This is why the roles of the major players in society (government, monopolies) need to be circumscribed.
Large organizations will always try to grow in size and power.
We need some sort of human right for digital privacy to make this sort of thing illegal.
Signal Foundation has already said they would leave the EU if Chat Control goes ahead.
Signal isn't big enough to play that game.
They'll just be blocked from the app store for EU users and their user base in the EU will drop to near zero within a year.
Would Signal allow an app to be side loaded? Would it be possible for an Signal-like app to be loaded that would ruin everything for everybody?
Android does. Apple doesn't, obviously. Even in the EU where they have to.
yes yes, we all know this is the obvious answer. so thanks for that and ignoring the actual point of the question
did you mean to ask if Signal's own infrastructure would geoblock EU users?
I think it would be feasible for Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal to form a coalition that pledges to withdraw from any country or market that tries to pull these shenanigans, such that the sum of them is big enough to play that game.
The hardest to convince would be Whatsapp, but I think that Zuckerberg is one of the few big tech CEOs that still has principles, at least sometimes. I think it could happen.
I think that Zuckerberg is one of the few big tech CEOs that still has principles
"Still"? I'm not aware of a time when he's publicly shown any sort of principles.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36187028
Google or Microsoft would just give up data of their users at the first request to avoid a ban.
Sure, Meta can't * do it because of E2E, but that alone is much better than what Google does.
* without pushing a malicious update.
* without pushing a malicious update.
And I believe that is exactly what the court was demanding they do. Push an update to uncloak the users that the court determines should lose their privacy.
To my knowledge, Signal makes a grand total of €0 in profit in Europe, or anywhere else for that matter, being a not-for-profit. It is not the purpose of a not-for-profit to grow exponentially. The Signal Foundation's mission is to ensure the continued existence of a secure messenger app. The people in charge of Signal take that mission very seriously, to their great credit.
There are already anti-circumvention mechanisms built into Signal to facilitate use in places like China and Iran, so they've shown no interest in compliance where that goes directly contrary to their mission. Should they be removed from the App Store in Europe, I imagine they'll work on making use of the EU's own push to open iOS up for alternative app stores / PWAs. (It's clear that the EU is unhappy with Apple's current take on compliance, so we can expect that to open up further.)
Doesn't really matter what Signal does. If this goes through then the next push will be to implement the scanning at the OS-level for non-compliant apps. Or just to demand that Android and iOS get the ability to block apps on a government list even if installed outside the app store. Sure, a few hackers (and the criminals) will always have secure communications but you can't win the fight for widespread secure communication against the government's will with technological means.
I think this seems like a fairly extreme and unlikely worst case scenario. I'd be sceptical about the EU's ability to actually implement something like this - there are limits to both what American companies are willing to do (e.g. Google leaving China), and what some of the more historically liberal European states are actually willing to tolerate from the EU level (imagine the blow to business confidence).
That's not to say that the present proposals aren't already bad enough.
"Play that game"?
They are not somehow bluffing or threatening this simply to try to change the law. It's a principled stance that they simply cannot provide E2E encrypted chat under such conditions. So either they break their protocol in which case their claimed offer would be a lie, or they leave.
Seems like the only choice they have, really. Also, by "leave EU" I'm pretty sure they mean not offer their app in the EU, so yes I think they expect their EU user base to be zero in this scenario.
You think 99.99% of Signal users are all in the EU?
In the spirit of Erlich/Simons, if you define zero relative to current users, what % do you think will depart, and what does "zero" look like.
Hint: I'm taking Simons' role in this: They won't drop to zero.
That's an interesting thread ... they claim they won't be compliant, which I applaud, but what will happen is that unwitting Signal users will end up being targeted by law enforcement. There are already precedents of people with "secure" phones or encrypted messaging apps being targeted, such as the Sky ECC case.
will happen is that unwitting Signal users will end up being targeted by law enforcement
Seems like a good thing. If nothing else works at least that might bring some attention to this nonsense..
"Signal, unwilling to implement easy to build software to comply with EU regulations, likely due to fiscal concerns, has shown itself placing profit far above the care and concerns of our next generation, our children, and the pedophiles that prey upon them, such heinous creators of child porn." signed EU press release.
And so, 96% of people now think Signal is evil.
And so, 96% of people now think Signal is evil.
The overwhelming majority of people living in the EU won't really care or even notice this new law/directive/(?) because they don't really pay any attention to what the EU is doing but yeah for most of of the remaining ones that will probably suffice.
Quoted in major tech press first, and then in non-tech press if the case becomes prominent enough to get to national news, would have a serious poisoning effect.
I find it very funny how alleged journalists don't care about potential violations of sources
Ah who am I kidding, real journalism is pretty much dead
Especially if the new law is very conveniently enacted during the most important sports event in the EU, with 99.99% eyeballs looking elsewhere. A very common tactic pretty much everywhere, but that doesn't make it stink less.
Which makes no sense as it does not make any profit as a non profit and relies on donations…
You're making my point here.
If Signal can’t be installed or updated via the App Store anyone, that’s already enough to exclude 99.9% of all users - no need to involve law enforcement.
My point wasn't that there was a need to involve law enforcement. My point was that overzealous law enforcement will use this as yet another excuse to crack down on people who value privacy.
Well, no different from the status quo, where police finding a PGP book at your home is like them finding the anarchist's handbook or worse.
Thanks to hn crowd, who explained it's not super difficult (and not going to lie, summer $500 discount), a Google pixel phone, soon running GrapheneOS, is on it's way.
