Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by patmorgan23 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 12:14 PM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #85

wyuenho wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has a petition website. It logs the signatory by constituency. Once a threshold os signatory has cross, the government has to respond and parliament will have to consider a debate on the topic.

And just because they respond, it doesn't actually mean anything will result from it. "No more something!" "We have seen your petition. Fuck off, peasants".

And You can use the response as campaign material. Ultimately democratic governments are accountable to the people at the ballot box.

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

#322

Post by delusional » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:12 PM UTC

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #287

delusional wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many boxes have to be ticked before a flag is raised If the proponents are right, an infinite amount. The information will never "raise a flag" since looking at it would require the flag to already have been raised (in the form of a warrant). > and how is that going to affect what you tell the psychiatrist about how you really feel? I think psychiatrists are already required to report you if they believe you're…

> If the proponents are right, an infinite amount. The information will never "raise a flag" since looking at it would require the flag to already have been raised (in the form of a warrant). From the main critical opponent Justitia which consists of law professionals: https://justitia-int.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Justitia... "Samtidig lægger lovforslaget op til, at PET vil kunne træne maskinlæringsmodeller til…

> From the main critical opponent Justitia which consists of law professionals:

You're moving into some pretty specialized terrirory here. I'm not a lawyer, and I suspect you aren't either. We're quite frankly not equipped to have this discusion. I'll muddy up the picture a little for you to make that point clear.

It's true that Justitia wrote that in their opinion about the proposal. An opinion the relavant authority actually asked for and then incorporated into the proposal. What you're looking at there is part of the process of defining a law, not a critique of a finished law. In the their comments to the responses, justitsministeriet (the relavant authority in this case) writes[1]:

"Justitsministeriet finder det dog afgørende, at dette sker på en måde, hvor de nuværende regler i PET-loven ikke lempes i de tilfælde, hvor PET’s behandling af oplysningerne i et datasæt får en mere målrettet karakter"

Translated: "The relavant authority believes it is critical that this processing of data does not relax the current rules where the processing is more directly targetted"

Let me be clear. I don't intend to make a point for or against that law. I'm quite frankly not qualified to make that assesment. I don't understand most of what they write, nor do I care to. I read stuff like "it may have a chilling effect on freedom of speech" and think "well that's sort of the point. If you were going to write something about how you'd like to bomb a school, I'd like you to not write that", which is obviously missing the point of the discussion, but they're also not talking to me.

In cases like this I prefer to fall back to my trust in the process. I didn't vote for Peter Humlegaard, I'm much more anti capitalist than that, but I also have no reason to believe that he's some hitler-esque proto-facist. PET is calling on more tools, and two independant experts helped our authorities draft a law that looks roughly like something Norway and Great Britain has. That seems reasonable to me. I'm sure they'll land this in a somewhat reasonable way, and then I'm sure we can change it if it turns out it sucks.

[1]: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20241/lovforslag/L218/bilag/1/3009... (page 11)

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

#323

Post by somenameforme » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:26 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #319

somenameforme wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work deterrence, inflation, and the tremendous cost would devalue your own currency. In general most people work jobs solely and exclusively for the $$$. If they didn't need that $$$ they'd have much greater power to negotiate wages. That sounds amazing in theory, but in reality - how much money would it take for you to go scrub toilets when you could otherwise sit and home and live a comfortable life with your famil…

> how much money would it take for you to go scrub toilets If my needs were otherwise met, and there were clear instructions allowing me to do this in confidence that I wasn't inconveniencing any users of the toilet, I'd do it free. (Cleaning a toilet is less messy than changing a baby, and that's not hard either.) Given proper PPE, I'd do even more "disgusting" jobs, if they were jobs that needed doing: I draw my li…

Quite the strawman there. Not wanting to work [at times literally] shit jobs without excessive compensation, is not the same as everybody being idle. I can list thousands of things I'd rather do than clean public toilets, and I don't even do thousands of things! Though yes - I do think a huge chunk of the population would be generally idle, if possible, in terms of commercial productivity, and I see nothing wrong with that, besides the fact it would crash any economy where it was possible.

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

#324

Post by aesh2Xa1 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:28 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #241

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative systems vest political power into concentrated points of influence. The reps are often as uninformed as the citizens. The US just had some infamous legislation pass that representatives didn't even read, and publicly stated so. The system also makes reps uniquely vulnerable to targeted lobbying, corruption, regulatory capture, and threats. I find much to be faulty with opaque dealings with a few key in…

>Direct democracy mitigates these issues. Influence must be exerted through broad, public persuasion. This forces special interests to operate in the open, creating a higher and more transparent barrier to subverting the public will. Have you paid attention to any US or global election since 2016? The special interests stay hidden and their influence works wonders. If direct democracy could have ever worked, that opp…

You are correct that mass manipulation is a critical issue. However, this vulnerability is shared by any system reliant on voters, including the representative one. It is not a unique flaw of direct democracy.

