EU that is trying to backdoor every messaging app to "protect the children" TM? I 'll use their ID system on my dead body.

They already exists except that most people don't know about it and also it is extremely hard to move over all the existing users from Whatsapp to something less popular and less user friendly.

Until that changes, then the governments around the world are going to keep pushing to get access to all our messages in order to "protect the children" TM and ask you to prove that "you are not a child" TM

> When big tech tosses money at Republicans and the Trump inauguration, they get what they paid for.

This has nothing to do with republicans in particular. This is concerted effort by lobbying groups around the world who want to get more of your data.

Case and point: all the EU countries that are currently banning teens from using messaging services and social media apps which can only be enforced if you force everyone using these services to provide some form of ID to prove that you are allowed to use them.

Not too mention the EU itself trying force a backdoor into every messaging app "to protect the children".

Be mad at the US politicians if you want but just know that the situation is not better in the EU, on the contrary it's going downhill very fast and that has nothing to do with Trump.

I am surprised to see the positive takes on this sort of thing on HN considering that we all know that is just the first step of many steps that the current governments worldwide are rolling out.

Once we agree to that, then next time, you'll need to upload your ID to do something else and by the way you don't mind proving that you are not a psychopath and/or a sexual predator if you want to keep using WhatsApp/Telegram and other services?

You also don't mind if we scan your private messages now, do you? We just want to make sure that you are are not some sort of extremist/activist or someone who might cause trouble.

The slippery slope is real.

We look down at China, Russia and Iran for silencing the voices of the protesters and dissidents but we are slowly building the infrastructure that will enable future governments to do just that in the future.

Once everything is locked down and tied to your real ID, then it will be extremely easy to suppress view points or things that any government left or right doesnt want to see spread in the wild. What then?

And those who say, well, we should just wait and see what happens in Australia because if it doesn't work out then we can always turn it off or something, my question to you is when have you seen a government go back on something like this?

> It's not an either-or.

I understand but I am telling you that this argument is basically useless when people see their bill at the end of each month.

> I wouldn't say Labour have failed here. In fact, efforts like this are steps towards lowering prices.

I don't mind splitting hairs when necessary but you are clearly not arguing in good faith. Labour pledge repeatedly that it would lower the prices by hundreds of pounds each year for good and this has not happened and Labour is running out of time.

If the promise could not be delivered on, why make it? That is just giving ammunition to the other parties who will use it against them not to mention make them look like liars.

> energy independence is also important for the nation.

None of this matters to people who can't afford to heat their homes in the winter.

The price reduction was a Labour campaign promise and on that front it has failed dramatically.

This is why people lose trusts in politicians and what has fueled the rise of the far right across Europe, when politicians make promises that they know they won't be able to keep.

However good this news is, it means nothing if the average household is not seeing any price decrease in their bill.

It's well and good to say that eventually sometime in the future prices will be lower but in the meantime it doesn't help that the prices continue to rise.

The BBC just like any other news organization is not neutral. It sometimes leans left and it sometimes lean right. The problem is that this "leaning" is never disclosed.

If a newspaper is comfortably right-wing/left-wing and so on, I don't care about their biases because at least you know that if you read it, you are going to get a "version" of a story that fits the overall narrative of the outlet.

When it comes down to publicly funded news outlet though, their neutrality is disputable and on top of that you end up paying through your taxes for "news" that have either been downplayed or exaggerated depending on who is reporting on it.

So as a tax payer, what is there to gain from being manipulated (at best) or lied to (at worst) by an organization who is supposed to be neutral but who isn't?

I wish it wasn't the case but there has been too many stories in the past in the mainstream media that turned out to be either misrepresented or made up and there was rarely any retraction/apologies on the subject.

And just in case you think that only right wingers have problem with the BBC (for example), the accusations of biases come from the left and from the right of the political spectrum so this is a problem for everyone.

> This is why you fund public media sensibly, outside the control of any given administration.

That is a very nice solution but it doesnt work in practice. If the budgets are decided by the government then there is always the possibility that neutrality on some subjects may be missing or that some amount of pressure will be applied in order to get some stories buried or on the contrary exacerbated.

Since there is no way to know which is which then how can you trust it? Personally I don't.

Public funding is not the solution. Too many conflicts of interests. Who is going to bite the hand that feeds them?

Want to get a higher budget next year? You better run some stories on the great work that the current government is doing or else...

