"not one freak from Denmark putting this forward where it will die"
Not true. The truth is that Chat Control has returned several times already and the majority of the EU states were actually always for, but a blocking minority has been reached each time - barely so.
Worryingly, one of the blocking minority countries used to be Germany, where privacy-minded smaller parties (Greens, FDP) are no longer in government. The new government hasn't declared its position yet. If it switches to yes, then the remnants of our privacy are kaput just like that, and the only hope will be in the ECHR, or possibly (sigh) in Trump's tech bros angrily vetoing it from abroad.
So, no one freak from Denmark, but a concerted, repeated effort.
There is an even worse set of measures in the phase of preparation, ProtectEU, which would mandate backdoors in everything under the pain of prison for vendors, introduce mandatory data retention and ban non-logging VPNs.
Fuck, I don't want to live in a China with a blue flag instead of red. This is absolutely dystopian.
Don't downplay the danger. Don't spread disinformation. This isn't a random shot from a random weirdo in Denmark. This is a seriously driven EU-wide attempt to destroy meaningful encryption with a lot of proponents and backers. And the current EC chair, Ursula von der Leyen, has a history of promoting such measures, that is why Germans call her Zensursula.
As a Dane, we're sorry - democracy is imperfect and it seems that being a politician requires technological incompetence and immunity to silly things like numbers and facts. :(
> Fuck, I don't want to live in a China with a blue flag instead of red. This is absolutely dystopian.
I think it's too late. People already showed they'd loudly support this if propagandized enough like during COVID times where the most draconian and anti constitutional of policies were enacted, literally following and lobbied by China.
Unless people recognize that they did a terrible thing in supporting covid policies instead of burying their head under the sand or persisting in the ridiculous propaganda about anti-vaxxers and disinformation, they're always going to be easily manipulated. The same goes for the "let's invade new country because 'dictator/terrorism/grave threat to our western way of life'".
Are we the baddies is a rethorical question at this point.
Hahahahah. The new Normal was always meant to be temporal? You know some of us absolutely paid attention, right? You know many things absolutely remained, right?
Also, anti constitutional and anti human rights is wrong no matter if it's temporal or not.
But hey, you supported it, now deal with the fallout. Temporary like the war on terror. Give me a break.
I don't think this kind of discourse helps and I don't agree with the point. I am vehemently against chat control, but at least in my country (Netherlands) I saw nothing beyond the pale re: covid measures given the situation. I also don't see how those measures, regardless of whether you agree with them, reflect on chat control, as I'm not aware of any covid measures targeting encryption, nor of any EU-level measures you might be referring to here. Maybe you care to elucidate? Regardless by equating the two I think you alienate people, because as far as I can tell most people are still broadly understanding of COVID measures taken and the core demographic that's not is also generally in favor of Chat Control.
> I don't think this kind of discourse helps and I don't agree with the point.
Helps who? It absolutely helps to call out the hypocrisy and consequences. This is what you wanted. Enjoy it.
> I am vehemently against chat control, but at least in my country (Netherlands) I saw nothing beyond the pale re: covid measures given the situation. I also don't see how those measures, regardless of whether you agree with them, reflect on chat control, as I'm not aware of any covid measures targeting encryption, nor of any EU-level measures you might be referring to here.
You're willfully ignorant of the authoritarianism perpetrated, then.
- They imprisoned you in your home.
- They disallowed movement beyond certain ranges.
- They censored free speech and sometimes even legally punished or imprisoned people for speech. You would refer to it as "dangerous misinformation" but that is what every authoritarian government says when they're oppressing their populace.
- they blamed different political or ethnic groups of the "spread of the disease".
- they destroyed the concept of informed consent from the Nuremberg trials and coerced people under threat of job loss/house loss/family separation to get new vaccines (extremely questionable ones, to add insult to injury).
- Questioning the vaccines in any way was censored and equated with the worst of offenses.
- invasion of privacy and constitutional rights of all kinds were justified in the name of "stopping the crisis".
- there was no perceived end and many legal frameworks stayed.
> you care to elucidate?
Hope you hace fun with the above. I could go for ages.
> Regardless by equating the two I think you alienate people
Oh my sweet summer child. You think I care about alienating people who wanted to send the "evil spreaders of disease" and "fredumb" lovers to camps?
I'm absolutely over you and the likes of you. You either come to the side of anti authoritarianism fully and do a full mea culpa or I'll just laugh while loudly saying "this is what you wanted".
> because as far as I can tell most people are still brodly understanding of COVID measures taken and the core demographic that's not is also generally in favor of Chat Control
I don't quite parse the last part but I can assure you that people who were manipulated to give away their rights during COVID can be coerced or manipulated to give whatever next right they're asked. You'll scream about terrorism, the evil right, the evil foreign country, the evil criminal or whatever and that's that.
Get shocked and push for freedom for all or just take it because it's what you asked for. Nanny government. No dissent.
This seems to be done in a completely different way. Instead of a loud propaganda push, the proponents seem to want to avoid drawing attention to the proposals. Most of the big media is either completely silent about that, or only mentions those proposals shortly on the bottom of the page. Which indicates that they haven't received any instructions to push it visibly.
And I think this is partially caused by fear of possible backlash.
Not true. The truth is that Chat Control has returned several times already and the majority of the EU states were actually always for, but a blocking minority has been reached each time - barely so.
Worryingly, one of the blocking minority countries used to be Germany, where privacy-minded smaller parties (Greens, FDP) are no longer in government. The new government hasn't declared its position yet. If it switches to yes, then the remnants of our privacy are kaput just like that, and the only hope will be in the ECHR, or possibly (sigh) in Trump's tech bros angrily vetoing it from abroad.
So, no one freak from Denmark, but a concerted, repeated effort.
There is an even worse set of measures in the phase of preparation, ProtectEU, which would mandate backdoors in everything under the pain of prison for vendors, introduce mandatory data retention and ban non-logging VPNs.
Fuck, I don't want to live in a China with a blue flag instead of red. This is absolutely dystopian.
Don't downplay the danger. Don't spread disinformation. This isn't a random shot from a random weirdo in Denmark. This is a seriously driven EU-wide attempt to destroy meaningful encryption with a lot of proponents and backers. And the current EC chair, Ursula von der Leyen, has a history of promoting such measures, that is why Germans call her Zensursula.