So there are three issues we're talking about in this context:

1. Reps are also uninformed.

2. Social media manipulation of the populace (or, generally, propaganda).

3. Concentrated influence on a handful of legislators.

Direct democracy eliminates the third vector.

Furthermore, the stakes and incentives for corruption are vastly different. A lobbyist gains far more from corrupting one senator who decides for millions than from swaying individual voters. The return on investment for corrupting concentrated power is orders of magnitude higher.

Even if propaganda shapes opinion, the resulting decisions still represent the people's will at that moment. Representatives can betray even that will for personal gain, adding another layer of distortion between what people want and what they get.

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

#325

Post by aesh2Xa1 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

terminalshort wrote: post #275

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative systems vest political power into concentrated points of influence. The reps are often as uninformed as the citizens. The US just had some infamous legislation pass that representatives didn't even read, and publicly stated so. The system also makes reps uniquely vulnerable to targeted lobbying, corruption, regulatory capture, and threats. I find much to be faulty with opaque dealings with a few key in…

How does direct democracy mitigate the issue that the representative is uninformed and not even reading what they voted for?

I think my argument was written in a way that could allow this misinterpretation, sorry. I wasn't claiming direct democracy makes people more informed, but I was saying it removes the additional corruption layer.

Direct democracy doesn't cure ignorance, but it eliminates the corrupted/coerced middleman. An uninformed public voting directly is still more aligned with public interest than uninformed representatives voting for whoever influenced them most.

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

#326

Post by rdm_blackhole » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

yxhuvud wrote: post #245

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left is pushing for it. The commissioner in charge of the 2024 version of Chat control is/was a communist. I don't mind critizing the far right when it is necessary but this push is not coming from them at all.

No. That was Ylva Johansson, a Swedish social democrat. They are center left, with emphasis on the center part.

> Ylva Johansson

In the 1988 general elections Johansson was elected as a member of the Riksdag for the Left Party – Communists

This party was the sole political force in Sweden supporting the Soviet Union in the Winter War against Finland. They also supported Soviet military expansion along its Western border.

She may be center left now but she was a card carrying member of the communists before. She is a crook and completely bought by the lobbies. So no, I do not agree that she is center left.

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

#327

Post by rdm_blackhole » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #191

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what the law is about. It is client side scanning embedded in the apps themselves. Each app will have to deploy their own mechanism to intercept the messages. This is not (yet) an OS level scan so there is no AI bot watching your moves on your device yet. Furthermore the AI part will run on their own servers, not on the device. Precisely, the way it has been described, is when you hit the send button, it…

That seems like it will be largely useless. Sure, the masses will continue using a bugged WhatsApp. But anyone with actual interesting/llegal things to say will switch over to an open source messaging app that hasn't been bugged.

That is just the first step of the plan. First they compromise the messaging apps, then they'll make it harder to install open source apps. Then they will force OS level monitoring which is exactly what North Korea does.

This is a power grab pure and simple.

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

#328

Post by account42 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #255

rekenaut wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because whether the government gets it or this collective organization gets it, you’re still out a $1. Besides, very few people will actually care enough about $1 to partake in literally any amount of effort to regain it.

I'm pretty sure any law that costs you 1 dollar will cost you 1 dollar per year, or 1 dollar some other shorter amount of time. And anyway the actual law under discussion is bad not because it costs you 1 dollar per year, but because it costs you other things. Also this how people do fight against this kind of thing, they join non-profits or other organizations, give them 1 dollar per year and use the combined might…

Opposing the law will also be an ongoing process as those benefiting can just push for the changes again under a different name.

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

#329

Post by account42 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #253

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.

I don't think the assumption that "law = things the government is doing" is a good one. I could imagine a law that specifically restricts the government's ability to do things. For example, maybe the federal government passes a law that makes it easier to sue its agents when those agents violate individual citizens constitutional rights. Perhaps 65% of the population feels they are harmed if this law doesn't exist, a…

> I could imagine a law that specifically restricts the government's ability to do things.

I fail to see how fairy tales are relevant to this discussion.

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

#330

Post by account42 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

nucleardog wrote: post #169

pcrh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, elected politicians (senators, MPs, etc) are supposed to represent what the populus wants, else be ejected. So in theory, they should be paying as much heed to lobbyists as to their constituents. The question arises, then, as to why they do not. There's no ground swell of public opinion in favour of being continually monitored.

> The question arises, then, as to why they do not. There are huge bodies of research out there on voting behaviour. If you look at it, it's a lot less surprising. The means by which we're supposed to hold the elected officials accountable for not representing our best interests is voting. It doesn't work. Most people don't, as individuals, hold any sort of stable policy positions to begin with. People have a poor un…

No the problem is much more basic: you only get one vote and you can only pick from a very small number of parties. That means unless something is the most important issue for you, you have zero voting power for it.