31–40 of 163 posts
In this context putting the entirety of the population under the suspicion of facilitating child rape is completely and utterly deranged.
Here is the actual text: https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15318-2025-...
High risk classification is at the end of the text.
Some highlights of what is defined as high risk, and thus can be forced to go through mandatory scanning or forbidden:
- Encrypted messaging follows closely due to privacy concerns and the potential for misuse. Posting and sharing of multimedia content are also high-risk activities, as they can easily disseminate harmful material.
- The platform lacks functionalities to prevent users from saving harmful content (by making recordings, screenshots etc.) for the purpose of the dissemination thereof (such as for example not allowing recording and screenshotting content shared by minors)
- Possibility to use peer-to-peer downloading (allows direct sharing of content without using centralised servers)
- The platforms’ storage functionalities and/or the legal framework of the country of storage do not allow sharing information with law enforcement authorities.
- The platform lacks functionalities to limit the number of downloads per user to reduce the dissemination of harmful content.
- Making design choices such as ensuring that E2EE is opt-in by default, rather than opt-out would require people to choose E2EE should they wish to use it, therefore allowing certain detection technologies to work for communication between users that have not opted in to E2EE
Also, a lot of these points do not sound like they are about the safety of children
- Platforms lack a premoderation system, allowing potentially harmful content to be posted without oversight or moderation
- Frequent use of anonymous accounts
- Frequent Pseudonymous behavior
- Frequent creation of temporary accounts:
- Lack of identity verification tools
Based on the light of the proposal, Hacker News is very dangerous place and need to have its identity verification and CSAM policies fixed, or face the upcoming fines in the EU.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The EU was created as an economic and trade institution. How has it morphed into a wierd political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be? That is not the case. The 1957 Treaty Establishing the European Community contained the objective of “ever closer union” in the following words in the Preamble. In English this is: “Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe…
"contained the objective of “ever closer union” " Such words in any Preamble are usually meant as a lofty declaration of some ideal, not a concrete political goal. After all, "ever closer" does not even mean federation, it means a unitary state, which is "closer" than a federation or a confederation. If you believe that a single sentence in a 1957 treaty can be used as a ramrod to push European federalization from ab…
Repeating this bullshit over and over does not make it true.
The EU has a parliament that approves laws. The commissioners are appointed by the democratic elected governments. It has a legitimate mandate.
Honest question. The EU was created as an economic and trade institution. How has it morphed into a wierd political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be? The root question: how did an organization that ushered in things like the Euro become a body that decides whether Europeans are allowed to have personal privacy?
Von der Leyen, an autocratic fascist that is ruining this continent. She failed to push her agenda in Germany so she "failed upwards". Even how she got this position was highly controversial and went against the top candidate principle. The EU commission is exceeding their competencies. The EU is not democratic, there is no parliamentary oversight, the parliament can't even introduce legislative proposals. No one can vote for the EU commission, only the parliament can vote for or against all the proposed candidates (not one by one). Parliament is essentially a rubber stamp for the commission.
I could be jailed for this comment btw.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"contained the objective of “ever closer union” " Such words in any Preamble are usually meant as a lofty declaration of some ideal, not a concrete political goal. After all, "ever closer" does not even mean federation, it means a unitary state, which is "closer" than a federation or a confederation. If you believe that a single sentence in a 1957 treaty can be used as a ramrod to push European federalization from ab…
> Local constitutional institutions have more legitimacy among the people than the bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels. Repeating this bullshit over and over does not make it true. The EU has a parliament that approves laws. The commissioners are appointed by the democratic elected governments. It has a legitimate mandate.
