Fight Chat Control

https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

by tokai • 12 months ago

1493 462 12 months ago

fightchatcontrol.eu

isoprophlex• 12 months ago

God fucking damn it not again

This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?

ath3nd• 12 months ago

They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.

mantas7• 12 months ago

The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick another figure head. And we can’t even get the names who want to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were redacted for their privacy :D

ncr1009• 12 months ago

Yup.

Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power.

Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.

miroljub5• 12 months ago

They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.

I wouldn't call login political career or being cancelled and voted out "real repercussions". They can pretty much retire and enjoy the rest of their lives with all the lobby money and EU rents.

Real repercussion would mean prison time and losing their property, but we all know that won't happen anytime soon.

9dev2• 12 months ago

They only need to succeed one time. People are generally preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this is their lucky shot…

zubspace• 12 months ago

It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one time while the other side needs to succeed over and over again.

What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.

KennyBlanken2• 12 months ago

cough Patriot Act cough

...which Republicans swore up and down was temporary and yet, oddly, kept getting renewed wirth no evidence whatsoever it was necessary to stop a planned terrorist attack or that it would have stopped the WTC attacks themselves.

I bet 90% of the population or more has no idea that the Patriot Act was dumped and replaced with the nearly identical FREEDOM Act. Which took multiple tries to pass because they knew if they just kept hammering away, they'd eventually get it passed.

Yeah, they called a wildly invasive domestic spying bill the "freedom" act....

impossiblefork3• 12 months ago

They actually did succeed once, with the data retention directive. That got annulled by the CoJEU.

mantas7• 12 months ago

As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it later…

uncircle• 12 months ago

Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things.

It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy.

Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.

charcircuit• 12 months ago

You can keep trying to revoke it until it passes too.

brikym2• 12 months ago

Well it's pretty difficult to organize any opposition once they're reading all the messages.

idiotsecant2• 12 months ago

The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware and will never go away. We exist constantly balanced on the razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else. Self-governing humans are not a stable system.

swayvil2• 12 months ago

Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.

swayvil2• 12 months ago

The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.

ncr1009• 12 months ago

Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate.

Watchlist? Easy.

Mislead? Easy.

We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.

brikym2• 12 months ago

What do they gain? The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. If there was a conspiracy like that would they be acting much differently?

palata3• 12 months ago

The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control.

Then you lack imagination :-). Let me give one example: "I am a fundamentally good guy, and I want to protect the people. If I was given access to all the communications of everybody, it would be easier for me to do my job and to improve the security for everybody".

Of course, (as you know) this is flawed, be it just because you can't guarantee that a surveillance system will only ever be used by fundamentally good guys in the eyes of their people. Or said differently, if you create a backdoor for the good guys, you also create a backdoor for the bad guys.

But it's easy to be well-intentioned and not understand that it's impossible to build cryptography only for the good guys. No need to invent a deep state when the simplest explanation is "the people who believe it are uninformed".

cobbzilla4• 12 months ago

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.

croes6• 12 months ago

Where is the difference to the US, China or the UK?

Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against organized crime, terrorism, child abuse.

But in the end it’s just used for the heavy crimes like copyright infringement

cobbzilla4• 12 months ago

The US, at least, has a Bill of Rights that would make this illegal, it would definitely violate the 4th Amendment and maybe the 1st too.

ronsor• 12 months ago

The UK is politically, culturally, and geographically close to Europe.

China has always been authoritarian (and hyper-centralized).

The US is working hard to copy bad ideas from authoritarians, but can't do it in exactly the same way, otherwise the ability to criticize the EU, UK, and China is lost.

ahoka• 12 months ago

The difference is that PRISM was done as a black op, and this is out in the open.

grunder_advice• 12 months ago

Europe never abandoned the elitist mindset of a ruling elite lording it over the masses.

RickS• 12 months ago

This video by Benn Jordan makes the case that yes, traditional capitalism and empowerment by way of ownership are eroding in favor of a rent-seeking subscription economy. This economy requires continuous payment for participation with services that are not only merely loaned to us, but are loaned under the constant threat of banishment if we fail to contort ourselves to comply with nebulous, ever changing terms set by orgs that don't care about us. One such contortion is the agreement to be surveilled at all times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtrNXdlraM

Disposal8433• 12 months ago

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.

tatjam• 12 months ago

Looking at the supporting members, this appears to be supported by "both parties" across many many countries, what a sad thing to unite over...

dabber21• 12 months ago

what are the arguments?

realusername2• 12 months ago

France is just very regressive when it comes to the internet, any laws which can make the situation worse is usually voted by all parties (see neighbouring rights or any anti-piracy laws), I don't think there's any real reasoning.

f_devd• 12 months ago

If you're just looking at the website, do note that most (if not all) people are unconfirmed but show "supports" due to the leaked country position (hover over the pill/flag).

lucideer4• 12 months ago

Unfortunately this seems to be a bug in the website.

For any representatives that have no position / position unknown, rather than the website showing them as "Unknown" as you'd expect, it just assumes their position is the position of their government's EU Council representative supports this.

Many national representatives are aligned with opposition parties within their own country, and as such it's highly likely their position will deviate from that of their government, so this is a pretty bad misrepresentation. Highly misleading.

Vinnl• 12 months ago

That sounds like contacting your MEPs could at least be worth it. Usually when it comes to things like this, the parties that I'd consider voting for already vote the way I'd like them to do.

(In this case it's even better - my country opposes, even though the governing parties are not mine.)

JumpCrisscross4• 12 months ago

The original sin are ad-based social media.

Everyone (except China) failed to regulate that. So now we see overcorrection.

