EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#281

Post by sveme » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

inferniac wrote: post #131

teekert wrote: post #38

This is a nice piece of democracy right here: "a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028." "Oh no we can't get a majority to…

>This is a nice piece of democracy right here: this is just eu in a nutshell, the irish were made to vote on both nice and lisbon treaties twice (both were voted no in the first vote)

Well, the No vote triggered some adjustments, so this is indeed relatively democratic. What would be the alternative?

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#282

Post by aliasxneo » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #215

tasn wrote: post #211

This, and other similar legislation, serve as a constant reminder of why the American founding fathers had to revolt against tyranny, and why constitution amendments like the 1st and 4th exist. The 4th in particular was written as a response to a British law similar to Chat Control (writs of assistance).

Sadly doesn't seem to make much difference, though. If anything the UK is less authoritarian than the US now.

At least I have still have a 2nd amendment - and, at least for now, still post on social media without getting a knock on my door.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#283

Post by Jtarii » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

consensus1 wrote: post #116

teekert wrote: post #38

This is a nice piece of democracy right here: "a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028." "Oh no we can't get a majority to…

[flagged]

True, the solution is to just start murdering politicians. Thanks for the advice America.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#284

Post by omnimus » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

belval wrote: post #265

Ruphin wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would big tech be in favor of having to scan message content? It puts more regulatory requirements in place on their activities. Would they not be in favor of _less_ regulation so they can provide services to their users with fewer legal considerations? If big tech _wanted_ to they could already backdoor their encryption and scan the message content, they don't need regulation to do that. The only thing that chan…

> Would they not be in favor of _less_ regulation so they can provide services to their users with fewer legal considerations? Regulatory capture. If the handling of user messages requires constant scanning and there are enough rules that you need a team of lawyers, then only Google, Meta and Apple will be able to afford it.

Also without chat control they would have to follow much stricter eprivacy directive laws that makes many of their monetisation strategies ilegal.

It's briliant really... instead of trying to dismantle privacy regulations you push for new regulation that overrides them and make data mining users even mandatory.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#285

Post by elictronic » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

belval wrote: post #265

Ruphin wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would big tech be in favor of having to scan message content? It puts more regulatory requirements in place on their activities. Would they not be in favor of _less_ regulation so they can provide services to their users with fewer legal considerations? If big tech _wanted_ to they could already backdoor their encryption and scan the message content, they don't need regulation to do that. The only thing that chan…

> Would they not be in favor of _less_ regulation so they can provide services to their users with fewer legal considerations? Regulatory capture. If the handling of user messages requires constant scanning and there are enough rules that you need a team of lawyers, then only Google, Meta and Apple will be able to afford it.

That is regulatory capture but it really feels like it should be called something else.

If the laws are designed to directly benefit it makes sense like with the FAA allowing Boeing to self regulate to the point of killing a few hundred people. This feels more like bureaucratic capture or some other name, where the entity must be so large to interact.

It has the same effect and you are not wrong, I just wish it was clearer.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#286

Post by Jtarii » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #232

ben_w wrote: post #30

(Based on https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/07/07/eu-to-extend-t... and https://www.euractiv.com/news/how-the-epp-pushed-the-chat-sc... as well as the stuff in the link). Here's a quote from the article itself, which works for both pro and con arguments: "What is still NOT being scanned: End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp, have always been exempt from these scans. Additionally, European provi…

Real time notifications here would solve a lot of issues... Imagine Alice, an 18, 19yo girl, having a boyfriend, Bob, and since Bob is on a student exchange, she decides to send him a boob photo. Since alice is skinny, her boobs are on the smaller side. Now imagine Alice hitting 'Send', and getting an automated message from whatever CSAM AI bot: "Your message has not been sent, the system detected the breasts in the…

I think a more realistic system would be hashing images and comparing them to known CSAM in some database.

I think Apple was going to implement something like this a few years ago before scrapping it.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#287

Post by omnimus » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #263

mrtksn wrote: post #14

FTA: What changes with the return of Chat Control 1.0—and what stays the same: *What is coming back:* US tech companies are once again allowed to scan private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Skype, and Xbox, as well as emails via Google’s Gmail and Apple’s iCloud. *What remains unchanged:* Public social media posts and files h…

> What is coming back: US tech companies are once again allowed to scan private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Skype, and Xbox, as well as emails via Google’s Gmail and Apple’s iCloud. They are already allowed to do this, and already are doing this. When you provide data to the service provider in a non-e2ee fashion, it's the…

This is the whole point though. They are allowed to do this because of the original chat control from 2021 which was temporary and expired in march. Without chat control it is very debatable what companies can legally thanks to eprivacy directive.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#288

Post by holoduke » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

Really the west is currently at the wrong side of history. With the US bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in the last decade. Europe with its hypocrite stance in literally everything. Slowly the west is becoming a much less free place to live than a Russia. And propoganda in the west makes people think they are free. It's bullshit. They are not free. You got more freedom to move around, start businesses, own stuff in China and Russia than in any western European country.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#289

Post by sampo » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

xaitv wrote: post #77

teekert wrote: post #38

This is a nice piece of democracy right here: "a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028." "Oh no we can't get a majority to…

What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around, with the majority being for. I'm guessing that site has it reversed then or I don't fully understand the proposal? Looking at which politicians from my country voted "no" on this site it seems to be mostly the ones that I'd expect to vote "yes", so that would support this site just having the options revers…

> What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around

They voted for "Proposition de rejet". It's written there, but it's in French.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#290

Post by elictronic » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

nick486 wrote: post #82

budududuroiu wrote: post #6

Roberta Metsola's actions this week jeopardise the legitimacy of the EU project as a whole. It's clear that member countries use the EU as a blame-laundering mechanism to pass domestically unpopular laws, but the forcing of this vote under the urgency procedure that requires absolute majority to reject, on the last EP session before summer break is so blatant that it might awaken people that might've overlooked the s…

I'm really surprised at the hurry. The EU, and many EU governments, have been ramming through deeply unpopular legislation at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately. It feels like the last turn in a board game where everyone is busy taking points with no regard for the impact of the decisions on the theoretical next turn - because there is no next turn. Its really weird. > blame-laundering mechanism Also, I'…

Multiple active wars on the global stage, huge changes in tariff and job impacts, large scale shipping and oil impacts.

I’m not saying this legislation impacts any of this positively or negatively, but we can’t pretend the prior world order isn’t making some drastic changes lately. Governments are slow to change laws but I would expect much of the current push has actual ties to the larger global shifts.