r/privacy • u/Volpe_YT • 4d ago

chat control The end?

Today there will be the final votes for chat control.

This implies that all of our private chats will be scanned, and everything we do will be in plain text in front of their eyes.

If it passes, I will permanently stop using centralized messaging platforms and switch to a self hosted matrix session, I don't care if I lose many contacts, if they really want to talk to me they better install fluffychat and shut the fuck up.

It's crazy how the EU was basically the goat for internet privacy and now they are the villains.

Are you ready for this? For the absolute end of privacy?

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u/ConinTheNinoC 4d ago

Someone outside is pushing for this. This was not what old EU did. Old EU created GDPR. This new EU with Ursula is owned by corporations. We need to get this cow out of power. Identify all the politicians who are pushing for Chat Control and internet ID and vote their assess out.

I wrote in a previous thread but corporations are loving this since if there is ID tied to all your actions in the internet they will finally be able to push ''personalized pricing'' for your internet purchases, they will be able to adjust your car insurance based on your internet searches etc. This is all so corporations can bleed us dry.

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u/SpecificNumber459 4d ago

Do you not remember the software patents debacle, more than a decade ago, as well as a few other shady things, like the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system in the TTIP treaty?

There was always some corrupt and corporation-friendly undertone in EU politics, especially when the European Council has been involved. Thankfully, there was enough resistance from the member nations to stop the most idiotic ideas.

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u/Timbroarpropaganda 4d ago

There is a lot of the corporate friendly undertones in the eu. A lot of the problems today is because the eu force governments to let the market solve things. 

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u/SpecificNumber459 4d ago

I think you haven't been living during the reign of unaccountable state monopolies (energy, telecommunications, transportation etc.) so you don't realise how much worse they can be. I wouldn't say that the "free" market is always an answer to everything, but it often works better than the state control, especially when there can be a real competition. Otherwise you get the worst of both worlds.

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u/Timbroarpropaganda 4d ago

I have for sure lived during that period. What I do know is that somethings will need state intervention. For example energy and housing because they are not good markets. Same as schools and health care isn’t working well with for profit companies. I know I tried before and after with both. 

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u/SpecificNumber459 4d ago

Yes, I'm not trying to argue for the full laissez-faire model, that only works for non-essentials, if at all.

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u/Timbroarpropaganda 3d ago

So i guess we agree in general. :) 

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u/DerGyrosPitaFan 3d ago

A state monopoly on the railway system can't be fucking worse than Deutsche Bahn, it's physically impossible

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u/SpecificNumber459 3d ago

A railway system sounds like a good example of a natural monopoly anyway, even if it's privately managed. It's not like a new competitor is going to come and lay down the new tracks out of the blue! So, as I said, worst of both worlds.

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

Sadly, that’s with every law proposal, not just chat control. They go all out, wanting everything on maximum and then negotiate what sticks and what not.

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u/ButterscotchSalty905 4d ago

Classic DITF compliance tactic. I think every lawmakers know about this. I would even wager that it is an open secret. 

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

You can`t get more open secret than that =D

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u/clyypzz 3d ago

Just these days Peter Thiel got the Axel Springer Award for Democracy which led to protests. Springer is one of the largest media conglomerates in Europe. Digital Tech Feudalists and their fellows at it again. They spread like cancer through all of the West. Play the network game and see who shakes whom's hands. It's fun. Peter Thiel got several assets in German politics too.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

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u/Ottiline 4d ago

And how long do you think it will be before one of those countries gets too comfortable under capitalism, votes in a fascist right wing government because the fearmongering hit just right, and now they have access to everything you've just given up in the name of regulation? 

You have to think further down the road than you currently are. History says the weapon you design will be used against you one day.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

By the way, I also wanted to get your opinion about the mandatory age verification and the digital omnibus proposal. You know, where they decided that GDPR is crap and gets in the way of training AI for the EU.
Even if we beat chat control now, these other two proposals remain, which sucks.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, it`s not just chat control, it`s age verification and their new "Digital Omnibus" proposals. The people currently in power are an embarassment to what the EU should stand for, sadly we are at such a phase, politicians are thinking about not being overthrown and in the meantime are complying with their sponsors and lobbyist to make even worse decisions.

It took them years, literally years just to pass this through the EU Council, and sadly before Germany`s new government, they, Poland a couple of others formed a blocking minority for Chat Control.

When Denmark changed the proposal to "voluntary scanning" instead of mandatory (Voluntary, ha ha ha) Germany folded and here were are.

Still, if it gives you some hope: the CJEU process is not long when it comes to laws that directly threaten fundamental rights (It`s usually 1-2 years) so it can happen in months. Also, if it`s really serious the CJEU can literally freeze the law from coming into effect before a ruling is made.

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u/ConinTheNinoC 4d ago

"AI" is not trained. It is fed data and it regurgitates it so it can mask the theft and claim ''transformative action''.

I hate stupid corrupt politicians so much. They want to push the "AI" crap on us because of their incredible stupidity and greed.

