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The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

mullvad.net

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Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#121

Post by ShroudedNight »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #80
ShroudedNight wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hazarding a guess: the 'really dumb thing' is portraying democratic government as a distinct, foreign, hostile, and alien entity that any sane and morally upstanding person would minimize their interaction with, barely giving theirs 'unto Caesar' and getting away as quickly as possible. It teaches and reinforces apathy and learned helplessness when it comes to effecting change on matters of public policy. Ultimately,…

> Hazarding a guess: the 'really dumb thing' is portraying democratic government as a distinct, foreign, hostile, and alien entity that any sane and morally upstanding person would minimize their interaction with, barely giving theirs 'unto Caesar' and getting away as quickly as possible. That's not how I portrayed it. What I portrayed is the reality of how people and organizations operate within society. It's quite…

Given the leverage inherent in government, self-dealing is always going to be a problem. Yes, given the cornucopia of moral hazards, it will always be attractive to charismatic sociopaths. And yes, even people of relatively sound moral intent easily fall prey to the opportunities for personal profit.

That does not require it to be 'the' government and for it to cease being 'our' government. Further, a sense of ownership and a desire to work constructively with the parts that improve our lives does not require me to abdicate moral judgement to its authority. Finally, believing that public office can and should be an honourable pursuit does not imply or require that I believe that my current representation comes anywhere close of meeting that standard.

You are correct to assume that I believe my current government enables or even engages in injustices against certain cohorts of the population. Yes, I even believe that I benefit from significant inter-generational privilege that others were actively denied. No, that neither means that my life is a cakewalk, nor does it compel me to plead forgiveness in the gutter. It does however instill a duty to raise those less fortunate up when I have the means to do so. It also compels me to advocate for collective action to do the same.

Ultimately, I don't see embodying alienation between a democratic government and its citizens to be a reasonable source of tribalistic pride. It's fucked, and fixing it should be almost as existentially compelling as eating or surviving the elements.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#122

Post by tlongo »

Does the proposal include chat services that are run by corporations only? If so, how will that prevent people from setting up their own chat infrastructure for child-abuse purposes?

Besides that, how about educating people on how to do exactly that: Set up their own chat service.

That would put control in the hands of those people who are not only responsible for protecting children but also have the most leverage to do that: The parents.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#123

Post by peoplefromibiza »

Nitpicking, but this has nothing to do with democracy. I know it works as a form of propaganda to use the "democracy should not do X" but democracy in no way disallows chat control programs. Democracy it's only the system used to chose governing officials. If a majority of the people's representatives approves chat control, it would be perfectly democratic. Anti-democratic would be to remove the freedom to contest the proposal, which no one did or is trying to do.

Also freedom of speech it's about the possibility to express your opinions, not that the opinions would receive no post-expression control nor that the people expressing them should bear no responsibility for what they say.

Monitoring and auditing have always been integral to democratic systems, they are called law enforcement and as such they have broader access to information that must be authorized, it is by design.

In the end it's all about different ideas supported by different parties here, that are discussing a proposal, which is the essence of democracy.

It will resolve in a compromise, as usual.

Those who are discussing it as "evil" VS "good" are missing the point of the democratic process IMO.

Mullvad is in fact urging politicians in the EU to vote no, they are not proposing to attack the EU institutions with guns and those supporting the chat control are not saying that Mullvad "supports online pedophilia".

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#124

Post by raverbashing »

geysersam wrote: post #90
maxilevi wrote: post #7

Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it? It’s just tiring

Who elected those guys anyway? I sure never had the chance to vote for any of them. I'd be more fine with that if they only regulated narrowly defined inter-state issues in the EU. But stuff like this... There's no mandate. And there's no reason this couldn't be done locally in every member state where the population wants that.

> Who elected those guys anyway?

EP elections are well publicized and every EU citizen has the right to vote on it

"Every five years EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament, the directly-elected institution that defends their interests in the EU decision-making process. The next European elections will take place in 2024."

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#125

Post by feeela »

maxilevi wrote: post #7

Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it? It’s just tiring

Because the European Commission is not a democratic institutionen! Those bureaucrats are mostly announced, not elected. And each European nation is only sending those politicians into the Commission, that are unwanted in national politics.

In other words: The European Commission is the autocratic reservoir for conservative politicians that were to extremistic for national audiences.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#126

Post by raverbashing »

f_devd wrote: post #62
mongol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is EU commissioner Ylva Johansson. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do. She is not elected to this position, but appointed, and in this case by a former government who is no longer in power.

To add to this, it's likely to 'originate' from (and is supported by) Thorn[0], which was discussed the previous post of mullvad's campaign. [0]: https://www.thorn.org/about-our-fight-against-sexual-exploit...

This, it's Ashton Kutcher wanting to sell his tech snake oil

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#127

Post by yreg »

revelio wrote: post #113
1123581321 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the EU repealing much. How can there be an expectation of a fruitful campaign to accomplish that? Would it require a sea change in the outlook of the ruling blocs of MPs? Asking sincerely.

The MEPs don't have the right to change EU law. So it doesn't matter even if they were all voted out and replaced. The commission does what it wants, it's not really a democratic system.

The commission needs a passing vote of approval from the parliament and its president is elected by the parliament. It is a democratic system.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#128

Post by feeela »

bjornsing wrote: post #58
maxilevi wrote: post #7

Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it? It’s just tiring

The EU has always been the bureaucrats’ paradise. Now it’s slowly (but perhaps not surprisingly) turning into everybody else’s nightmare.

No turning required. A bureaucrats dream was always everybody else's nightmare.

Still, it is disturbing to watch all of Orwell's ideas getting implemented in real life

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#129

Post by pjc50 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #30

Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal" "Given that political corruption is rife in European countries, with great detriments to the healthy function of government, all politicians in positions where they may be engaging in corrupt behavior must submit to 24-7 audio and video surveillance, which will be piped over public platforms for crowdsourcing of corruption detection. All personal communic…

We never did find out who leaked the security camera footage from inside a "secure area" of Matt Hancock, UK health secretary, kissing his aide: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/matt-hancock-...

A horrifyingly large amount of UK political decision-making that should be minuted is instead carried out secretly on whatsapp.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#130

Post by crashmat »

germandiago wrote: post #79
photochemsyn wrote: post #30

Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal" "Given that political corruption is rife in European countries, with great detriments to the healthy function of government, all politicians in positions where they may be engaging in corrupt behavior must submit to 24-7 audio and video surveillance, which will be piped over public platforms for crowdsourcing of corruption detection. All personal communic…

Public position = gate to corruption, license and regulation = gate to corruption. Do not expect the ones who make the laws to make them against themselves. That is idealist thinking. If history teqches something is that the more of those, the more corruption and handing of favors and "legal corruption" pops up. It is not by chance. It is just bc of how incentives are aligned. Those incentives, IMHO, can only be dest…

problem is deregulation and privatisation doesn't work either, because then instead of corrupt politicians who make decisions based on greed despite being told not to, you get CEOs and big corporations who make decisions based on profit (essentially greed) because that is their entire purpose
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