Is Europe sliding into feudalism? The impression is that the government/megacorp complex are the lords, everyone else should accept their place as a serf and do whatever they’re told.
I'm French and every idiot supports it, even the so-called left. There is nothing I can do except donate money every month to GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/donate). Democracy is dead for me.
They will eventually come for GrapheneOS too in some way shape or form. Be it regulating hardware attestation being required to use devices, so that only government approved operating systems can be used, or imposing jailtime for possessing devices with capabilities such as GrapheneOS.
Why would you expect anything else from the so-called left?
Do you honestly believe only the right want power and control?
In my experience the left wants this just as much, if not more than the right.
Right-wing politics is starting to show up again in Europe, this is true, but the left / left-of-center has been in power for a long time and need (at least in their view) to remain in power.
These kinds of laws allow the powerful group to gain more control and remain in power, it took no time at all for the UK version of this law to block videos of heavy-handed policing [0].
The low power group usually doesn't support controls on speech, as they know it will make their rise to power harder. Once power shifts these views inevitably switch.
This has led to the belief, at least in the west, that the right censor and the left are the guardians of free speech - because it was true and people want to believe the world hasn't changed (nobody like to admit that they've become the bad guys).
This also leads people make this mistake of believing that politics is a line. It's not, it's a horseshoe.
In the middle is the vast majority of people that just want to be left alone, and want to leave others alone. At both edges there are loud, politically active, sociopaths that want power and control to protect and deify their own in-group, while, criminalizing and demonizing the out-group.
It's why, when looking at history, the right-wing fascists and the left-wing communists, seem to want totally opposite things, but end up with very similar policies and outcomes (illegal political parties, proscribed groups, concentration camps and genocide).
Both "The Left" and "Greens/EFA", the major left wing parties in the Europarl, OPPOSE Chat Control!
Unfortunately the website appeared to show the MEP's positions as being *equal to their country's government's position", which is obviously nonsense!
This has since been fixed but the damage is done....
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That being said, does it not raise your skepticism bells even a little bit to see every single French MEP painted in the same colour, including parties that hate each other mutually, including liberal, anti-european, and left-wing parties... Should be enough to at least make you raise your eyebrows and be suspicious that something is wrong.
It's not a left-right divide. Privacy advocates are a combination of the general right-wing + the anti-establishment left-wing. The people supporting this are establishment career politicians, who are left-wing as well (e.g. ylva johansson), though different from the anti-establishment left-wing (e.g. pirate party).
Anyone who tries to make this a left-right issue must stop, because that's how we lose.
These so called left are as left as original national socialists. They share pretty much same views of state, security, country, media, ... they just want total control.
And that applies to all parties that call themselves left, regardless of a country.
In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety.
Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
> In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies
In the US we also enjoy probably the most expansive protection of speech in the world at present. Our own government created Tor. Yet simultaneously the majority of the population willingly hands over the minute details of their daily lives to half a dozen or more megacorps for the sake of some minor conveniences. It's beyond perplexing. I suspect we may be the most internally inconsistent civilization to have ever existed.
It's consistent when viewed from a perspective of accountability evasion. They don't need to make actual anti free speech laws, because you already don't have free speech without the laws. And by not making the laws, they get to claim they give you free speech.
I don't remember the link to the essay that defined public, private, and secret information. Essentially it said that public is ok for anyone to hear, private is something that shouldn't concern others, whereas secret is something that needs to be kept under wraps.
Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others.
Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.)
I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data.
Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't continue, it boiled my blood.
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy.
You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
A little context here since this website is highly misleading:
- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
- EU Council is pushing this regulation
- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"
Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.
IMO this kind of pedantry detracts from the message. We know that the EC is pushing it, but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEPs. Thus a list of MEPs from countries, colour coded by whether or not the country is known to support the position. And optionally a marker for their personal opinion if known.