The solution is to regulate Meta and TikTok and YouTube. Until that is on the table we’ll get performative stupidity from both sides.

medlazik• 12 months ago

Not sure what you call the "so-called left", but the actual left (LFI) certainly doesn't support Chat Control

OldfieldFund• 12 months ago

probably they call "so-called left" the liberals

thrance2• 12 months ago

Yes, this makes no sense. No way they got 100% of every MPs to agree on this. They never agree on anything. I think the website took the fact that the country supports it and applied that position to each of its MPs.

wazoox• 12 months ago

Actually no, every MEP doesn't support it, the government's position is attributed to all MEP from the country, which is silly.

thaumasiotes2• 12 months ago

Note that chat control has been a top concern of governments since there were governments.

The Roman Empire banned private clubs, seeing them as a source of revolution.

fc417fc8029• 12 months ago

As the US demonstrated, they were correct.

SilverElfin2• 12 months ago

The left and the right stopped being about liberal values (like traditionally liberal or whatever) at some point, which are the backbone of democratic societies. I don’t see how you can have democracy without the ability to freely communicate. And that means freedom of speech but also the right to anonymity and privacy.

komali23• 12 months ago

I think we're just seeing the end game of neoliberalism, which is the fundamental agreement of all modern political parties.

fsflover• 12 months ago

Consider donating to https://edri.org instead.

forty2• 12 months ago

If you value democracy, I suggest not to trust any random website you read. Of course the French left (at least EELV/LFI) is not going to support this. This should be obvious if you know a bit what ideas they are defending (them and the others too), which you should as well if democracy matters to you.

_ache_2• 12 months ago

Can you explain a little why it's obvious? Last time I checked, LFI was for and EELV against.

https://mepwatch.eu/9/vote.html?v=167712&country=fr

latentsea2• 12 months ago

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.

It will be a sad day when that comes.

RansomStark• 12 months ago

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).

[0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14945805/Online-Saf...

andrepd5• 12 months ago

Nice theory, but the European left wing parties (The Left, and Greens) are against chat control, while the right wing parties are in favour.

In the UK, the Conservatives and the "New Labour" aka centre-right Starmer aka Tory Lite are responsible for massive backsliding of civil liberties, while those "far left" types like Corbyn are opposed to it.

So reality, at least in those two examples, seems to contradict your theory.

andrepd5• 12 months ago

THIS IS NOT TRUE.

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.

uyzstvqs3• 12 months ago

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.

raverbashing3• 12 months ago

Yup

It's more a thing like "boomers who can't install stuff in their phones themselves (except for suspicious apps apparently) vs people who actually understand privacy with the normies on the side"

mnbpdx• 12 months ago

The establishment right-wing is pro privacy?

torginus2• 12 months ago

I feel like you substituted 'idiot' for 'politician'. It would be quite surprising if regular people wanted more mass surveillance.

But if latter's really the case, then why?

BaseBaal• 12 months ago

I think it's more apathy than an actual desire for more mass surveillance. People don't care until they are directly, negatively affected. Same as it ever was.

miroljub5• 12 months ago

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.

Centigonal• 12 months ago

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?

nosioptar• 12 months ago

I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its citizen.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

thaumasiotes2• 12 months ago

With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at all waking hours.

ragmodel2262• 12 months ago

This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted. It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its communications against government interference ever again.

One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.

protocolture2• 12 months ago

Australia already has this capability and is likely using it for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.

dachris3• 12 months ago

Power wants to stay in power.

In a healthy society, citizens should always be wary of those in power and keep them on their toes, because power corrupts (and attracts already problematic characters).

Not driveling when they get thrown some crumbs or empty phrases ("child safety", "terrorism").

r33b333• 12 months ago

yeah, Japan

fc417fc8029• 12 months ago

We must be thinking of different Japans then. Related, have you seen the Tokyo police mascot?

Aeolun3• 12 months ago

They don’t really need to surveil their citizens. The indoctrination starts from kindergarden :)

ncr1009• 12 months ago

The Catholic Church is not for surveillance, afaik.

Join Vatican City!

isaacremuant7• 12 months ago

Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?

Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough protests. Not enough dissent.

Now politicians know they can turn the power knob as high as they want and nothing will happen. Less and less dissent will be allowed, just like during covid.

If you fail to learn that and denounce those and reclaim the freedoms for all, you're going to just whine into a smaller and smaller room.

JumpCrisscross4• 12 months ago

Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough protests. Not enough dissent

America has been trashed not by Covid but by the precedence being set that partisan violence can and will be pardoned.

Krssst3• 12 months ago

Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and supported by mainstream people by and large.

They were temporary and saved lives. Keyword here is temporary.

Of course COVID denialists are angry at it but they won in the USA now so we'll be happy getting more deaths and disabilities now that they are removing our ability to vaccinate ourselves.

JumpCrisscross4• 12 months ago

Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?

The one where citizens don’t regress into comfortably lazy nihilism as a first response.

SilverElfin2• 12 months ago

In the US, violations of civil rights that are performed by officials (like legislators) can be prosecuted under something called color of law. I think it is rarely done, if ever, but the justice department could do it. Maybe Americans need to start pushing their own representatives to call for such a case in situations where individual rights are violated.

Is there something like this in the EU, so that officials feel personal risk and liability for their actions in pushing this anti democratic policy?

thallium205• 12 months ago

The punishment can include the death penalty too.

chr15m2• 12 months ago

The price is liberty is eternal vigilance.

Just as you must work each day if you want money, you must oppose tyranny each day if you want liberty.

They will always want more power over you and you will always have to fight them because of that.

komali23• 12 months ago

Not really, which is a good argument against regimes in general.

fc417fc8029• 12 months ago

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.

immibis13• 11 months ago

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.

kratom_sandwich2• 12 months ago

Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could support with a donation?

lostmsu2• 12 months ago

Pick any decentralized IM project

nickslaughter0212• 12 months ago

You cannot fight this with technology. What will you do when they make connecting to instant messager servers without scanning illegal? VPN? They are already going after VPNs.

"VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge""

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...