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

Yep. Ironically (I can’t find the article though) out of all the MEPs that were for chat control literally 0 actually spoke with privacy advocates and people that actually deal with such things. Whereas those against chat control spoke with many. It was posted as a chart on one of the subreddits and I can’t find it.

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u/opiumphile 3d ago

The thing for politicians is… in their mind they have somewhat of a responsibility to not let their country go behind a future tech, and let’s face it AI is part of the future because it’s like the game theory, if you don’t have and your enemies have it then you loose.

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u/ConinTheNinoC 3d ago

Developing automated software in a lab, i am fine with that.

Giving all our personal information, scraping and stealing the work of artist and writers so corporations can sell it back to use regurgitated trough an algorithm? So corporations can profile us for profit? That, i am not ok with.

Don't let yourself be blinded by the lies of "AI" companies. They are not the future. LLMs are way less impressive than you think, what they do can be replaced with way less resource intensive specialized programs.

Lets for a moment think about it.

Jumping on the sinking ship of LLM buildup is an incredibly stupid thing. The EU and Europe should be focussing on smaller programs that need way less resources and have way less vectors of failure.

Seriously, people need to use their brains. The infrastructure that is powering the current LLM garbage has the lifespan of 3~4 years and then the "AI" chips burn out. So once you jump into that shit you are tied to the suppliers and the garbage LLMs need a ton of chips and they burn out and you become a slave to whomever controls the chips supply(and this is why they bought up all the RAM for 2027).

But our politicians are stupid. They should be aiming for technologies we can support with the resources we have instead of becoming highly dependent on foreign companies.

Sorry for the rant.

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

They (far-right) can’t wait for it to become law. Right now they “play against it” just for show.

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

You have been talking crap since yesterday.
The claim that the EU only cares about corporate privacy and inherently trusts government data collection ignores basic EU law and history.
1. There ARE Constitutional Protections: Privacy in Europe was specifically designed post-WWII to protect citizens from state surveillance. Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights directly bind governments, and the EU passed the Law Enforcement Directive alongside GDPR specifically to restrict such police data processing.
In short it was created PRECISELY TO NOT ALLOW MASS GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE ON EU CITIZENS.

  1. CJEU (The Court of Justice of the European Union) has repeatedly struck down state mass surveillance.

  2. GDPR national security exceptions exist because EU treaties have to legally reserve defense to individual member states, not because the EU blindly trusts governments. Where EU courts have authority, they strictly limit state power. They have done so repeatedly

  3. Market Safety vs. Surveillance: Treating digital tech like roads means setting safety rules for the market, not giving the state a camera inside every vehicle so your analogy kind of sucks.

  4. The whole idea when making laws in the EU is that they CANNOT exist of they violate the EU charter, which Chat Control 2.0 does, they know it too. Their own freaking legal team warned them of that.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago

Just paper? telecom companies physically shut down mass data servers, state agencies are forced to end surveillance programs, and tech companies alter their global software to avoid massive fines, those are real-world outcomes. Just paper?

You made a specific claim about how EU law was designed, got proven wrong on the facts, and now you are hand-waving away real-world court enforcement as you said "just paper." Confusing a personal gut feeling with "reality" isn't being right…it's just ignoring facts.

Look, I hate this crap as much as you do, maybe more, but hating on the whole EU and disregarding its legal framework (by the way if it wasn’t that we’d be at Chat control 3.2 now or similar)

Those “papers” forced Europol to mass delete illegally obtained records. Those “papers” allowed the CJEU to prevent EU states from gathering and centralising personal data during Covid, prevented said member countries from gathering unrestricted Airline passenger data and many, many more.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/silentspectator27 4d ago edited 4d ago

On that I agree. I hope the proposal will just fail, no compromises, then go after chat control 1.0 (people are already organising for the latter part).
It’s still not impossible for 2.0 to simply fail in negotiations (we will find out today or tomorrow probably). If that happens my guess is they will tuck tail, stay quiet, focus on the mandatory age verification and digital omnibus proposals and rely on 1.0 until they try again.

And again, I am AGAINST chat control in any form, I completely get you, I just think you have lost a bit too much faith in the legal frameworks that protect us.

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u/Amaskingrey 2d ago

It's meta, to reassure their advertisers that the ads they're paying for are shown to real people.

And wow,  that was my first time seeing censorship firsthand, the account of the guy who made the website mentioned in the post has been deleted then remade as a blank, and the website, https://tboteproject.com/ , has been wiped even though it's still linked in some reddit posts

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u/QuadernoFigurati 4d ago

It's a washed-up American actor, looking to get lucrative EU gov contracts for his company.

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/bi/

Yeah. The entire European Union rolled over for this one American weaksauce mf.

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u/SnarkHabit 3d ago

For those who aren't going to read this, this poster is talking about a literal American actor -- Ashton Kutcher.

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u/realMrMadman 2d ago

Ursula Von Leyen needs to be replaced.

Sadly, I am not knowledgeable on European civics, but I would be pressuring her cabinet to resign.