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> further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out

In a democracy, we don't kill our opposition. If they hold views we don't like, e.g. that security trumps privacy, they're going to litigate them. Probably their whole lives. That means they'll keep bringing up the same ideas. And you'll have to keep defeating them. But there are two corollaries.

One: Passing legislation takes as much work as repealing it; but unpassed legislation has no force of law. Being on the side that's keeping legislation from being passed is the stronger position. You have the status quo on your side. (The only stronger hand is the side fighting to keep legislation from being repealed. Then you have both the status quo and force of law on your side.)

Two: Legislative wants are unlimited. Once a group has invested into political machinery and organisation, they're not going to go home after passing their law. Thus, repeatedly failing to pass a law represents a successful bulwark. It's a resource sink for the defense, yes. But the defense gets to hold onto the status quo. The offense is sinking resources into the same fight, except with nothing to show for it. (Both sides' machines get honed.)

Each generation tends to have a set of issues they continuously battle. The status quo that persists or emerges in their wake forms a bedrock the next generations take for granted. This is the work of a democracy. Constantly working to convince your fellow citizens that your position deserves priority. Because the alternative is the people in power killing those who disagree with them.

"> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals."

Perhaps this is bad news for "messenger and chat services, as well as app stores" who solicit "users" to exploit them for commercial gain, for example _if_ users are unwilling to accept "age verification" and decide to stop using them. The keyword is "if"

The third parties know it's possible for capable users to communicate with each other without using third party "chat and messenger services" intermediaries that conduct data collection, surveillance and/or online ad services as a "business model". Thus the third party "tech" company intermediaries strive to make their "free services" more convenient than DIY, i.e., communication without using third party intermediation by so-called "tech" companies

But users may decide that "age verification" is acceptable. For many years, HN comments have repeatedly insisted that "most users" do not care about data collection or surveillance or online advertising, that users don't care about privacy. Advocates of "Big Tech" and other so-called "tech" companies argue that by using such third party services, users are consciously _choosing_ convenience over privacy

Perhaps the greatest threat to civil liberties is the mass data collection and surveillance conducted by so-called "tech" companies. The "age verification" debate provides a vivid illustration of why allowing such companies to collect data and surveil without restriction only makes it easier for governments that seek to encroach upon civil liberties. While governments may operate under legal and financial constraints that effectively limit their ability to conduct mass surveillance, the companies operate freely, creating enormous repositories that governments can use their authority to tap into

The timing of having Meta dropping encrypted chats on Instagram is...interesting.

"Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification."

Trilogues should be burned down, closed doors meetings with Ministers writing laws from their own services.

See you soon folks!

Yeah, that number is actually really high. I’m wondering how noisy those reports are

That's the problem with modern democracies (it happens in the USA too). They only have to win once and it's law. We have to win every time.

I think the more fitting imagery would be https://en.meming.world/images/en/4/4a/Moe_Tossing_Barney_Fr...

The alternative is a dictatorship.

The US really, really wants it implemented, and several national police institutions in the EU does too. Plus the politicians that start to drool a little at the prospect.

We need a double-jeopardy-like constitutional amendment for legislation. Legislation once-tried and failed cannot be tried again.

Those guys only ever have a "maybe later" button.

For today or for this month.

How have you came to such conclusions?

If anything it proves the opposite.

Look at how laws are passed in russia for example for comparison and let me know what similarities you see.

this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else

it is more than that. since 2021 an EU interim regulation (2021/1232), set to expire on 3 april, was allowing companies to voluntarily scan messages. this vote was about the renewal of that regulation. since it has been rejected, the regulation is no longer in effect.

You’re painting an EPP/ECR initiative as left wing? That’s inconsistent with the facts.

Is the snow melting? Do you hear birds? Must be chat control season.

Someone should sell calendars based on when this typically gets proposed as well as dates throughout the year when past instances of check control came up against key procedural hurdles.

EPP proposed it, but then it got amended (ie toned down) so much that they turned on their own proposal. This apparently happens quite a lot. So the way I understand it is they turned it down not because they thought it was bad, but because they didn't think it was bad enough.

> So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.

EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.

There's also the DDR and Stasi as a counter example if anyone think mass surveillance is incompatible with socialism.

Mass surveillance isn't really a question that projects well onto the left-right scale, and attempting to make it fit a left-right question is more likely to distract than provide a useful understanding.

Greens based as always

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529682 and marked it off topic.

[flagged]

They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days. Also compared to whom?

> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.

... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).

But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.

We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.

Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.

It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.

"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.

So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.

You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.

What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.

The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.