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Chat Control: EU Council vote is a Green Light for Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance and the End of Right to Communicate Anonymously (www.patrick-breyer.de)
submitted 10 months ago* by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Contrary to headlines suggesting the EU has “backed away” from Chat Control, the negotiating mandate endorsed today by EU ambassadors in a close split vote paves the way for a permanent infrastructure of mass surveillance.

While the Council removed the obligation for scanning, the agreed text creates a toxic legal framework that incentivizes US tech giants to scan private communications indiscriminately, introduces mandatory age checks for all internet users, and threatens to exclude teenagers from digital life.

The article is non-paywalled, freely readable on the link --^

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[–] 24 points 10 months ago (1 child)

Remember that the Council is meant to protect and enable trade. They only care about citizens for submitting them to exploitation.

If you discuss "the EU" you have to distinguish between Council and Parliament. The Council has no obligation to act according to the Parliament's wishes. They are not a democracy.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 10 months ago*

    Thanks for your comment. I'm still only learning how legislation in the EU works. However, so far I haven't been able to confirm what you're saying. Could you help if you know? (I assume not only me, but possibly other readers, too)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_European_Union

    Here it doesn't say (almost) anything about "trade". Admittedly I've only read 2-3 pages and then used Ctrl+F to search on the rest of the page though.. Is it a de-facto split between the legislative powers of the Council and the Parliament? Where to read about it?

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    • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Ok, it seems there is little doubt that EU chat control will be implemented. The question then becomes: How can individuals opt out of this? What existing technical solutions are already available, and what needs to be newly developed?

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  • [–] [S] 28 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    there is little doubt that EU chat control will be implemented

    Personally, I believe there's a chance for stopping this. EU is not an authoritarian state. I wouldn't give up too early -- instead would rather fight and provide public pressure for the direction of the law that supports mine and everybody's freedom.

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago*

    This is like the 15th time they’ve tried to implement this. The fact that it came up, they were told his is a bad idea, it was shot down, and they STILL want to keep pushing and keep pushing it; what it really aught to tell you is that it’s time to re-evaluate your diagnosis of the EU and its tendencies.

    Authoritarianism is on the rise everywhere, because opportunists see vectors to power available everywhere in technology, now that it has firmly propagated among everyday people. They can spread lies and misinformation, and a huge swath of people just fucking buy it. Consent can be manufactured at the drop of a hat.

    They can’t allow dissenting opinions or pesky truth tellers to get in the way of their petrofortunes, of their pedo rings, their yachts, their security blankets.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    EU is not an authoritarian state

    ...yet. At this point I wish some aliens had mercy on us and nuked certain parliaments & sniped billinaires on this planet simultaneously, giving us a chance to try & start over.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    ...yet. At this point I wish some aliens had mercy on us and nuked certain parliaments & sniped billinaires on this planet simultaneously, giving us a chance to try & start over.

    why would we need aliens to do that? people reclaimed their "chance to try & start over" many times before.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Any centralized chat protocol is prone to centralized control. This is why Signal Messenger is also affected.

    Opting-out of this threat is only possible by using a decentralized protocoll that can also be easily setup by individuals.

    Matrix is practically centralized as the majority of its users is on one server, probably due to the setup being not so easy.

    There are decentralized protocols that are also practically decentralized. First coming to my mind: XMPP. Many servers offer sign-up for free. If someone wants to setup their own server instead, it takes an hour with Prosody including all configuration. They made it particularly easy as decentralization is their selling point.

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    • [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    Good luck passing that through the Parliament. (Second paragraph of the section about CC 2.0)

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