Nemo_bis3• 12 months ago

EDRi. https://edri.org/about-us/victories/

kratom_sandwich2• 12 months ago

Kind of answering my own question, but in Germany there seem to be:

https://freiheitsrechte.org/

https://chat-kontrolle.eu/

Can anyone comment on the reputability of these initiatives?

pmlnr2• 12 months ago

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?

tough• 12 months ago

you cannot enforce law globally online

there's no internet police

pessimizer3• 12 months ago

You didn't even need the word "online." There's no global police.

futurecat• 12 months ago

Thank you for sharing.

101008• 12 months ago

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.

zwnow• 12 months ago

What a surprise, they are also paid a handsome pension after having worked in EU parliament for a few years, 4 I think. Most of us have to work for 40+ years and dont even get good retirement money

amarcheschi2• 12 months ago

If it hasn't been changed, not only politicians but law enforcement officers too would be exempt

This is one of the many abuses by Leo(s), part why I don't love and trust police in italy: https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatti_del_G8_di_Genova#p-lan...

I thought there was an English Wikipedia page but there isn't, translate it

lordnacho• 12 months ago

Can't make this shit up.

The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves.

But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself?

How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?

amarcheschi2• 12 months ago

It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it would delegate that to service providers - the organizations managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the foundation for the signal app is ecc

shark12• 12 months ago

It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from stealing, for example. By doing it, you will not be a lawful citizen.

whatevaa• 12 months ago

You would get labeled a "potential criminal". See some comment from police labelling Graphene OS users as criminals.

Steganography exists and is undefeatable, though very low bandwith.

rdm_blackhole4• 12 months ago

This is only the first step in the process. First they will force all messaging/email providers to implement the scanning. Those who refuse or decide to leave the EU as Signal said they would do, would end up being unlisted from Google Play or the Apple (EU) app store.

Then the second phase is coming by 2030. Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.

This will be forced on Apple and other manufacturers directly.

dachris3• 12 months ago

Hopefully it doesn't get implemented, but obviously they could force OS providers to implement this in Android and iOS.

rdm_blackhole4• 12 months ago

Even if you compile your own version of Signal, will your friends do it too? Will your grandma/grandpa do it as well? It only takes one person in the chain to be compromised by using the "real" app and then all your efforts would be defeated because now your messages have been exposed by this other person unknowingly.

ncr1009• 12 months ago

So stop them.

hagbard_c• 12 months ago

Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bov...

jaharios2• 12 months ago

A lot of actual pedophiles will be exposed if it was used on politicians, we don't want that.

cloudhead• 12 months ago

This.

echelon• 12 months ago

While we're talking about corrupt politicians, why is this all happening all at once?

America, Great Britain, and the EU are all creating tracking, monitoring, and censorship regulations. All at the same time.

We're turning the internet into the 1984 inevitability it was predicted to become.

We need a Bill of Rights against this. But the public is too lay to push for this. Bolstering or eroding privacy rights will never happen in the direction we want, only the one we don't. It's so frustrating.

fc417fc8029• 12 months ago

We already tried requiring CP rings to collect ID in the US. It doesn't seem to have worked out the way you're suggesting. It was called the Epstein client list if you're curious.

CM302• 12 months ago

Yeah this really annoys me, because it appears to show that any pretense that the law applies to everyone equally is disappearing fast.* If it at least affected politicians you could write it off as "idiotic idea that wasn't thought through in the slightest", but here it's clear that they have some idea how stupid and dangerous the law is, and see themselves as worth exempting from it instead.

einarfd• 12 months ago

That they exempt politicians is basically admitting that the security problems that detractors bring up is true, and is something that should be used against them.

After all exempting some police, that work on investigating child molesting, from the scanning, that is understandable.

Exempting prime minster Mette Frederiksen, on the other hand. Means either that they understand that it undermines security, or that she or some other top politicians are child molester. So which is it?

chr15m2• 12 months ago

Rules for thee but not for me.

rvz2• 12 months ago

*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.

That is what a scam looks like.

In fact it should be the opposite: Government officials should have even far less privacy since you're paying your taxes to them and you need that transparency on where the money is going.

As corrupt as they already are, this just tells you that EU politicians just want even more corruption.

setnone• 12 months ago

Excellent resources section [0] including "Digital technologies as a means of repression and social control" study from European Parliament

[0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources

lucideer4• 12 months ago

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.

beberlei• 12 months ago

Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works.

If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.

x7752• 12 months ago

Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.

lucideer4• 12 months ago

To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.

like_any_other• 12 months ago

The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process

I think that's misleading. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1]. Meaning that the Parliament can neither change nor reverse course - it is completely decided by the Council. All the Parliament can do is limit how fast that course is followed.

Edit: Sorry, what I wrote about the "Council" should have been about the "EU Commission" instead. The Council may in fact have equal power, as you wrote.

[1] Which I think (but was unable to explicitly confirm) extends to removing old legislation. I.e. the Council only has to get its way once, and then we're stuck with a law, unless the Council proposes to remove it. A ratchet.

sampo2• 12 months ago

The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process

The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject. Of course informally they can discuss with the Commission and let the Commission know what they would or would not pass.

effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments

This is true. But you maybe forgot another body, the EU Commission.

EU Council, Council of the EU: Represent member states

EU Commission: Represents the EU

EU Parliament: Represents the citizens

I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".

joks• 12 months ago

The whole site has that vibe-coded-website look. I wonder if a lot of the information on the site was essentially hallucinated too.