You may say that things won't go that way but since there is no way to check then we need to rely on trust and the trust in the mainstream media for good or bad reasons has plummeted in last decade.

And don't take this comment as an endorsement of paid news media, they have the same exact problems.

That is why I said for them and their family.

If you use app A and that app is scanned for "malicious" content then I will message you on app B where there is no such scanning. If you don't want to use app B then I guess we can't be friends.

I mean at some point you need to make some choices.

But the beauty is that if anyone wants to talk through app A exclusively and their contacts are happy to respond on the same platform, then they can do that.

The rest of us can use app B.

While you have a point, you are looking at this the wrong way.

20 years ago if you had told someone you needed to get a face scan or upload your ID to view certain websites or that you might get your messages and emails scanned in case you send something that the government deems suspicious to someone else, people would have laughed at you.

Yet as we are seeing currently this is what is happening slowly but surely.

Yes, the UK government is not gunning down protesters in the street but can you say with certainty that the screws are not being tightened and that the so called western values of freedom of speech are not being eroded systematically year after year under the pretense of safety?

It seems to me that every western government is looking at what China and Russia are doing and instead of staying true to their values, they are actually trying to figure out how to roll out the same exact measures in the west.

Will we see Gulags in the west make a comeback? Most likely not but in terms of freedom of speech and online privacy rights, we are seeing clearly a rollback and if we do nothing to stop it, we will end up like China with governments looking at everything we say and write on our phone and computer and that is unacceptable especially when these measures are cowardly disguised as 'safety" measures.

I agree. If someone is happy for a government worker/algorithm to snoop through everything they send to anyone, feel free to opt in, just don't force us to participate.

> What are we to do if not monitor?

Simple, you can choose to only use platforms that use the most stringent scanning technologies for you and your family.

You give the UK government (or the equivalent that applies to you) the right to continuously scan everything from pictures to emails to messages and then obviously you give them the right to prosecute you and come after you when one of their AI algorithms mistakenly detects child porn on your device or in your messages just like this guy: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs...

For the rest of us, we should be free to opt out from being surveilled by machines 24/7.

Then everyone is happy.

Edited: typos

> Musk is implicitly allowing child pornography on his platform.

That is blatantly false and you know it. Musk has lot to answer for but we don't need to start making up imaginary crimes here.

> Apple/Google should have removed X a while ago.

Those who ask willy-nilly for censorship always end up being surprised when the systems comes after them in the end as it always does.

If tomorrow Apple and Google ban an app that you like, will you still agree that censorship is ok?

I don't understand the downvotes that you are getting.

There is a clear intent to muzzle the population that is going on in Europe with this new legislation and then with Chat control. Those who can't see that need to remove the blinders they have on.

First, it's the nudes and then it's something else. Once there is a capability to filter what can be shared between two adults in private message, then can anyone say that any government is not going to come back for more and ask more and more things to be removed or censored?

> The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)

It should be called the Ministry of Truth at this point.

> Unwanted

How do you know if a nude is unwanted? The premise itself makes no sense. The only way this could potentially work is if you had the whole context of the relationship somehow embedded in the messages and then if you deciphered the intent behind the messages. Even then what about sarcasm or double entendre?

> This is just an exercise in establishing dominance (i.e. The End of Politeness).

I agree.

It's a way to assert dominance and the EU countries are partially responsible for the state of things.

I mean, when you outsource your manufacturing capabilities to China, your tech services to the US and your security to NATO, then it frees up a lot of cash to spend on other things and that is probably why life in the EU is pretty good.

Unfortunately the other side of this coin is that it leaves you completely unprepared if/when things change quickly.

> Europe has a decade or two of hard work and crippling costs

Once again unfortunately, many EU countries are already maxing out their budgets each year and running sky high deficits so there is not much dry powder to absorb these costs.

Raising more money through taxes is politically unpalatable when a lot of the EU countries are already in the top 10 of most taxed countries on the planet.

The only notable exceptions are Poland and Germany but they won't be able to carry the rest of the EU by themselves.

> maybe even split the EU into two factions of American-bully-reluctantly-aligned countries vs American-bully-righteously-andor-selfservingly-opposed countries.

The smallest EU countries have no choice. There is no EU army and therefore if the US leaves there is no one to replace it. It's a basic case of choosing the best worst outcome. Become a vassal of Russia or become a vassal of the US.