Can GrapheneOS prevent detection of somebody sideloading Signal?
Probably not but you still need to have someone to someone to communicate with even if you manage to install it. If you can't get it on the mainstream app stores it will just be a niche app for "privacy nerds" and drug dealers (in the EU at least..)
All the drug dealers are on Telegram already, they need a hassle free way to communicate with their customers.
Customers as a voluminous body of users can't be underestimated as a solid block of shade for the whistleblowers and journalists
Will you convince all your friends and family to start running GrapheneOS?
I am so thankful that Signal Foundation exists, and refuses to be bullied.
True, but it won't make a difference.
EU is, and always was, a compensation job for failed national politicians at their respective national levels. It's the trade horse for allowing your party buddies to take over the government jobs.
EU politicians should keep their over inflated salaries, and stick to what they are good at. Meeting with Google and Microsoft lobbyists at the best Brussels luxury restaurants.
EU was established to provide mutual economic and military security in Europe on a federal model following WW2, and it's done very well in that aim. Of course it's not perfect, but shallow takes like the one above provide nothing of value.
Following WW2? The European Union was established in 1993 with the Maastricht Treaty
The European Coal and Steel Community, which in many ways is the precursor organization to EU was formed in 1951, with the explicit goal of linking the German and French economies to such a degree that they would be incapable of waging war against each other.
And a complete shadow of the current EU. Should we call a current intel CPU an 8086?
I only make the point because the current EU is so far removed in scope from the initial post-WW2 version
We do call current intel CPU x86.
As so many things, the organization we now call EU has changed over time. Pretending it formed ex nihilo in 1993 is at least as silly as ignoring what came before.
Reality is messy and drawing hard lines can easily discard a lot of nuance. But if I have to, I would place the foundation of the EU in the post-war era, not at the Maastricht Treaty
It's not pretending. It's literally a treaty. How more formal and matter of fact would you like to get? And I never said it formed ex nihilo - try reading my comments "ab initio"
Pretending is believing the EU is just a handful of countries getting together to form a farming union to feed their people, in 2024. The EU is a totally different beast. To imply or believe otherwise is delusional
And "x86" is not the same term as "8086"
The EU is an evolution of the EEC which is much older. The whole federation as a concept was made after and in response to WWII
A significant and huge evolution. That's why they have separate names
The European Coal and Steel Community wasn't meant to be a political federation, as the name shows. Nor was the European Economic Community to give it its full name.
The concept of the ECSC/EEC/EU as a political federation was always a goal of some small number of federalists (mostly in the beginning communists who were imprisoned on Ventotene during the war), but they didn't have any support for that from the people of Europe themselves, which is why the history of the EU is full of the people building it saying explicitly that they have to lie about their true intentions and can only expand its powers during a crisis.
Certainly there was absolutely no intent anywhere immediately after WW2 to create a political federation. Far from it.
military security
Wasn't that NATO (aka mostly the US)?
There's also the point that countries with close economic ties have more to lose by going to war with each other.
A point fully disproven by Putin by now.
I don't think that's right.
Economic interdependence is a deterrent against war, not an absolute barrier.
If you can easily swap trade partners for example, it's less of a deterrent. Which is one of the reasons why EU has gone beyond simple import/export agreements.
It's a necessary component of this sort of idea, but clearly it's not sufficient. I mean, we have had Russia in war with Ukraine for about a decade now, beginning at the annexation of Crimea, even though they had fairly good trade relations, even if they were hurt once Maidan happened.
I think that one needs strong economic ties, but it seems to only truly work with democratic societies.
Treaty on European union 42.7
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.
Kinda, but NATO is (imho) more about external threats. I think part of the EU's founding vision was to prevent further intra-European wars, in which it has been largely successful.
For military and political security there is NATO.
The EU's mutual defense clause is an empty shell
The implicit line here is that if there is peace, then there is military security. And the EU has been pretty good at providing that within its borders (compared to the history of wars between countries of the EU).
established to provide mutual economic and military security in Europe
Yes and it was/is very successful at that. The overpaid and incompetent bureaucracy in Brussels seems to be mostly tangential if not detrimental to that.
Also to be fair your take is also very shallow and provides little value.
shallow takes like the one above provide nothing of value.
The previous Portuguese PM António Costa, who had to resign amid a corruption inquiry...Has just been announced today for an EU role that will triplicate his previous annual salary as Portuguese prime minister
"Portuguese PM António Costa resigns amid corruption probe" - https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-prime-minister-anto....
"Portugal's Antonio Costa expected to be next head of European Council" - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portugals-antonio-costa...
"...Costa's appetite for a top European position has been an open secret for years. In March 2022, amid speculation Costa was angling for a Brussels job, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa warned him that he would call an election if he were to leave his post early..."
It is a graft and of the worst kind, and naive takes like yours is what led to scenarios like Brexit. It's a jobs for the boys organization and you are not part of the club.
Meeting with Google and Microsoft lobbyists at the best Brussels luxury restaurants.
Are you talking about the same EU that just passed the DMA? That must have been some really nasty food poisoning then!
Are they even enforcing DMA? My WhatsApp still doesn’t have Third Party Chats.
I wouldn't expect it to any time soon either. They'll likely find a way to maliciously comply.
My bet is that they'll only allow "Trusted Partners" to interact with their network, and you'll need to sign a contract with one of these partners to connect to WhatsApp. This contract will have pretty much the same terms as signing up with Meta directly.