Nemo_bis3• 12 months ago

You mean the Council of the EU. The EUCO is a separate body. SCNR.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...

elric3• 12 months ago

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.

munksbeer5• 12 months ago

but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEP

The European Council is the heads of each member state. They are literally the people elected by each nation state domestically. If they don't represent the people, then that means national democracy is broken (which I agree with in cases like the UK) but I'm making a more general point.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/european-council/

croisillon• 12 months ago

nitpick but the number of MEPs is not the same in some countries (Slovakia, Spain and a few more) on the summary card and on the representative list

shark12• 12 months ago

It's impressive how governments never quit trying to implement this harmful idea.

palata3• 12 months ago

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.

rendall• 12 months ago

The landing page really should have an open graph image! It would help with sharing and promotion.

dachris3• 12 months ago

Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead down this road. British humour I guess.

vaylian5• 12 months ago

The chat control bill also has age verification to identify child users.

dan_can_code• 12 months ago

I think the point was that the law is not in effect just yet.

nickslaughter0212• 12 months ago

Can you imagine the UK having a vote in all of this? Terrifying.

mustaphah• 12 months ago

The EU: proudly defending human rights… unless you're trying to send a private message.

midasz• 12 months ago

As disappointing as my national government (NL) has been and still is, at least our MEPs oppose this dragon of a proposal.

thesdev• 12 months ago

The individual MEPs' positions are wrong, it's not 1:1 with the national government's position as the website suggests.

alphazard2• 12 months ago

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?

betaby• 12 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution probably a solution

account4210• 12 months ago

A solution that laws like this will make very much harder to pull off if not impossible.

r33b333• 12 months ago

Solution is to move or cause resistance obv

_Algernon_2• 12 months ago

When (rational) people make decisions they weigh the possible rewards of success against the possible costs of failure. We are in a situation where the costs are virtually zero ("oh no, we have to try again in 6 months!") while the rewards are immense: the potential to consolidate even more power to the rich and powerful elite.

It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again, and they only need to succeed once. Social movements of the past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an extent that they couldn't be ignored.

Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and violence.

vaylian5• 12 months ago

The real solution is to stop the law while it is still being negotiated.

ncr1009• 12 months ago

In America our judicial system is sleeping and also overtly supporting anti democratic laws.

alphazard2• 12 months ago

If the law was passed, would there still be things you could do to insulate yourself from the effects of the law?

If so, that is the real solution, because it works in all cases.

HelloUsername• 12 months ago

You ask a valid and clear question, sadly no one yet properly responded :( I'll try: using an app that can communicate without ever connecting to the internet? Such as: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6748584483

SchemaLoad2• 12 months ago

There is LoRaWAN with tech like Meshtastic which can send messages far further than wifi and bluetooth. Problem is the throughput is pretty limited. Only really useful for text messages within the same city.

Not sure any purely wireless system would scale that well either since every message floods the entire network. Ideally for wireless you just want wireless to the closest grid connected node to connect to the internet.

account4210• 12 months ago

An app, in an official app store no less, is not going to be a solution for long. If you want an actual technical attempt at a solution you first need to regain ownership over your computing devices.

whimsicalism• 12 months ago

probably worst case side loading tor on android

nomilk• 12 months ago

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.

latexr• 12 months ago

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.

ncr1009• 12 months ago

Make their job more servant to the public, and less profitable in the near and far term.

Regulate the politicians.

ukprogrammer4• 12 months ago

HN applauds this vibe-coded “privacy” site yet condemns decentralized messaging.

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.)

drapado• 12 months ago

Genuely curious. What would the problem be if it was vibe-coded? It's an easy to read site that succeeds in communicating what it wants.

ukprogrammer4• 12 months ago

there's no problem with it being vibe-coded

The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect some kind of durable societal change

Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of the above actions are just low-effort cope

sunaookami2• 12 months ago

decentralized messaging

This doesn't help, Chat Control scanner run directly on your device. It doesn't matter which chat program you use.

ukprogrammer4• 12 months ago

Incorrect

... providers to search all private chats, messages, and emails automatically for suspicious content [1]

Even if that were the case, the answer is the Framework phone

[1] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/

rossant• 12 months ago

Sometimes, very bad things are done in the name of "child protection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

throwaway892012• 12 months ago

Please also fight mandatory age verification with prison sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely missed by news organizations and even interest groups.

The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year."

It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely it will get a second reading.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...

BiteCode_dev• 12 months ago

[flagged]

tomhow• 12 months ago

Please don't berate other community members on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. HN is for curious conversation, not battle. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines in future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

MrDrMcCoy• 12 months ago

Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for how nonsensical a law can be?

throwaway892012• 12 months ago

Member states will implement this into national law. So in the case they will need to implement a maximum of one year or more (but not less). The final law as applied by a judge will just read "punishable by a maximum of [i.e.] fourteen months".

TeMPOraL2• 12 months ago

"Maximum term" is a specific legal concept, "at least one year" is the numerical constraint.

Or, put another way:

  if(maxTerm >= 1) {
    // law implementation OK!
  }

demiters2• 12 months ago

That's not only asinine but also poorly worded. How is this getting approved?

dragonwriter• 12 months ago

Its properly worded, as it is an EU law declaring atandards for national laws and the implementing national law must specify a penalty range where the maximum is at least one year (but can be more).

It seems worded poorly if you think of it as if the phrase was from a criminal law and not a law mandating and setting parameters for criminal laws.

lucideer4• 12 months ago

While this is a specifically awful article, for obvious reasons, I find the idea of encoding specifics on carceral terms into any EU-level directive a bizarre overstep.

raverbashing3• 12 months ago

Yes it is and it would be very weird (to say the least) to have a criminal provision in such proposal

steve_taylor2• 12 months ago

I personally support age verification for porn. However, age verification for almost anything else, e.g. Reddit, is a terrible idea.

ngruhn• 12 months ago

Idk age restricting Instagram, TikTok etc. might be good for teenagers mental health.

moodywoody• 12 months ago

There's porn on reddit though

marcus_holmes3• 12 months ago

Define "porn" then I'll think about what you're proposing to age verify.

IshKebab5• 12 months ago

Yeah I think you have it backwards. I don't think anyone has demonstrated any actual harms from porn, but social networks regularly fuck teenagers up.

I definitely would prefer my children to watch porn than get bullied - or worse - on social media.

There's also the fact that I vaguely trust Facebook or Reddit to do a credit card-based age check or whatever. No way I'm giving any of my details to porn sites.