This is the ultimate legitimacy test, not things written on paper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"contained the objective of “ever closer union” " Such words in any Preamble are usually meant as a lofty declaration of some ideal, not a concrete political goal. After all, "ever closer" does not even mean federation, it means a unitary state, which is "closer" than a federation or a confederation. If you believe that a single sentence in a 1957 treaty can be used as a ramrod to push European federalization from ab…
I don't think a mere Federalization should happen. I think a unitary state is - as you said! - what we all signed up for and what we should get. There's a reason the "ever closer" phrasing has been repeated over and over again - in the 1983 Solemn Declaration, the 1997 Maastricht Treaty, the 2009 Lisbon treaty etc etc. Look at China's rise and our fall - a direct consequence of centralization and the lack thereof.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"contained the objective of “ever closer union” " Such words in any Preamble are usually meant as a lofty declaration of some ideal, not a concrete political goal. After all, "ever closer" does not even mean federation, it means a unitary state, which is "closer" than a federation or a confederation. If you believe that a single sentence in a 1957 treaty can be used as a ramrod to push European federalization from ab…
I don't think a mere Federalization should happen. I think a unitary state is - as you said! - what we all signed up for and what we should get. There's a reason the "ever closer" phrasing has been repeated over and over again - in the 1983 Solemn Declaration, the 1997 Maastricht Treaty, the 2009 Lisbon treaty etc etc. Look at China's rise and our fall - a direct consequence of centralization and the lack thereof.
In practice, the only political party that openly advocates for a European Federation, Volt, is polling around statistical error from zero in most EU countries. The will of the people isn't there.
Becoming a federation or even a unitary state isn't a self-executing protocol. Actual heads of governments have to meet, agree to dissolve their individual countries into a superstate with one central government, and actual parliaments have to ratify this.
You don't have the vote to do this democratically. European nationalisms were at their lowest ebb in cca 2000; since then, they have returned with vengeance.
You don't have the force to do this forcibly. No Genghis Khan or Napoleon on the scene.
And in the current connected world, you can't even do this by stealth. The only result of the people actually learning of such a plan would be far-right governments in France and Germany at the same time, ffs.
Please stop. Just stop. When I was a youngster, I witnessed violent collapse of Yugoslavia, somewhat less violent collapse of the Soviet Union and fortunately non-violent collapse of Czechoslovakia, three entities whose constituent nations didn't want to be tied together. I don't want to see 2.0 of those, continent-wide, when I am old.
"Look at China's rise and our fall - a direct consequence of centralization and the lack thereof."
Becoming more like China is not particularly attractive for former Eastern Bloc countries. Chat Control is enough of a window into such future that I don't want to go there. Also, your history is massively incomplete. Cherry-picking of some events while ignoring others.
The pinnacle of European power, with the European countries controlling half of mankind, happened around 1900, with no centralization of the continent in place. And we have been losing our relative strength since 2000, which is precisely the time when the continent is most integrated ever.
Chinese central government unleashed at least two total disasters on its own population in the 20th century - the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. It can unleash some more if a sufficiently unhinged person gets into power again. With centralized power, you are free to make some Huge Mistakes.
I certainly don't want future Brussels to start some European versions of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, just because they can. Austria-Hungary collapsed on such stupidity after 400 years of continuing integration.
Seems… fine? At least i dont see any invasion of privacy or encryption related obligations in this proposal. The EU ostensibly wants to improve innovation, i wonder how these new assessment regulations help with that, especially for SME and startups.
"High risk" providers will be obligated to "contribute" technologies "to mitigate." Seems like a doublespeak way of saying enforced decryption or enforced backdoors.
It will happen only if the council manage to defang the EUCJ (it does try, regularly, to reduce the judiciary power by forcing it to make unpopular statements on obviously illegal laws, so it might be a long term goal).
But unfortunately I feel like the big tech interests probably somewhat want this happen, are happy to hand the citizenry over to the state. That we won't hear much from them over this all. With some notable Signal sized / Medium Tech exceptions.
It sure does seem like there's a huge legitimacy crisis the EU council is creating around itself by going so far against the will of the people, by intruding so forcibly into literally everyone's life.
Honest question. The EU was created as an economic and trade institution. How has it morphed into a wierd political institution, which NATO was already supposed to be? The root question: how did an organization that ushered in things like the Euro become a body that decides whether Europeans are allowed to have personal privacy?
I'd say that it has 100% fulfilled its primary goal that there is no military conflict between major European states for like 80 years and counting, which is longest period ever recorded and a historical anomaly. The means of how it was executed is obviously a matter of debate, mistakes were made etc., but we over here generally make love, not war.