DMA, like any other regulation that preceded it, was severely lobbied down. It happened in spite of EU. There is too great of a democratic consensus for it to be completely ignored. Do not get this wrong.
At least far as it comes to privacy Apple and even FB, MS and Google to an extent share the same interests as their users, unlike the EU bureaucrats who just seem to be salty because they are unable to exert control over society and justify their existence (they might pass some decent policies while they are it that's just mostly a coincident..).
If Chat Control goes ahead long-term that will outweigh any benefits DMA might have.
and stick to what they are good at.
No they should be kept accountable for their actions and the money they waste. Currently there is no mechanism for that, but i m sure hordes of them would quit if we made one
How is VPN supposed to work? How are internet banks supposed to operate? All security will go out the window? Backdoors everywhere?
Will TLS have to be redone with a third snooping party in the mix? Is that what we're going for here?
Client side scanning is going to be required, it doesn’t matter if you’re on a VPN if your device is self-reporting.
How would my device be (self-)reporting?
All legal apps have to be self reporting I guess...
So whenever you send anything to example.com you also send it to government-snooping-service.org?domain=example.com.
And if you refuse to adjust your app you will get fined I guess.
Will curl have to self report every request? Lol...
Every client? Like will axios need to self report?
Providers, not individual apps.
For actual details in the draft see
page 45 and 46 ... https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
...
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
So whenever you send anything to example.com you also send it to government-snooping-service.org?domain=example.com.
No, it's client side scanning - you have a database with bad material / a neural network trained to detect such material. Only when it detects a positive match, it will contact the government server.
Based on this proposal the strategy is
- providers spend money on having a counter-abuse team
- providers and authorities cooperate to identify risks
- providers implement proportional controls based on the risks
users can continue to run their own private stuff.
it seems this has almost nothing do with the organized sex crime stuff, it's about catching those lone pervs who realized they can send dick picks to minors all day.
see page 45 and 46 https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
Okay, so "app", not "device". I was wondering which other app or part of the OS would do that, since obviously Signal won't implement it.
I guess it's stuff like setting up a "kid watcher app"[0] and it helps parents, etc.
[0] yes, amazing name, I know, I know, thank you
End-to-end encrypted services such as Whatsapp or Signal would have to implement the automated searches “prior to transmission” of a message (so-called client-side scanning, Article 10a).
So app developers would be required to add code that will scan every message you send for "sensitive" content (which can be defined however the politicians like and be changed any time), and the app will report your message to the government.
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-p...
Okay, so not the device but the Signal app, as I already understood.
The draft specifies (in page 3) that this is only for publicly accessible services: https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
So regular folks would get scanned, but the bank's private messaging service isn't included. Just like the child pornographer's private messaging service won't be included either.
I want reviewed studies that clearly show how much CSAM is send by those public available services. There are none based arguments for making this regulation. Just spreading a fear and public guilt.
VPN continues to work, see top of page 39
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
for more details on this thing see page 45 and 46
in general this is a framework to
- have big players to spend money, have a team that for this, and have effective "parental controls" (have more age-appropriatedness controls, more tagging options for users/content, etc)
- have an EU center that works on the technological part of the problem
EU continues its descent into an authoritarian surveillance state. I hope all the EU netizens wake up and realize how much more control the EU has been exerting over its citizens since the pandemic.
It hasn't, apart from this Chat Control.
Covid restrictions were significantly worse in the EU than USA, your government locked you all down and made it clear that they decide who works and who doesn’t. To be clear, the USA has some awful cities with those types of ideas too but it was far more rare. EU, Canada, and Australia showed they are teetering towards authoritarian surveillance states more than they are democracy. The more people put their head in the sand and justify these actions with the talking points they receive from the overlords, the more the water starts to boil.
You fundamentally misunderstand the EU if you think any EU organization has the power to force lockdowns on individual countries.
Good point. The EU was barely a factor in that, if at all.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I think those were basic public health measures, fully justified. They ended when no longer needed.
Next time you want to stay home destroy economics and life of millions of people please don't drag us with you -[1] "lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality"
"The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save."
"Numerous deaths can be attributed to the interruption of normal social life and routine regular social interactions. The direct factors are [25,26]:
increased mortality due to postponement of diagnoses and routine treatments increase in mortality due to non-arrival at hospitals increase in mortality due to a decrease in the level of income and as a result—use of less safe cars, reduction in the scope of physical activity, etc. “deaths of despair” caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide following loss of social-economic status increase in violence, including domestic violence; dismantling of families severe health damage to the elderly in particular—physical and mental deterioration (usually irreversible) due to loneliness, lack of movement, and routine supportive care."
[1] - Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368251/#:~:tex....
Sweden is in the EU and didn't really lock down?
Have you looked at the DSA? The EU can just say "we have an emergency" and gets to directly control the narrative on major online plattforms.
https://dsa-observatory.eu/2023/02/21/the-dsas-crisis-approa...
Not to mention that under the DSA plattforms have to delete "misinformation" in a short time span, whatever that is.
Which even hasn’t happened yet, but yes, bit too close for comfort.
I already kicked up a shit here in NL together with a few other well connected people (with success) but it's a little frustrating that there's little more to do other than hope that nerds in other EU countries can make a difference.
Looks like the Netherlands is already opposed, for what good that will do. Any useful links to share with people?
For any regulation or directive to pass, it needs to pass both the Parliament and the Council. Passing the Council means it needs unanimous approval from every member country. I don't see what "blocking majority" the article refers to, one country should be enough. Unless they mean stop it even before it reaches a Council vote, in which case that might be true.