> The EU can just kick out the US bases and forbid Mastercard and Visa working here. ASML? Good luck for Intel; I'm sure AMD would have its asses already covered and found some alternative in Asia.

The EU uses Mastercard and Visa. If youblock them in the EU, you just cripple the EU economy instantly.

> On GAFAM, there are alternatives, and libre software it's libre for the whole world, not just the US.

How many people do you know that would be willing to switch to an alternative OS tomorrow or give up their Iphones?

> If the US army steps on Greenland

The US army is already on Greenland. They have a military base there.

I agree with you in spirit but in reality any countermeasures would inflict a lot of pain the EU as well. I don't think anyone has a crystal ball but whatever happens won't be good for anyone.

> You do realize that the debt/gdp ratio is a ratio?

I realize that. I just don't agree that any austerity measures have been taken which was the point of the comment I was responding to.

If real austerity had occurred then the countries' debt to gdp ratio should have been going down for at least a few years in order to get the expenses under control.

Unfortunately, that did not happen as many EU countries including Italy, France and Greece are still not within the EU rules to this very day.

> If you cripple the gdp through austerity policies (killing borrowing to chase the “responsibility dream”) the fiscal multiplier becomes a ruinous curse.

I agree except that these austerity measures as you put it if they ever existed, did not work because the debt to gpd ratio is still increasing in many EU countries.

> Of course, pissing money into a spending bonfire, driving inflation with excess liquidity, isn’t going to help; bit it’s just as bad as crippling growth by holding it back for lack of capital injection

Well Germany doesn't care supposedly. Where that takes us, who knows.

I don't believe a "war" is brewing.

If and that is a big if, Trump were to get Greenland, there is not much that Europe can do in any case. Maybe a few politicians will go on X/twitter and complain but every country in the EU knows that they are no match for the US military and I am saying that as someone who lives in the EU.

I suppose the EU could go after big US tech companies but since most of Europe's needs are covered by the very same companies, I don't think this would be viable solution either and let's be honest the EU people are not just going to switch to Ubuntu tomorrow morning.

It's unfortunate but it's the reality.

> you benefit from it as a business owner.

When one has no response it's easier to blame the messenger. A nice cop out if I may say so.

> Yeah, because you are so superior to everybody else that people should ask you question, and their opinions are not worth your time

You are putting words in my mouth and arguing in bad faith but that's easier than making a compelling case with facts and figures.

> "I am the best, I am so frustrated that so many people don't recognise it".

If I was the only one highlighting these problems then maybe you would have point but as I have demonstrated in my other comments, the EU commission disagrees with you, the Draghi report disagrees with you and a few people here also disagree with you.

Unfortunately instead of engaging in a healthy debate and addressing the points that have been raised, you have brushed aside all the arguments and refuse to respond with anything that supports your point of view.

You decided that you were right so you are right but you don't seem to have a problem calling out other people by telling then that their opinions are not facts, while yourself ignoring all the facts presented to you. That is a clear case of double standards if I have ever seen one.

> And those who are in a dominant position generally think that they are there because they deserve it, because they are superior.

And this sentence explains your opinion. Business owner = superior = bad

You haven't responded to anything anyone has said despite the fact that a few of us seem to agree on these issues.

You basically brush aside anything that does not conform to your narrative and you also dismiss the entire report of Mario Draghi on European competitiveness: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r... who agrees that there are many issues currently with the entire tech industry in Europe.

The facts are simple: - the EU tech scene is minuscule compared to the US tech scene - the average salary of a tech worker is higher in the US than in Europe - there are many incredible challenges in Europe that stop Europe from competing properly with the US companies - there is a clear lack of innovation and a very real risk aversion and less cash spent on R&D in Europe compared to the US - European competitiveness is lacking and decreasing as time goes on compared to the US

> Those who are against regulations are the ones who benefit from the lack of regulations.

But you are right let's keep adding more rules and regulations, I am sure the next one will do the trick and help us expand our tech sector.

That would be a great narrative except that even the European commission disagrees with you since they are now exploring the option of scaling back some part of GDPR and even delaying the new AI laws because they suddenly realized that it was a major impediment to a healthy tech sector in Europe: https://iapp.org/news/a/european-commission-proposes-signifi...

In conclusion, you are arguing in bad faith, you believe what you believe because it's easier than to face the facts that Europe dropped the ball 20 years ago and missed the boat on many new technologies and that it is now trying to play catch up and unfortunately catching up will take many decades if that ever happens.