EU countries move to revive temporary message-scanning regime

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/06/26/eu-countries-move-to-revive-temporary-message-scanning-regime-but-it-could-backfire

by latexr • 24 days ago

57 32 24 days ago

euronews.com

HelloUsername• 24 days ago

Related: "EU to legislate about Chat Control behind closed doors" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48707719 28-06-2026 380 comments

StefanBatory3• 24 days ago

I think that war with Russia is approaching and they know that Putin will do something; thus while it's done under the oretense of saving the children, it's for wartime...

apetrov• 24 days ago

Right. Russia has been grinding for 50km in eastern Ukraine for 4 years, and now suddenly it wants to attack an alliance 7x its population and 20x its economy. It sounds like yet another excuse to erode liberty than an actual threat to the west.

DaSHacka2• 23 days ago

Sounds like Russia is Europe's Iran.

They're 2 weeks away from having ~~nuclear weapons~~ invading Europe! Sorry, we need to scan all of your communications to prepare for this looming threat.

StefanBatory3• 23 days ago

Scanning convos for leaks; spies, and so on.

petertodd2• 23 days ago

If Ukraine loses, Russia will be in a good position to attack the west because they think we're cowards who won't actually respond to, e.g., Estonia getting invaded. Also, it's misleading to say that Ukraine is 1/20th the economy: Ukraine is supported by NATO.

Of course, this is all irrelevant to the discussion around chat control: authoritarians want authority.

tomasphan• 23 days ago

Highly suggest you read 1984.

pyuser5837• 24 days ago

I say this again and again in various places - something wise needs to be done about children and the internet.

Previous interventions have failed miserably.

I think the solution is giving parents maximum power: create an immutable record of browsing history - down to the request/response; and, if desired, white listing at ISP account level.

I’ve had to deal with a child seeking out toxic materials - although fortunately not the kind discussed here.

Conventional blocking software fails because the worst parts aren’t bad domains but mixed domains - Reddit, for example.

If you’re going to enact laws, enact laws that require mixed domains to not frustrate blocking software - Reddit does this. If it detects a blocker it throws up a fake subreddit, so you have no idea what your kid tried to access.

Messaging is fairly easy to manage - delete the messaging apps. Also the immutability and white listing would do great things there too.

But when the domain spitting out toxic content is Google Classroom - there’s nothing you can do.

I don’t want to dig on this too hard, but safe harbor rules probably shouldn’t apply when the content comes from or to minors.

The idea behind safe harbor is to effectively route lawsuits to the person who created the content, not to the platform hosting it. But if it’s routing legal liability to a minor who cannot be sued - that doesn’t seem effective.

Also consumer protection laws that require companies that offer child protection features to have some kind of liability if they are merely performative. Many companies will stop offering, which is fine, because a failing system is far worse than no system.

Bjartr• 23 days ago

One thing I've seen discussed that throws a wrinkle in all of this is the question of whether or not a parent can have control over what their kid can see when they're at a friend's house, and if the answer is no, does that mean something more global like mandatory age verification is necessary to ensure they are still protected.

The argument I've seen goes that even if a parent has complete control over what is available on their home network and on their children's devices, the fact that another parent in their children's friend group does not enforce the same means in practice the amount of control a parent can exert on this problem is effectively zero and a higher-level approach to eradicate this loophole is necessary.

I don't think I agree with that, but that's the strongest case I've come across for implementing such policies.

What I think it really calls for though is a solution in the space of community and communication rather than direct governmental intervention.

pyuser5837• 23 days ago

The friend part is less important than you think. Devices are very personal these days. Most kids are unwilling to hand over their phones and tablets to a trusted friend. It’s like a diary.

Even if they are willing, it’s only for a short time.

The bigger problem is schools. I touched on that with Google Classroom. Lots of schools require devices and rely on third parties like Google Classroom (which is horrible for filtering).

Another problem is family members: grandma and grandpa. Nice people but not tech savvy.

This isn’t an academic study. I’m reporting from the trenches here. And I’m trying to give advice that will make things better, while not encumbering adults.

soulofmischief4• 23 days ago

This increasingly popular take comes across as a generational rung-pulling exercise. We pine for the 80s and 90s of unbridled freedom, lament that a 7 year old boy can't go out walking by himself in the neighborhood anymore without his parents going to jail, and then talk about "toxic materials" by saying things like "create an immutable record of browsing history - down to the request/response", as if that's not a preposterously toxic environment in which to raise a kid, for a plethora of reasons.

I was raised in that environment. It was but one aspect of my abusive upbringing, but a key one; the internet represented free information, which is dangerous to a child one is attempting to religiously indoctrinate. I can tell you now, it is a horrible way to raise a child, leads to zero trust and if anything, encourages antisocial, subversive behaviors.

pyuser5837• 23 days ago

I get that I really do. For a while our compromise was that our child could go to the library - that way they had access to free information.

But after some chats with the librarian, it became clear that wasn’t working. The libraries filtering software wasn’t great (it never is), and some of the books are only appropriate for certain ages.

They didn’t feel comfortable providing additional filters.

What happens then, man? I understand your concern. My current rule with the one is: you can read anything you want as long as it’s paper.

I get some parents are abusive, but I’m very opposed to using “a parent might be abusive” to limit parents discretion- within reason.

When parents are identified as abusive there is a system to mitigate damage. But when that system is never initiated, there needs to be a presumption of parental benevolence.

This will fail some kids. But the alternatives fail more.

moi23882• 23 days ago

I say this again and again in various places - something wise needs to be done about children and the internet.

There already is. It’s called parenting.

If your child cannot handle the internet, do not give him access to it.

If your child can only handle supervised internet, only allow it from the home pc.

If your kid, like quite some children, is perfectly capable of navigating the internet and talking about worrisome content they encounter, give them a personal device.

This sounds like the parents who are shocked that their kid does criminal stuff, but let him or her be on the streets till midnight without any supervision.

pyuser5837• 23 days ago

The local public school gives a Chromebook they must use for class. Not optional.

More broadly your advice is very out of touch with modern life. Don’t let them go to the library? Or summer camp?

How am I supposed to supervise them 24/7?

Every actual expert I’ve spoken to has said “do what you can without driving yourself insane, and understand you’ll fail.” None have advised me to simply “do not give them access to the internet.”

I already forbid it. There are too many damn workarounds (school chromebooks).

Here’s the funny thing - I totally trust my troubled adolescent with devices that log history. Never a problem.

So that, combined with advanced cooperation on parent imposed filters should work fine.

And best part - none of this impacts adults! Don’t turn on immutable history, and don’t turn on white listing! Easy peasy! They can be off by default (and should!) so adults don’t have to do a damn thing!

microgpt2• 24 days ago

This is the fifth time they've done so, or?

subscribed5• 23 days ago

That's infuriating. I think more and more EU member countries citizens start noticing it and are thinking that the regime change might be necessary, because this is just ridiculous.

microgpt2• 23 days ago

The EU has multiple parts. One of them proposes laws written in secret by elite politicians and one of them accepts or rejects them by a representative democracy. They have been looping on chat control for a while now where the council says they want to read all private messages and the parliament says no fuck off and the council comes back with a slightly different proposal and the parliament says no fuck off and ...

It becomes worrying if they start getting closer to passing the parliament.

hulitu• 21 days ago

Be a good citizen. Scan your neighbour's messages today. If you see, hear or feel something suspicious, please fill the AI assisted online form. Think about the future of your children and about your security. We all must protect democracy.

EU countries move to revive temporary message-scanning regime

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