It's a council of the EU vote (as apposed to an EU council vote, different council). Within certain treaties (in this case the Lisbon treaty), certain matters only need a qualified majority (>55% of countries, 15 approximately, and to represent>65% of EU population).
What would you suggest to citizens from other member states (France in my case) to do to sway representatives against this?
Call your representatives and try to get into contact with the key civil servants involved. Then explain the problem to them. Just an honest argument. I mean a lot of us have kids and want to protect them. Totally agree with the concept.
Only this isn't something which can be solved by technical measures without abandoning "Liberté, égalité, fraternité". This is something for China/Russia/Iran/North Korea/England, not France.
Would it help if more Netherlanders made some noise, or is there really no further action possible?
Thankfully some key people in the civil service understand the dangers extremely well & listen to the advice of the same voices we listen to :)
It's really disappointing that Sweden are behind this as they have some extremely talented people only they aren't being listened to.
Thank you for that, I was glad to see NL on the list of against!
Already was somewhat degraded by the EU parliament:
Sure it’s now opt-in. But if you don’t opt in, you can no longer send photos or videos.
That seems so arbitrary, where does ascii art fall?
Probably under the umbrella of "you're not going to transmit anything meaningful with an extremely limited amount of horizontal space due to the automatic formatting of chat bubbles"
you would shatter it and send the shards off in a stream of messages. the recvng client would capture, and append to a file until complete.
ASCII art porn vs CSAM pictures and videos: what do you think has a higher chance to involve e.g. child abuse?
Preventing the spreading of CSAM is one of the key ideas behind the regulation.
I wonder what happens with pictures sent as base64 text blobs though.
EU Poetry Party
Welcome all ye bards!
before bittorrent such primal tools like uuencode, or mpeg2ascii were the way to move media thru a domain that filtered it.
Note the concern is based on historical precedent, that the commission can browbeat the parliament into passing it, especially considering the recent changing of the guard and relatively limited information that many national voters get of their MEP's activities in the european parliament because of the tendency for EU elections to be decided on domestic issues.
It will be very interesting to see the responses of WhatsApp and Apple if this moves forward. Do their commitments to E2EE mean anything or not. Will iMessage and WhatsApp leave the EU or not. That would be extremely telling as to the actual quality of the security guarantees they purport to provide.
Apple is easy - they had already implemented this voluntarily until they got pushback, and decided against rolling it out.
They decisively said “this was a bad idea” and disavowed the effort.
Things change, especially when the Gov says they must. It’s already been a few years. Given the “Apple in China” precedent I wouldn’t be so optimistic.
Their argument was that ”with this you don’t need to ban encryption”, and they tried to prevent that regulation.
Look what we got…
I am sure that no single implementation is as sophisticated as Apple had.
My understanding is that Apple openly declares they have the same encryption standards in China, and that iCloud Advanced Data Protection was one of the things that started getting them on China’s “naughty list” again.
Wouldn't client side scanning prior to E2EE circumvent this issue? If WhatsApp or iMessage scan your messages on device it doesn't really matter if they are then encrypted during transmission.
The end-result is the same. There is no security if someone is snooping over your shoulder.
The proposal leaked a few weeks ago[1] is extremely vague on this matter and does not clarify how providers should detect CSAM "prior to transmission". Is anyone aware of any sort of scanning technology that can be implemented purely on the client side? Note that the leaked text says that it should be able to detect known and new abuse material.
[1] https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
The question is always about the circumstances.
In the "think of the children" scenario the parents are incentivized to consent to some filter. (So they or someone(!!!) gets an alert if the boogeyman is talking to their kids, asking them to send nudes, or sending dick pics.)
See recital 13 on top of page 7 for the definition.
And see 17 on bottom of page 8 for this:
"To allow for innovation and ensure proportionality and technological neutrality, no exhaustive list of the compulsory mitigation measures should be established"
and
(page 46) "... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
This is a framework. It seems to be coming from overly-anxious law nerds who can't stop thinking of the children. (And yes, this usually makes them a problem, because they're nigh unreasonable.)
It seem to be set up as a DIY thing for providers. And, again, for parents it makes sense, let your kids surf on the marked-safe-for-kids part of the Internet. (And nowadays kids really spend most of their time on (in!) certain apps, not in a web browser.)
The ugly part is that there are fines to compel the providers to adjust their risk metrics. (page 104, page 110 mentions max 6% of global turnover)
This clearly seems to be a softish push to assign a cost to internet ecosystems for online child sexual abuse.
On page 45 there are some requirements.
The provider needs to think about risks (but guidelines will come from authorities anyway), have some appropriate budget to actually work on this it the context of its own service, and then if it looks like there are problems it should spend money on remediation. (Ie. spend on content moderation, work with other providers in the industry, have a team and provide UX to notify that team, and allow users to limit what they share with others based on age.)
How does something like this avoid false positives?
A pretty common example in my circle is parents taking pictures of baby rashes/pimples/blisters etc to send to family doctor or doctor friends.
It sounds like a situation where every parent with a toddler will end up on some list.
Maybe that's what is needed for the press and other people to pay attention to it
It doesn't.
One page 17 section 28 says "... constantly assess the performance of the detection technologies and ensure that they are sufficiently reliable, as well as to identify false positives and avoid to the extent erroneous reporting to the EU Centre, providers should ensure human oversight and, where necessary, human intervention, adapted to the type of detection technologies and the type of online child sexual abuse at issue. Such oversight should include regular assessment of the rates of false negatives and positives generated by the technologies, based on an analysis of anonymised representative data sample"
and for the draft law language see page 60 which says that after the user reported something the provider forwards is anonymized to this new EU Centre, where there human verification has to take place.