Because people keep believing that there must be a technical solution that will improve security without causing harm. They are just uninformed, IMO.
Just like governments pretty much don't do anything about climate change and the mass extinction that is currently happening, even though they may well end up killing most people on Earth. If they understood how bad it is, they would act. But they don't.
So what is the real solution? Meaning the solution that an individual could use themselves, without further coordination, to insulate themselves from this policy. Is it an Android distribution? Jailbreaking? Custom builds?
Laws generally recognise the sanctity of privacy - for example, so much as looking at someone for too long can be deemed sexual assault in some jurisdictions - yet law makers wish to legislate they be able to view everyone's nudes (and much more)! Weird contradiction.
We do need to take action, but be mindful the data as presented isn’t yet entirely accurate. Note the text on the website:
> Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in.
In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance.
Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
86 comments
[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadThis is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?
It will be a sad day when that comes.
In my experience the left wants this just as much, if not more than the right.
Right-wing politics is starting to show up again in Europe, this is true, but the left / left-of-center has been in power for a long time and need (at least in their view) to remain in power.
These kinds of laws allow the powerful group to gain more control and remain in power, it took no time at all for the UK version of this law to block videos of heavy-handed policing [0].
The low power group usually doesn't support controls on speech, as they know it will make their rise to power harder. Once power shifts these views inevitably switch.
This has led to the belief, at least in the west, that the right censor and the left are the guardians of free speech - because it was true and people want to believe the world hasn't changed (nobody like to admit that they've become the bad guys).
This also leads people make this mistake of believing that politics is a line. It's not, it's a horseshoe.
In the middle is the vast majority of people that just want to be left alone, and want to leave others alone. At both edges there are loud, politically active, sociopaths that want power and control to protect and deify their own in-group, while, criminalizing and demonizing the out-group.
It's why, when looking at history, the right-wing fascists and the left-wing communists, seem to want totally opposite things, but end up with very similar policies and outcomes (illegal political parties, proscribed groups, concentration camps and genocide).
[0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14945805/Online-Saf...
Both "The Left" and "Greens/EFA", the major left wing parties in the Europarl, OPPOSE Chat Control!
Unfortunately the website appeared to show the MEP's positions as being *equal to their country's government's position", which is obviously nonsense!
This has since been fixed but the damage is done....
-----
That being said, does it not raise your skepticism bells even a little bit to see every single French MEP painted in the same colour, including parties that hate each other mutually, including liberal, anti-european, and left-wing parties... Should be enough to at least make you raise your eyebrows and be suspicious that something is wrong.
Anyone who tries to make this a left-right issue must stop, because that's how we lose.
But if latter's really the case, then why?
And that applies to all parties that call themselves left, regardless of a country.
Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
In the US we also enjoy probably the most expansive protection of speech in the world at present. Our own government created Tor. Yet simultaneously the majority of the population willingly hands over the minute details of their daily lives to half a dozen or more megacorps for the sake of some minor conveniences. It's beyond perplexing. I suspect we may be the most internally inconsistent civilization to have ever existed.
https://freiheitsrechte.org/
https://chat-kontrolle.eu/
Can anyone comment on the reputability of these initiatives?
Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern others.
Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example. (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely close to the pestilence of the US system.)
I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running, otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text data.
Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping, altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
[0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources
- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
- EU Council is pushing this regulation
- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"
Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.
Just like governments pretty much don't do anything about climate change and the mass extinction that is currently happening, even though they may well end up killing most people on Earth. If they understood how bad it is, they would act. But they don't.
> Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (…) The icons next to each name show whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or their country's official Council position. This information is updated regularly as new responses come in.
In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but don’t be accusatory if you’re not certain of their stance.
Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of the country, not each individual. They should really make this clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
States control what’s centralized; incentives ensure they keep doing so.
Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat—it can’t hear you, and it’s built to tighten control.
As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise.
(Yes, I’m speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-crypto and pro-this seems big.)