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Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

digitalcourage.social

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Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#301

Post by mastazi »

I followed the link to that .eu website which then redirected me to https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/

I was expecting to find a big CTA button that I could click to sign some message to my representatives. Instead I found a giant wall of text with "ideas on how to take action" followed by a list of points along the lines of "Is your government in favour? Ask for an explanation" OK, ask how? No links, no email addresses... basically it's just a page saying "if you care about this thing do your own homework and find a way to act"

Whoever made that page needs to look into the concept of conversion rate. As it is right now it's basically useless

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#302

Post by thyristan »

mastazi wrote: post #301

I followed the link to that .eu website which then redirected me to https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ I was expecting to find a big CTA button that I could click to sign some message to my representatives. Instead I found a giant wall of text with "ideas on how to take action" followed by a list of points along the lines of "Is your government in favour? Ask for an explanation" OK, ask how? No link…

On the other hand, templated mass emails to representatives get filtered out.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#303

Post by thyristan »

idle_zealot wrote: post #215
ryandrake wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deck is stacked. They only have to win once, and it's law. You have to win over and over every time it's introduced.

Is this really true, though? Couldn't you pass a law specifically banning the thing you don't want to happen, so any future law that contradicts it needs a supermajority to pass or something?

There is a system like this in Switzerland. The voters can change the constitution by a public initiative+vote, which binds the parliament. Only another public vote can revert the constitution.

This is e.g. why there was an initiative to constitutionally forbidding some religious buildings: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_controversy

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#304

Post by zelphirkalt »

delusional wrote: post #108
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

> This will be a machine for automatically generating suspects. According to proponents, this is untrue. The intent of that database is that looking into it will still require a warrent, and will thusly require the suspect to already have been identified. I'm no expert, but that sounds reasonably similar to how we treat other investigative means.

Information recorded will always have the temptations and tendencies to be misused. Might happen slowly, but over time they would find more and more reasons to get a warrant and at some point some hapless judge will just hand them out like daily business.

Experience shows, that humans cannot be trusted to remain vigilant forever.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#305

Post by thyristan »

Arainach wrote: post #150
ryandrake wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing magical about 50%. The bar for "this policy should be inflicted on everyone " should be very high--I'd argue much higher than 50%. At the same time, the bar for "we should stop inflicting this policy on everyone" should be extremely low. I'd argue a 1/3 minority should be enough to repeal a law. If one out of three people feel they are harmed by something, maybe the government shouldn't be doing it.

This doesn't work in practice. Look at how Senate Republicans have weaponized the filibuster in the last 20 years. A 40% veto is conceptually similar to your repeal process and it results in gridlock and nothing getting done. It is harder to build than to destroy. If laws can be trivially repealed no one will be willing to commit to long term things. We're seeing that right now with the destruction of US soft power,…

There is a difference between long-term stability in foreign relations and long-term stability in citizens' freedom. The latter is supported by the absence of restrictions, i.e. the absence of laws and regulations.

The only people wanting stability in restrictive laws are those profiting from their legally guaranteed niche, typically of the rent-seeking monopolist kind.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#306

Post by tailspin2019 »

renewiltord wrote: post #263

[flagged]

Your comment history seems peppered with similar low-effort comments about Europe.

As a European, I have some strong opinions about the state of your country at the moment. Opinions shared by quite a large proportion of your own population actually.

But I manage to refrain from regularly and flippantly insulting entire continents and maintain some self awareness that we all have our own problems.

I’d strongly encourage you to do the same.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#307

Post by Gud »

poszlem wrote: post #298
Gud wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s how the country I live in, Switzerland, is organised, one of the most prosperous places on earth. https://freedomhouse.org/country/switzerland

Could Switzerland's prosperity instead be linked to its historical role in safeguarding gold taken from Jewish victims during World War II, its tradition of banking secrecy that enabled dictators like Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko, and Sani Abacha to conceal their assets, or its longstanding willingness to accept money from oligarchs avoiding sanctions, tax evaders, arms dealers, corrupt officials, drug traffick…

I don’t think these are core reasons why Switzerland is a prosperous nation, no. I would guess what you are pointing out has only benefitted a few select bankers and the average citizen has had little to gain from this.

I believe Switzerland is prospering because the citizens are in charge of their nation, not a select few belonging to the political class and well connected wealthy individuals.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#309

Post by fsflover »

zarzavat wrote: post #235
prophesi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privacy-preserving systems have been built and are finally making it into the mainstream, only to be uprooted by politics. Not that we no longer need to build more of such systems, but the root of the issue lies elsewhere.

Yes but the mainstream systems are not decentralized enough. We need better systems. We, the technological community, have failed the wider public by not creating decentralized alternatives that are as good as centralized ones. Chat Control shouldn't even be an issue, we should just be able to laugh it away. Is anyone concerned about Mastodon being banned? No right because it would be almost impossible to implement.…

> Even the tech darling Signal is centralized as fuck.

This. Signal is actively fighting against decentralization, which makes me suspicious. Their arguments were debunked by the Matrix team, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21936929

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#310

Post by shakna »

delusional wrote: post #281
shakna wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police, in many countries, have already been found to violate the laws protecting surveillance systems that already exist. If a warrant doesn't stop them today, why do you think it will tomorrow?

I don't believe in "police" as a transnational group. I don't believe that the actions of police in some other country carries any information about the culture of police in mine. If police use these systems outside of their intended and legally mandated forms, that must be dealt with. We do need effective police though. We do that with robust surveillance infrastructure for police queries in the database, possible e…

The obvious question there is... Has it ever happened in yours?
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