So supposedly this means our tax will pay for folks to look at a ton of rashes and pimples.
Microsoft: Replay
Apple: Their CSAM detection system that was lambasted not too long ago[0]
[0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics of 2021
The Apple system was pretty much the best way this could be done short of having a 100% reliable "AI" system on-device detecting bad stuff.
The current draft would cover every kind of service that allows people to exchange information so that every DM you send on reddit, twitter, discord, steam, ... would be have to be scanned. Not even the most totalitarian governments on this planet have tried to implement something like this. Also it sounds extremely illusory that the people exchanging CSAM wouldn't simply switch to private services knowing their messages on public services are scanned.
"... As services which enable direct interpersonal and interactive exchange of information merely as a minor ancillary feature that is intrinsically linked to another service, such as chat and similar functions as part of gaming, image-sharing and video-hosting are equally at risk of misuse, they should also be covered by this Regulation. "
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
page 46. "... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
.
.
It's a big framework to push the industry to have more "parental controls".
Everything is covered, but there the actual requirements make sense. See page 45.
It's still bad, because it's extremely tone-deaf (and playing with fire is bad), but it's written by and for policy idiots, who live in Word documents, and (un)fortunately rarely have contact with the outside world.
Writing documents like these with Word is a sin.
Not even the most totalitarian governments on this planet have tried to implement something like this.
Arguably North Korea since their RedStar OS had a kernel module that scanned all files and text looking for keywords like 'torture'. And if you're being compared to one of the most brutal and isolated dictatorships on Earth, things are not good.
good point!
https://www.synology.com/en-eu/dsm/packages/Chat
self hosted chats included? ;)
Also it sounds extremely illusory that the people exchanging CSAM wouldn't simply switch to private services knowing their messages on public services are scanned.
The justification is obviously a lie anyway. If CSAM were such a huge concern, you wouldn't have member states where distributing CSAM is about as severe of a crime as theft, which is the case in Germany.
Surely the first step would be to have actual significant criminal charges for these crimes in all member states.
Only Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland are relatively clear that they will not support the proposal, but this is not sufficient for a “blocking minority”.
Ahem what? Last I checked any EU country can veto anything on its own.
Belgian EU Council presidency
It's Council of the EU, not EU Council, that's the heads of state who don't have any legislative role. But the Council only does inter-country treaties, how is this even their thing?
Ahem what? Last I checked any EU country can veto anything on its own.
Only on certain topics, which have been narrowed down over time. For most areas (including something like chat control), it comes down to Qualified Majority Voting, which needs at least 55% of countries representing at least 65% of EU population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_E...
55%? That’s a pretty low bar for laws that will become written in stone for decades.
Brexit was even lower.
Hmm if they are passing this as a "treaty" of some sort then the head of state Council might still need to confirm it even if it passes. At least I hope so.
Feels like they did this shit deliberately though, as it would never pass the Parliament for sure.
There are some matters at the council that just need a qualified majority to move forward.
Other matters, notably foreign policy, require unanimity.
I can see how that would be implemented for WhatsApp and other apps from large companies. But how would that work in practice for applications like Matrix where clients are not controlled by the server operator nor the server developer?
Some questions I have from reading Patrick's website:
- How do you even ensure a client is actually self-reporting? On-device attestation doesn't really work.
- As a provider of E2EE chats, should the client report to you or to a third-party (Who?)? If the client reports to you, you are now possessing CSAM. Since even possession of CSAM is illegal, how does that work?
- If a photo are flagged, will it appear in a GDPR access request?
Matrix is a software, it's not a provider. It's out of scope. (see 1. on page 37 for scope)
see page 39 "5. Without prejudice to Article 10a, this Regulation shall not prohibit or make impossible end-to-end encryption, implemented by the relevant information society services or by the users"
https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2024/05/2024-05-28_Cou...
see also page 46
"... measures shall be ... targeted and proportionate in relation to that risk, taking into account, in particular, the seriousness of the risk as well as the provider’s financial and technological capabilities and the number of users; ..."
also, it's a big framework without any tech requirements (see page 8 recital 17)
You only really answer question 2 of your parent, and they obviously meant for someone operating a Matrix server with regards to their users. It's pretty well summarized in Patrick Breyer's sumary page[0]:
Only non-commercial services that are not ad-funded, such as many open source software, are out of scope
How do you even ensure a client is actually self-reporting?
This is an interesting technical question whether or not it's covered by the actual proposal. How do you ensure that Messenger for instance is
1. actually doing the reporting, and not someone simply bypassing the app to keep sending e2ee chats without them being client-side scanned. That would most likely be against ToS and accounts would maybe get banned if doing so
2. prevent against spam reporting, where someone could basically DoS the reporting service with false positives
If a photo are flagged, will it appear in a GDPR access request?
There are a bunch of dispositions in the draft concerning personal data protection (ctrl+f personal data to find the relevant articles). It also states pretty much everywhere that processing should be done in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679, more commonly known as GDPR.
[0] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
What really bugs me though, is this:
Having regard to the availability of technologies that can be used to meet the requirements of this Regulation whilst still allowing for end-to-end encryption, nothing in this Regulation should be interpreted as prohibiting, requiring to disable, or making end-to-end encryption impossible. Providers should remain free to offer services using end-to-end encryption and should not be obliged by this Regulation to decrypt data or create access to end-to-end encrypted data
I believe this was added as a request from France, which didn't want E2EE to be undermined by this proposal. However, the provider would need to "create access to end-to-end encrypted data" to report it to the EU Centre. Although the following article states that E2EE can still be used if you don't send images, videos and URLs, so I guess that's the compromise?
