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EU Voice

social.network.europa.eu

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Re: EU Voice

#211

Post by pelasaco »

Rexxar wrote: post #206
pelasaco wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they don't cost much? If at all? You are probably wrong here, but would be nice if EU was transparent enough to tell us how much it costs. It is a server management, patch management, content management, and etc.. i can imagine that isn't as cheap as you think, done by EU employees that are normally well paid.

EU is always very transparent in general. How many time did you spend to search the answer to this question before saying "would be nice if EU was transparent enough to tell us how much it costs" ?

Yes I did. Did you?

Re: EU Voice

#212

Post by hans_castorp »

Ecstatify wrote: post #68
arlort wrote: post #64

Worth pointing out that this was launched some months ago, it's not related to ongoing events with twitter They also have a peertube instance https://tube.network.europa.eu/

I don't understand why the EU bothers wasting money on these initiatives. No one uses these platforms. Why don't they buy a considerable stake in these American social media companies instead of trying to reinvent the wheel that is deflating as soon as it launches. https://tube.network.europa.eu URL looks like a scam website. There is no way tech illiterate people can use these websites. Their first video that appear…

> No one uses these platforms.

Musk is certainly helping that platform.

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/109300967725833789

> Hey, so, we've hit 1,028,362 monthly active users across the network today. 1,124 new Mastodon servers since Oct 27, and 489,003 new users. That's pretty cool.

Re: EU Voice

#214

Post by junon »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #88
junon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but US digital law hasn't caught up to modernity. One can make the argument that European laws have, at least to a much greater extent.

Or, instead of this kind of teleological framing, that they are entitled to their own values, but are not entitled to enforce them on the rest of the world. P.S.: In a perhaps different sense, it has been decades since modernity ended.

I don't get your point.

Re: EU Voice

#215

Post by pelasaco »

arlort wrote: post #64

Worth pointing out that this was launched some months ago, it's not related to ongoing events with twitter They also have a peertube instance https://tube.network.europa.eu/

it is related. It was created after Elon Musk bid[1] was accepted. Which is strange, suggesting that Musk would be bad, supporting the rhetoric that the millionaire owners of twitters would be more democratic than the billionaire Elon Musk.

I know that hn is 100% for mastodon. I like it too. I just don't think that what EU is doing is unrelated with Musk and I don't like how EU stands behind this narrative that "before Twitter was good, now its evil".

References: https://uk.pcmag.com/social-media/140088/eu-joins-mastodon-s...

Re: EU Voice

#216

Post by pelasaco »

Ecstatify wrote: post #68
arlort wrote: post #64

Worth pointing out that this was launched some months ago, it's not related to ongoing events with twitter They also have a peertube instance https://tube.network.europa.eu/

I don't understand why the EU bothers wasting money on these initiatives. No one uses these platforms. Why don't they buy a considerable stake in these American social media companies instead of trying to reinvent the wheel that is deflating as soon as it launches. https://tube.network.europa.eu URL looks like a scam website. There is no way tech illiterate people can use these websites. Their first video that appear…

people are going to down-vote you to death, since HN wants to see mastodon winning against Tweeter.

Re: EU Voice

#217

Post by origin_path »

arlort wrote: post #154
Hoasi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (…) the EU just has horrific public outreach Given the number of communication agencies working with the EU and since the EU had its own communication branches, one has to wonder whether having such a low outreach is by design and why this is.

> having such a low outreach is by design and why this is Not much to wonder about, public interest in the EU is abysmally low which is in good part because people don't know what the EU is or does. You'd need a good PSA campaign plus to teach "EU civics" as much (or at least almost so) as national civics in school. But both of those are never going to happen because for national governments it's much more convenient…

Alternative take - people know what the EU is, but also know that they have no way to control or influence it. So they ignore it because it'll do whatever it's going to do anyway regardless of whether or not people think it's a good idea. For example participation in EU elections is low because they aren't elections to a real parliament. MEPs aren't allowed to change law or even start the process of changing the law, only the unelected Commission can do that, which in turn means they can't have policies beyond "support the Commission" or "try to slow things down", and thus there's little point in people paying attention to their campaigns.

There's an additional problem which is that at the highest levels the EU doesn't genuinely want people to know what it's doing. Consider that the EU is notoriously overrun with secret law making:

https://euobserver.com/eu-political/136630

This isn't meant to happen but does, and that's fully intentional. Former EU Commission President Juncker often remarked on the intentionally obfuscated nature of the EU:

"We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back."

"Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?"

"Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup [...] I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious [...] I am for secret, dark debates."

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie."

You can't be civically engaged with a government that from the very top has attitudes and policies like that.

Re: EU Voice

#218

Post by arlort »

origin_path wrote: post #217
arlort wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having such a low outreach is by design and why this is Not much to wonder about, public interest in the EU is abysmally low which is in good part because people don't know what the EU is or does. You'd need a good PSA campaign plus to teach "EU civics" as much (or at least almost so) as national civics in school. But both of those are never going to happen because for national governments it's much more convenient…

Alternative take - people know what the EU is, but also know that they have no way to control or influence it. So they ignore it because it'll do whatever it's going to do anyway regardless of whether or not people think it's a good idea. For example participation in EU elections is low because they aren't elections to a real parliament. MEPs aren't allowed to change law or even start the process of changing the law,…

> also know that they have no way to control or influence it

So they know what it is but nothing about how it works, should've specified I was talking about knowing how it works in my comments above

What's missing from your collection of quotes is that at the end of the day it all comes down to a public vote, whether in the EU parliament, national parliaments, referenda etc

The "secret lawmaking" still needs to be voted on in parliament, the Eurogroup is still made up of national ministers which answer to their parliaments

If people were the slightest interested that would change how those actors behave, as it is almost nothing MEPs do matters because their re-election or lack thereof will depend almost exclusively on national politics

> MEPs aren't allowed to change law or even start the process of changing the law

They are allowed to (and do) amend legislative proposals in almost all cases and can block a draft from becoming law in pretty much everything except foreign policy

What you're referring to is the lack of formal legislative initiative which does mean they can't amend an existing law on their own.

However amending laws requires anyway passing a new law which in turns requires the Council to be in favour as well. And if there's enough support that a majority of parliament and a QMV in the council wants something the commission will in practice make a proposal

But you know what else the parliament could do if they wanted? They could refuse to vote on anything or approve any budget unless the commission makes a proposal they want. The reason they can't do that politically however is that people don't know about how this stuff works and don't care about it. So if MEPs wanted to do that they'd end up being criticized by national leaders that people actually listen to and they'll bend or lose the nomination for the next elections or the election itself

Re: EU Voice

#219

Post by arlort »

pelasaco wrote: post #215
arlort wrote: post #64

Worth pointing out that this was launched some months ago, it's not related to ongoing events with twitter They also have a peertube instance https://tube.network.europa.eu/

it is related. It was created after Elon Musk bid[1] was accepted. Which is strange, suggesting that Musk would be bad, supporting the rhetoric that the millionaire owners of twitters would be more democratic than the billionaire Elon Musk. I know that hn is 100% for mastodon. I like it too. I just don't think that what EU is doing is unrelated with Musk and I don't like how EU stands behind this narrative that "befo…

It was unfortunate timing, but Musk made his offer on the 14th of April, this instance was launched on the 25th

I admire your faith in it but there's no way in hell two different branches of the Commission were able to coordinate a deployment, ask for the budget, make all the preparations on anything in two weeks

I would be shocked if it took them less than 6-8 months to organize it all

Re: EU Voice

#220

Post by shapefrog »

arlort wrote: post #219
pelasaco wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is related. It was created after Elon Musk bid[1] was accepted. Which is strange, suggesting that Musk would be bad, supporting the rhetoric that the millionaire owners of twitters would be more democratic than the billionaire Elon Musk. I know that hn is 100% for mastodon. I like it too. I just don't think that what EU is doing is unrelated with Musk and I don't like how EU stands behind this narrative that "befo…

It was unfortunate timing, but Musk made his offer on the 14th of April, this instance was launched on the 25th I admire your faith in it but there's no way in hell two different branches of the Commission were able to coordinate a deployment, ask for the budget, make all the preparations on anything in two weeks I would be shocked if it took them less than 6-8 months to organize it all

The EU are useless bureaucrats that can never and will never organise anything without spending years debating it and billions implementing it.

The disguting EU are attacking Musk by deciding to implement this; funding, coordinating, building and launching this in 11 days. Oh and a personal f'you to google as they launched a youtube clone too...

I admire people who can hold opposing opinions at the same time, but lets face it these both cant be true.

I propse a more likely explanation, which is actually supportive of the Musk agenda (oh how inconvenient). Seeing Trump banned from Twitter made politicians realise they shouldnt be all in on the whims of "content moderators" at a corporation in another country.

Or you could just read about the programme that produced it ... https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/informatics/open-sourc...

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