Stupid dumb law.

Aeolun3• 12 months ago

The standard for robust and effective age verification is extremely low, given how I’ve seen anyone do age verification. It’s also pointless if we’re talking about the internet, you are essentially outsourcing your porn production to foreign countries

Yokolos• 12 months ago

Foreign countries with less regulations and protections for sex workers and actresses.

account4210• 12 months ago

The standard for robust and effective age verification is a moving target.

Foreign websites will be solved the great EU firewall that will inevitably come "to protect the rule of law" once these legislations are passed.

Svip2• 12 months ago

A little more context: that article 3 paragraph 2.a. was added by parliament (not proposed by the Commission). But paragraph 1 (same article) was altered to this text:

Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional conduct referred to in paragraphs 2 to 8 is punishable.

(Emphasis being the change.)

So they only mean the intentional act of putting up pornography without age verification? Just feign forgetfulness, I guess. How is a negative act an intentional one? Or moreover; how do you prove it? I know neglect and gross neglect are things, so I assume they mean if you don't do it after being asked to.

NoboruWataya• 12 months ago

The positive intentional act, I guess, is disseminating the material. Proving intent and various ancillary concepts like knowledge, etc, are the bread and butter of prosecutors, so I don't think the act would be as difficult to enforce as you suggest. Sure, there might be corner cases where you can say "oops I forgot to password protect that Dropbox link" but certainly porn websites that don't do age verification will have a hard time arguing their conduct was not intentional.

raxxorraxor2• 12 months ago

News organization welcome any barrier to social media networks, they are heavily biased on these topics. The "modern" journalist of today doesn't really care about freedom of information either.

Speaking of which, the EU is also working on a "free speech" law for journalists and against them being arbitrarily banned by platforms. One would think this law could easily be extended to everyone since it is not at all trivial to determine who gets these benefits and who doesn't.

Most outlets today are some form of court reporter in one way or another. That trust in media is sinking is quite expected and in many cases reasonable too.

stephen_g3• 12 months ago

We have this issue massively in Australia too - literally almost 100% of the push to implement a social media ban (where ‘social media’ is anything that an unelected bureaucrat called the ‘eSafety commissioner’ feels like, which, for example, wasn’t going to include YouTube until they changed their mind) came from a single Murdoch newspaper campaign. It just wasn’t a thing anybody else was talking about, and then suddenly it was apparently the most important thing the federal Government could be doing that apparently had to be rushed through in about two weeks with almost no oversight (normally here it can take years to get reform that normal people have been long calling for into Parliament) - honestly it was absolutely bizarre.

I have no hesitation saying that the newspaper that pushed it doesn’t give a single damn about the kids - they have a serious hatred of Meta in particular but also Google. The whole thing was concern trolling because they were angry that they are going to get cut off from the last shakedown they lobbied for (called the media bargaining code).

red-iron-pine2• 12 months ago

the modern journalist doesn't get to have a say -- big media companies and their editors are calling the shots.

hell, a ton of articles are already ghost written by automated tools, and a lot of "bias" is simply not reporting on certain things.

torginus2• 12 months ago

EU is like:

We will protect your sensitive personal documents so that only trusted government institutions and ones held to the highest standards of privacy (such as banks) may have access to it. This is to prevent abuse and identity theft.

Also please upload them to BigBootyXXX.com if you want to have a wank

sillysaurusx2• 12 months ago

At the end of the day, "think of the children" has been an ancient rallying cry that’s used to justify all kinds of bad behavior. Often ironic, as you say.

Also banks were one of the most vulnerable. I’ve often wondered why. My first reaction is "because their code comes from coders who only want to work at a bank," but I don’t want to be unfair. Perhaps it’s "from people comfortable with lots of bureaucracy". Either way, when I was a pentester, banks were one of our main types of clients, and their code was often bad. So it’s doubly ironic to claim banks are exemplars of how to do privacy.

notTooFarGone2• 12 months ago

This is not an argument when ZKPs are actively being worked on and hopefully soon integrated.

There is age verification that preserves privacy.

Lasokki• 12 months ago

https://ageverification.dev/

"The European Commission is developing a harmonized, EU-wide approach to age verification, accompanied by a comprehensive age verification blueprint that is intended to facilitate practical adoption across all Member States and can be customised to the national context. Built upon the robust European Digital Identity Wallet framework, this user-friendly and privacy-preserving age verification solution enables individuals to demonstrate their eligibility for age-restricted online services, such as those restricted to adults, without disclosing more personal information than absolutely necessary"

So basically, the intention is to provide a solution where users do not need an account or to provide their passports to BigBootyXXX.com. The site just asks if this session or user is of legal age and the age verification system will respond with a TRUE/FALSE

raxxorraxor2• 11 months ago

Also, public officials like to be exempt because of professional requirements. They delivered the argument for it to be declared illegal violating a few constitutions.

Also because it is an undemocratic technocracy (warranted polemic) and the average citizen cannot sue before the EU judiciary, the national courts have to kill it. Of course such a process will take years...

gershy• 12 months ago

Am I insane for being somewhat in favour of this? I think the accessibility of adult content on the internet is a disaster.

microsoftedging• 12 months ago

In principle, not at all. But there is no way to do this properly at all. No matter how secure the companies that do this say it is, it's another possible vulnerability.

You can't play whack a mole with the internet. People will always find a way to move smut or whatever on the internet. It takes no time at all to spin up more and more sites, and there's a million ways around them (vpns, etc).

All it does it just push people to more and more fringe sites, when moderation is likely to be lax and the content more extreme. Ideally it wouldn't be viewed at all, but it's just how the internet is.

It also sets a terrible precedent for censorship- in the UK, we've already seen, on Reddit for example, subreddits dedicated to quitting addictions being age gated, and it'll only get worse.

throwaway2745922• 12 months ago

As a citizen of an EU country, I am really piss* off that the EU Parliament just gets to set the law in all countries. Do we have independent countries anymore? It does not seem that much different between federal government and states. It feels like occupation.

darqis• 12 months ago

you have a throwaway account because you fear dang's censorship and rightly so

ncr1009• 12 months ago

WTFF. Fight !!

Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?

Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement?

Gestapo much, anyone?

isaacremuant7• 12 months ago

Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?

Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing authoritarian policies.

Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists, anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we have to protect kids, or fight racism...

It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any of this.

graemep3• 12 months ago

Yes, very few people want free speech for their opponents.

They want free speech for what they agree with, or at least think tolerable.

The principle of free speech as a right everyone has, has been lost.

immibis13• 11 months ago

Should I be allowed to go on national news and present irrefutable evidence (AI-generated of course) that the president is a lizard person?

By default, I should, because it's a free country. But what if enough people start believing me that the country falls apart? Should the country let itself fall apart or should it perhaps try to stop the whole thing?

isaacremuant7• 12 months ago

Sure. Fight it. And also Remember this moment next time you're calling people conspiracy theorists because your party politician or mainstream news says so.

Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms.

It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the worst.

Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the greater good.

andrewinardeer2• 12 months ago

Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Signal chat messages to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?

Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?

Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this encryption?

ivanjermakov• 12 months ago

Making it illegal to use "non-compliant" e2ee services and prosecuting those who does. Realistically, they couldn't, but could ban such apps in EU stores, making them less popular.

They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat client for every user.

danielheath2• 12 months ago

They can fine apple and google for offering signal in their app stores, until nobody has it installed.

That doesn’t break your comms today - but later, you replace your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?

layer83• 12 months ago

Not quite. It would be illegal for Signal to continue operating in the EU if they don’t implement the required scanning functionality. And Signal has already stated that they’d rather leave the EU.

andrewinardeer2• 11 months ago

I can download the Signal APK from their site.

rkomorn5• 12 months ago

The idea isn't to break encryption, it's to have apps implement client-side scanning "pre-encryption".

stephen_g3• 12 months ago

Yes, what is proposed is breaking the end-to-end security model, not breaking the encryption itself.

Effectively it causes the same loss of security and trust as if they broke the encryption, but it allows them the fig-leaf of pretending that you're still secure because they "haven't broken the encryption".

nickslaughter0212• 12 months ago

The idea isn't to break encryption

That comes later with ProtectEU.

"Technical experts call on Commissioner Virkkunen for a seat on the table of the European Commission’s Technology Roadmap on encryption"

https://edri.org/our-work/technical-experts-call-on-virkkune...

zbentley• 12 months ago

No, but many political figures have proposed banning the distribution/possession/operation of tools (e.g. Signal, Tor) which can be used to circumvent surveillance.

ymir_e• 12 months ago

Definitely wouldn’t break the encryption itself.

I think the way it could work is to send a letter to each of the messaging apps saying that they are now legally required to use the EU’s encryption keys and make the messages available to the EU.

Then they would make it so that the apps that don’t comply are not available in the app stores by pressuring google and apple respectively.

I think this is the reason why for example telegram is not end to end encrypted by default - as some regions require them to be able to access users info.

Software you’re using on your own wouldn’t be effected, but wouldn’t necessarily be legal either.

People who are technically savvy could get around it, but the vast majority of people just assume that their private messages are private.

coldblues• 12 months ago

Telegram is not E2EE because it's easier and faster to sync and transmit messages between millions of people. The scale of Telegram groups and channels is massive. Telegram, for a long time, has not complied with law enforcement requests and has made it hard for authorities to get data because of their architecture. You still have Secret Chats for E2EE messaging as an option.

layer83• 12 months ago

The proposed regulation is about imposing requirements on service providers, as defined by the Digital Services Act, for messaging and other services, effectively requiring them to implement backdoors in their software.

Purely P2P communication isn’t affected.

protocolture2• 12 months ago

The app that decrypts the message, will have the capability to provide that message, now decrypted, to the government.

mettamage2• 12 months ago

So as a Dutchie that opposes this, is there still something for me to do? The Netherlands opposes this, so... should I sway them to oppose it even more? Not really sure what my role should be.

layer83• 12 months ago

See https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo under “Is your government opposing?”.

mettamage2• 12 months ago

Is your government opposing? → Great, but take a closer look at the reasoning: Some governments like Germany e.g. only object to the scanning of encrypted communications, but are fine with the indiscriminate scanning of other private and public communication, with the end of anonymous communication by requiring age verification, or with introducing a minimum age for “risky” communication apps. Also critical governments need to do more, exert their influence in the Council of the EU and agree on a joint list of necessary fundamental changes to the proposal. Absent such revision they should ask the European Commission to withdraw the chat control proposal as it stands.

Just putted it here, for easier reading.

x7752• 12 months ago

Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing.

I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the website thus summarises the level of support at Council level. The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation.

As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal of the third section of the website.

I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and clarifying their stance (while some have in the past, circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation); and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of the MEP to be that of their government.

I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately, the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the personal opinions of each MEP.

In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs such that they are aware of your concerns.

[0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-bo...

[1] https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-...

[2] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/

[3] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-e...

[4] https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname...

stavros• 12 months ago

Hello, it's not working for me, "send emails" fails with:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'selectedMeps') at Object.showSelectionFeedback (takeAction.js:546:41) at Object.selectAllRepresentatives (takeAction.js:542:14) at HTMLButtonElement.onclick ((index):1:13)

tokai• 12 months ago

Good work. I hope the HN front page didn't cause you too much headache with traffic.

frm88• 12 months ago

Thank you for your good work. Yours is the best resource I found for (a) more information and (b) sending mass e-mails to MEPs.

I encourage everyone to at least contact your MEPS, x775's effort makes that part easy.

josh2600• 12 months ago

This is actually one of the major fights of our generation.

If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right.

IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society.

In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who.

Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.

msgodel• 12 months ago

It sounds to me like the Europeans need to have an actual fight (that is with bullets and artillery) with this weird EU pseudo government thing. It sounds like a loss for them to me.

miroljub5• 12 months ago

Many Europeans just wait for the Russia to come and save us from the totalitarian regimes once again.

Tainnor• 12 months ago

The UK left the EU and is pushing very similar sorts of dangerous nonsense legislation when it comes to the internet, so this is clearly not just a EU thing.

mvieira38• 12 months ago

"whatsapp"

Please don't include it in this conversation. That app is spyware and collects enough metadata on you for actual conversations not to matter, proven by them being bold enough to introduce personalized advertising inside the "e2ee" app

immibis13• 11 months ago

Also it uploads all your decrypted chats to Google every week.

hazek112• 12 months ago

The EU continues to become a hilariously Soviet nanny state.

Beautiful land and country, but they're destroying their cultures with the third world and seem to just not care about the rights of their citizens.

tomgag• 12 months ago

I'm Italian. On my side, I did what I could do: I emailed Italian politicians explaining why they should reject the proposal. A drop in the ocean, and far from impactful, but if it can change the odds even by an epsilon, why not?

https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol

Big politics is not my thing, so for me the big effort was: 1) understanding who, among the zillions of politicians we have, could have a direct role in the decisional process and how; 2) searching and collecting the email addresses; and 3) funnily enough, picking the right honorifics (for example, I was not aware that "Onorevole" is reserved only to certain figures in Italian politics).

I shared the resulting effort on my website, in the hope of making life easier for fellow Italians who want to do the same.

amarino• 12 months ago

Thank you for sharing this, it saved me quite some time and I coincidentally found a great resource (your blog).

colleenthom7• 12 months ago

Test

righthand• 12 months ago

This is a list of countries not to visit with tourism money as a foreigner you’re no longer safe.

phendrenad22• 12 months ago

The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform.

That might be fine in a world where every country is on-board, but now that the internet exists, countries with anonymous free speech will come out ahead.

Here's a darker thought: The pre-internet US and UK had a crime problem. Crime was spiking through the 1980s and 1990s. People were disaffected, jaded, they felt that the halls of power were captured by corruption and their voice didn't matter. This is the environment that gave us the original Robocop movie, a hyper-violent celebration of the commoner over both criminals and corrupt government institutions.

The internet economy revitalized the western world and helped us pull out of the crime doom spiral. Without that miracle, we were probably on track for ruthless Duterte-style governments, if not something worse like fascism.

Anyway, I predict that the EU will stop short of actually passing this into law. They're not stupid, and they just want "good boy points" for trying (not from the voters, of course, but people with real political power).

SchemaLoad2• 12 months ago

Crime was spiking in those decades because everyone was getting pumped full of lead. Not because they didn't have anonymous reddit.

wraptile• 12 months ago

The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself.

This would just end anonymity for normal people. All of the bots and bad actors will have no problem with comitting a crime because they are literally criminals.

marcus_holmes3• 12 months ago

I think they'll pass it into law, and then find it's effectively unenforceable, same as all the other similar laws (the UK is busy discovering that age verification laws promote VPN use that circumvent all enforceability of any UK internet laws).

The authoritarian mindset that thinks that making something illegal will stop people from doing it, doesn't really grok how that just doesn't work.

seydor2• 12 months ago

people still have a need to speak freely. There are alternatives to the mainstream internet, and maybe we ll be better there

munksbeer5• 12 months ago

The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself.

In no way do I support this surveillance society, or legislation, but I just wanted to make a casual point. I'm from a country where the internet first came through universities, and I was privileged to be there at the time. Those early days when it was just university students (and other staff) communicating over IRC were, nostalgically, wonderful. And everyone knew who everyone on IRC actually was in real life. Sure, there were the usual flame wars and some trolls, but it felt personal and, just good.

I'd love to go back to those internet days - bit of course I'm aware that is an elitist attitude, because I was part of the "in group" at the time.

phendrenad22• 11 months ago

I just missed those days. But what most people miss about it was not necessarily that everyone had their name attached (or easily findable). What people miss about those days is the quality of discussion online. Because it wasn't a random sampling of the population, it was a sampling of the most tech-savvy academics from around the world.

I don't know about you, but I think I prefer the knock-on effects of internet-for-everyone.

themafia• 12 months ago

The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform.

No, in the 1980s, dissident voices had platforms. They weren't "mass media" platforms but they definitely had radio shows, periodicals and various publishing channels to disseminate their publications and broadcasts. They were incredibly important in those days, and those sources held some amount of power, in that they could expose a story, and effectively force the rest of the media to cover a subject or event they otherwise would have ignored.

This is worse in every way as it /completely/ locks them out the modern market of ideas that is the internet and ensconces prior restraint into law in a way that violates the civil liberties of every citizen, whether they are the publisher, or the consumer.

We have lost control of the internet. Those who have control intend to turn this world back into a fiefdom with their newfound power. They are otherwise working to keep the rest of the population in fear and distracted. I'm genuinely afraid our past luck will fail to hold out. They've spent 20 years to get to this point. I don't see them giving up.

thrance2• 12 months ago

Not a defense of chat control, which I am very much against, but can you really claim that the internet gave "dissident voices" a platform?

Media is arguably even more tightly controlled than in the 1980s, legacy media is owned by a few billionairew, right-wing influencers are all paid hacks, with a lot of them relaying pro-Russia propaganda. Meanwhile, genuine independent journalists are buried under algorithmic nonsense promoting ragebait and hate.