However, the provider would need to "create access to end-to-end encrypted data" to report it to the EU Centre.
Sorry, I don't follow. Am I misreading something? To me the the quoted text says the opposite.
"Providers should remain free to [...] and should not be obliged by this Regulation to [...] create access to end-to-end encrypted data"
prevent against spam reporting, where someone could basically DoS the reporting service with false positives
Yep, probably there's no way to do this. (Likely this whole thing will be a lot of money spent to realize this.)
Sorry, I don't follow. Am I misreading something? To me the the quoted text says the opposite.
Yeah me too. But how would the provider report CSAM content if they are not obliged to break encryption? I don't really follow the Regulation on that part.
It wouldn't.
It's a broad framework and - based on my cursory reading:
- providers have to set up a counter-abuse team and fund it
- authorities and industry-wide cooperation on trying to come up with guidelines and tech
- counter-abuse team needs to interpret the guidelines, do "due diligence"
- provider needs to have monitoring to at least have an idea of abuse risks
- if there are, work on addressing them if possible without breaking privacy
There's a section about penalties and fines, up to 6% of global revenue, if the provider doesn't take abuse seriously. And - again, based on my understanding - this is exactly to prod big services to make these "safer, but less profitable" options.
Headline is clickbait nonsense. Nothing is being greenlighted.
Here's the only relevant section, which links to an article [1] that says only that discussion will continue on the 19th June:
According to documents leaked by netzpolitik.org, the COREPER 2 meeting in which they will put it [compromise proposal] to a vote will already take place on Wednesday, 19 June.
[1] https://netzpolitik.org/2024/anlasslose-massenueberwachung-f...
Also, I expect "green light" in this context means that it will make it on the EU Parliament's agenda, nothing more. That's still perilously close, but it's not done and dusted yet.
I'm pretty sure the "greenlight" on the title means they are meeting to confirm that the countries will vote in favor of the law so it can be quickly approved once it makes to the parliament:
If Chat Control is endorsed by Council now, experience shows there is a great risk it will be adopted at the end of the political process.
meaning: there will be little opposition to the proposal once it reaches the MEPs.
meaning: there will be little opposition to the proposal once it reaches the MEPs.
meaning: because the dust hasn't settled on the EU parliamentary elections, MEPs could vote without giving full attention to the law.
Call me an optimist, but I still hold hope that that's not the case.
Good, our children can now sleep safe. Emphasis on sleep
Won't someone think of our childrens' rights to eternal slumber?
I think the government is more reasonable than the private corporations. As an example, I got suspended by Facebook yesterday with nobody to contact. All my friends from school, relatives, and former coworkers are gone - with most of them I was connected only via Facebook. All my messages in Facebook Messenger groups have been deleted! Everything that I ever posted, shared, or reacted to - gone! With no recourse - all at the mercy of some 20-year-old reviewer. Yeah, the government sucks, but private corporations suck much more! At least I can complain to the government and talk to real people!
I know there are alternatives to Facebook - I've pitched all of them to my friends, but people my age are still only on Facebook.
It's time for humanity to move on, to social/messaging platforms not controlled by (for-profit) entities. Or ideally by themselves. Have you seen https://lurk-lang.org? Now it's even possible for anyone to provably compute a specific algorithm on your encrypted data!
Patrick's & a number of other Pirate Party seats were lost in the last EU elections. https://stackdiary.com/patrick-breyer-and-pirate-party-lose-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40631517
It's going to be awful not having Patrick Breyer reporting these activities.
Perhaps the German pirate party should have sticked to focusing on privacy and digital rights instead of becoming a second Green party with a far left bend.
Really his snide at the right gaining traction in his post shows that he still doesn't get it.
wasn't there a specific lobbying group pushing for this kind of legislation in some places (connected to the makers of software for this type of scanning)?
Ashton Kutcher and his Thorn organisation?
Once implemented it would be just a matter of time until they advance the features of this with image scanning and of course active actions like taking control over your device with a warrant obtained digitally.
Are these guys so unimaginative that they ended up taking a page from the playbook of authoritarian regimes?
It will really happen. And it will happen fast
In addition to usual communication, everyone should just start spamming as much as possible of "content" generated with GenAI. Good luck sorting through all that nonsense.
This whole thing stinks.
The relentless push, I feel may mean some American contractors are demanding their pound of flesh.
https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters/going-dark
They should be checking the bank statements of those on the EU payroll, and who are relentlessly pushing this. Make sure everything is above board.
I'd like to hear from actual law enforcement personnel why/if violating my constitutional rights this way is actually necessary, specifically.
Free speech absolutists like myself got run over culturally with hate speech laws so for anyone continuing on the fight I wish you the best of luck.
We learnt the value of free speech the hard way, and very slowly. Now we need to keep extending such notions to the rapidly increasing frontiers that new tech is exposing.
Hopefully with more tech-savvy generations gradually taking power, this will happen without too many painful lessons.
Did we though? Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat (and I'm not talking about authoritarian regimes). It's a double-edged sword to be fair, enabling misinformation and chaos.
Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
Amongst other examples:
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/e-s-v-a....
Not that I'm a particularly huge fan of some of the opinions that some of these people tend to express (to be fair in this case it's something that Muslims/their holy books acknowledge as well so it shouldn't be controversial at all...) but the whole idea of "balancing the rights to freedom of religion and expression" just seems extremely repulsive to me.
Of course this is a spectrum but having an (effectively) immutable constitution that guarantees freedom of speech is certainly worth something.
The issue is when "free speech absolutists" often aren't actually that. They'll stand up to defend folks like the ones from the case you cited because "Free Speech". Yet, they'll also defend laws like the ones passed earlier in the year by the US House about codifying the IHRA's definition of anti-Semitism.
The spectrum is far too often simply colored by the politics one's interested in, i.e. Free Speech is simply a tool to attack another and provide justification for their own opinions. Not an actual Free Speech position.
I don't believe anyone truly has a Free Speech Absolutist position. It's always just a tool. When the speech is against you, everyone conveniently turns against it.
Anyone who defended that isn't even close to a free-speech absolutist.
I do. It's what makes America great. Erosions like that jewish law are slowly weakening that.
You should be allowed to say whatever you want about White people, straight people, men, Christians, etc. and I should be able to say whatever I want about jews.
You just don't want to acknowledge such a stance is possible because the people you agree with are in power, allow the speech you agree with, and censor the speech you don't disagree with, so you stand with nothing to gain by supporting free speech. That's a personal choice to have no integrity.
Should I be able to make wild claims about my product to trick you into buying it? False claims about my buisness performance to pump the stock? Lies about your character? Your kids? made up stuff that whips up entire segments of your city to commit violence or vandalism against you?
Because absolute free speech is allowing all that without consequence
Yes. The free market would solve the first two, the next two aren't even crimes currently, and with the last the crime is the violence/vandalism not someone telling a fib.
Firstly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
Secondly, you're okay with someone inciting violence/vandalism/crimes, and people acting explicitly on that person's direction, as long as only the actual violence/vandalism/crime is punished?
Defamation shouldn't exist (see Alex Jones, that's an insane situation to be told to pay $1.5 BILLION for sharing an opinion) but the standards are generally higher than "someone told lies about my character" at least.
Yes. Everyone has agency, if I tell you to commit a crime it's up to you whether to do so.
Well I'm glad the vast majority of people don't agree with you and actually recognize there's nuance here.
“The free market would fix it” quite spiritually similar to “god will provide” or “prayer solves everything.”
Maybe, maybe with an unwieldy amount of time the rubes would all die out as they administer snake oil to themselves and their families, the pyramid schemes all collapse under the weight of their inability to produce the results their funders sought, and the collective, unorganized and ungovernmented multitudes publicly shame and criticize those industry leaders who conducted research into the effects of their products, but decided instead to make some shit up to sell more.
Maybe more likely: as the divine wisdom of the heavenly free market dictates, a few really good liars get a massive foothold and build empires on it. And maybe in the truest American free market fashion, these opportunities to profit from fraud are available to everyone! Even if you’re not clever enough to build an empire, you can at least move state to state, lying, selling more slow-burn poison, all the while with the cops backing you up when the mob forms, because fraud and the affects of lying are as protected as saying something ignorant or mean.
If you also abolish the notion of intellectual property as well as trade secrets, both of which are severe limitations on free speech, then sure. Otherwise it's just another case of wanting free speech when it suits the company but wanting to restrict it when it doesn't.
Sure, as long as the actual violence and vandalism is harshly punished to discourage people from acting on falsehoods. The speech was never the real problem here.
Problem is the damage is already done. You lost your job. Your kid committed suicide. The mod has murdered.
You can’t undo that, not to mention it not illegal to fire someone because if you read some false facts in the paper
Freedom of speech is absolutely not about freedom from consequences. Where and how did you ever get that idea?
Free speech means you can say anything you want, some very specific caveats aside, and you can't be prosecuted simply for saying them. But that doesn't mean you won't have to answer for what happens as a consequence.
As an example: You absolutely can go and make wild claims about your product to try and sell it, nobody can stop you from doing that. You absolutely can make bogus claims about someone, nobody can stop you from doing that either. However, you will be prosecuted for making false statements and defamation respectively by the people you harmed. Note what is prosecuted here: The effects of the false and perhaps even sinister nature of the statement, not the statement itself.
Literal people on this site arguing that people should be free from consequences. Replies to my comment here saying “defamation shouldn’t exist Alex jones did nothing wrong”
It seems to me that a truly free speech absolutist reply would be “yes” to all of the above.
But I submit that given our current state of affairs as a species, I don’t think we could handle that “yes”.
That “yes” coexisting in a harmonious world that is safe and sound would require that speech that incites violence or vandalism isn’t acted upon, for example. That the market could and would reliably be able to detect and counter deceitful manipulation. That somehow the market would be able to do the same with lies about a product or service.
It also suggests abdicating accountability for when such a seemingly perfect system would fail and result in harm.
These things seem implausible in our current reality. A lack of accountability seems undesirable generally and is already something that we suffer enough.
No True Scotsman.
... I am not American, neither do I have anyone in power who supports the speech I agree with. There's no need to attack me specifically. I am talking about the wider pattern. Free Speech Absolutists exist as long as the speech they support is being oppressed. Do you support Free Speech of the person screaming obscenities at your young child? False claims about you? Whipping up entire communities to attack you physically? Do you support speech that incites genocide?
Yes, some of those are crimes but I am not sure you'd care if you'd been attacked already. The damage is done.
Nope. If you support laws that censor criticism of israel you are not a free speech supporter, let alone an absolutist. The term has a very clear definition and it's the opposite of what the antisemitism law entails.