The internet very much failed to deliver a new era of feee speech. Instead, our conversations are now hosted on a few platforms and controlled by the oligarchs that own them, who are able to editorialize out dissenting voices and promote their own disgusting viewpoints.

wizardforhire• 12 months ago

I just had this great idea reading this proposed law and the comments and concerns there of… here me out

Lets just put everybody in the world in prison except for the people with net worths over some unattainable threshold… perhaps a hundred thousand dollars. Then we’ll just make everyone work for and take all of it for ourselves. That way we cam destroy their cultures and the genetic lineages and we can just kill all the people we dont like dont agree with especially if theyre skin color is one we dont agree with. The world will be a better place because the clearly superior people will be on top. We can breed the rest of humans and just eat them. We’ll call them eloi and we’ll be the morlocks.

renewiltord2• 12 months ago

Man am I glad I live in America. Despite everything, it's still the land of the free and the home of the brave. The federal system here means that the majority of weird shit happens at the state level.

_Algernon_2• 12 months ago

The country that had prosecution of political opponents during the Red Scare and patriot act is better? The US is the country that started all this privacy invading BS and is still way ahead on that front.

After all Chat Control hasn't actually passed yet.

nickslaughter0212• 12 months ago

The company lobbying for the proposal is a US surveillance company called Thorn. They have correctly identified that the EU is weak and you can just say "children" and politicians will agree to anything however. Even if it doesn't achieve anything.

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

account4210• 12 months ago

I salute you sir, a true PATRIOT. Your PRISMatic view of the world truly knows no bounds.

immibis13• 12 months ago

The more they have to tell you that you're free, and the more they make want to tell other people that you're free, the less free you actually are.

renewiltord2• 12 months ago

Oh yeah definitely. And the more they tell you something is vanilla ice cream, the more non-vanilla-ice-cream it is. In this moment, you are euphoric.

chaostheory2• 12 months ago

This just hammers the opinion that the GDPR was mainly just an EU economic protectionist policy and not actually about protecting privacy of citizens as promised.

immibis13• 12 months ago

GDPR passed, Chat Control didn't (already rejected about 4-5 times but the evil people keep proposing it because re-proposing the same failed law has no cost).

The chat control laws in the UK and USA also passed.

chaostheory2• 11 months ago

9 eyes supersedes the GDPR. 9 eyes has been active for years.

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe• 12 months ago

I think the people behind this site did a really good job! Can we donate to them?

seydor2• 12 months ago

Yup, that's where we should spend our energy

jlengrand• 12 months ago

*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy.

This alone tells me which way I should weigh in on this law. They know what they're doing.

andrepd5• 12 months ago

The notoriously opaque EU institutions would sooner insist on reading your every message than actually be transparent themselves. This is beyond satire.

arresin• 12 months ago

Does it persist when they leave office?

renegat0x0• 12 months ago

How do you create an environment in which immoral actions become permissible? You legalize them.

random97498322• 12 months ago

When they locked everything down and forced you to wear masks they already told you who they are. They don't care about your freedom or you as an individual and your rights.

account4210• 12 months ago

Spot on. They also showed how the constitution means nothing to them because once you win in court they already got what they wanted.

What's more sad is that the general public has also responded that they are OK with this. Dissenters have become to be though of as a problem that needs to be corrected instead of as an indicator that what the government is doing is wrong.

immibis13• 11 months ago

sorry, this is stupid. Preventing a pandemic (we failed to prevent a pandemic because large numbers of us deliberately chose not to prevent a pandemic) is not the same as the Nazis.

random97498322• 11 months ago

Sorry but you are an idiot, no one brought up the Nazis except you. It is control in the name of safety one of which destroyed many businesses.

miroljub5• 12 months ago

As much as we are fighting Chat Control, we also need a plan B. What do we do if EU regime really enact it? Which messengers could we use then? What were the practical alternatives?

Self hosted, decentralized, encrypted, standard based, ... , the only thing that comes to mind is something like delta.chat for texts, which builds upon a standard mail protocol.

Can we do something better than that?

aprilfoo2• 12 months ago

Security is always a cat and mouse game, solutions already exist and more will come soon anyway. It's just technology after all. The problem now is not for the mice, it's a matter of defending basic human rights.

aprilfoo2• 12 months ago

In short: everything and everyone is suspect and need to approved by technocratic superior authorities and zealot private organizations. Yesterday China, USA, Russia, UK, India etc and today the EU aligning with North Korean style of control on people.

This is a mind boggling recipe for disaster, a worldwide dystopian nightmare coming true with an unprecedented but quite predictable series of consequences. Next step: compulsory installation of CCTV inside every home?

jenita252• 11 months ago

Haloo

jenita252• 11 months ago

I'm at least me what you

GatoMil• 11 months ago

PRIVACY IS A HUMAN RIGHT

oakhaven• 11 months ago

I sent the email and got response from Czech Pirate MEP:

[..] The bad news is already circulating—the EU Council is now led by the Danes, who would like to push their position of unrestricted surveillance through among the other member states.

Just a few months ago, however, a vote—only to reopen the discussion!—was supposed to take place, and most states blocked it. So the Danes may try to gain a majority, but we have no indication that the positions in the Council will change significantly. For now.

The bad news, of course, is that as parliamentary elections take place in the coming years in the national states (for example in Czechia in a month), the positions of the states may change. [0]

This needs to be noted, and if it starts to change to our disadvantage, sound the alarm with the new (czech) government.

However, I also have some good news for you in general—for the next four years. :)

Legislation in the EU is approved in such a way that the Parliament and the Council create a position, and then they must work together to reach a compromise.

The current situation is blocked because there is no Council position. However, even if the Council were to finally approve a position and it were terrible, the Parliament's position is strongly against the proposal, and after discussions with other rapporteurs, I can assure you that nothing will change (only the KDU-CSL (a czech christian-democratic party) is causing problems ;)). So no "spying compromise" will pass through us.

[end of translated citation]

[0] There will be parliamentary elections in autumn 2025 in Czechia, and the populist parties are leading the polls, most notable Ano 2011 led by A. Babis (a mid-left party). I don't know what's their position on Chat Control, but I guess it will be whatever they estimate is going to gain them most votes in elections coming up next.

bis8wb6dlwv6• 11 months ago

Sasa

Fight Chat Control

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