Did I say you were American? All of Europe and many parts of Asia are way worse when it comes to free speech.
Yes. If it's just words and not a direct threat it's fine.
Direct threats are a fine exception because they promise crossing over from words into physical action, at that point the NAP is violated if you want to look at it that way. No need to wait and see if they're actually going to follow through.
Aside from that I really don't see any need for further exceptions.
In my country (Macedonia), our then-Prime Minister a few years ago during the height of the pandemic, spoke (broken) English and funnily pronounced vaccines, something like "vac-signs" (or "vaksajns" in Macedonian). A guy made a website called vaksajns.com or .mk (can't remember the exact details) and if you visited it, it automatically redirected you to the Ministry of Health covid watch page. Police showed up at his door and he was taken to the police station to be questioned. This would never happen in a true free speech country like the United States.
Free speech in principle is enshrined in the Macedonian constitution as a fundamental right (I studied law), but there are many hate speech laws (we have a complex ethnic structure and wars based on ethnic sides), making it so that free speech isn't a thing (I studies law, if I need to clarify once more.)
If you criticize someone based on their religion, ethnicity, or whatever else that they can't control, you will be fined, or worse (although this does get selectively applied, mainly based on how much political power the group has which the offended member is a part of. Roma people have no political power in this country, so this very rarely happens when they do get offended(I don't think it has ever happened to be honet))- this does not happen in the US where free speech rains supreme (to clarify, i don't think we should go around criticizing people based on things they cant control, *but once you start limiting things the people can and cannot say, you don't have free speech* in your nationstate, Period.)
And what's funny, nobody talks about freedom of speech. Ever. Every political party and politicians of opposing political parties, and even their supporters have seemed to implicitly agree that it's somehow not an issue at all that the all-good state can tell you what's right and what's wrong, and what can be said and what can not be said.
Another funny story. At around the same time when the previous story takes place, the government made an official dictionary of the Macedonian language, supposed to contain all of the known words, BUT excluded all of the offensive words. Talk about state censorship...
What I described, more or less applies to the entire EU. Hate speech laws reign supreme in Europe. Asian countries do not have a good track record of freedom of speech, to say the least, either. I'm not sure about Africa, though I'm sure, that in the countries that do have a stable government, things aren't dissimilar when compared to European and Asian countries.
I've also lived in the US, and I've observed that it's the only place in the world where free speech is, actually, free.
Anybody who disagrees hasn't lived in a country other than the US *and* experienced life there. No, going to a country for 3 months back in '98 when you were in college and only going to parties does not, alas, constitute experiencing life in that country - at best you experienced party life (if you were not blackout drunk), which is a very tiny subset of life.
And to the Europeans and other people except those who live in the US, trust me, you do not know, what free speech feels like, not until you can experience the true freedom to express yourself like you can in the US. If you've done extensive research on this topic, you may actually know what it is, but not the actual indescribable feeling.
Also, have you ever heard of what happened in Tiananmen square, in Hong Kong a few years ago, in Prague a few centuries ago, in Kent State in the US (mind you, one of these was taken much, much, inexplainably much more seriously than the other events.) But I guess you haven't, considering you're asking people to convince you that free speech is not valued that much in countries outside the US.
Mmm, yes. America is the only country that has true freedom of speech.
I suppose that's why a silly Canadian like me wouldn't know much about other countries. We just don't have free speech.
If you are truly interested, start with the basics and start with what has happened in your own country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad...
You do not seem truly interested though. My guess is that you do not feel that your particular speech/expressions are under threat.
I'm very interested in exploring the claim I initially asked about. I'm very familiar with freedom of expression in my country, and in various other countries. I remain unconvinced that "it's often viewed as a threat" - we're just generally not absolutists about it, because we recognize there's nuance even to that.
Your America-centric view of the world is pretty fun though.
You're in a discussion with two different users. I haven't specifically expressed anything about my view of the world.
Quite right; apologies.
You're speaking of Canada, the same country where the (Canadian) Bill of Rights can be suspended (which to begin with, this document is not taken very seriously) along with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is present in your constitution, and free speech with it, for the "good of the people" of course... Yep, you're right, you don't have meaningful free speech, nor do you have that many rights compared to the US.
Oh, and, you're Prime Minister is also basically an absolute monarch compared to the US President, given how few meaningful checks there are limiting his power.
I admit, a few years ago I was naive about just how free Canada is, but once I started reading your statutes a lot of things started surprising me, in a not-so-good way.
(Now, don't take this the wrong way, you're still a freer country than fricking North Korea, but relatively speaking, for a Western democracy, you just ain't that free, bud.)
America does not have true freedom of speech as it places all sorts of limits on it
Nowhere does
America also sometimes sends police to doors over domain names.
Canada and the EU certainly don’t care about free speech.
That comment is not doing a good job of convincing me.
Are you actually open to being convinced or are you going to justify every example of those governments compelling and controlling speech?
Coming from Australia, everything about Westboro baptist style freedom of speech is something I'm pretty happy to not have.
Shutting down so called Russian-propaganda sites on DNS level, hate speech regulations, mantra about disinformation regulations, even though nobody can define disinformation legislatively, remove access to bank accounts because of supporting protest against goverment, unavailable books to buy that are too extreme even though few years ago they were fine... It's all driven by politics.
American freedom of speech aka "you can literally be fired and see your life ruined for having a political opinion but you won't go to jail so be thankful"
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
The 1st Amendment guarantees you the right to say whatever the fuck you want, with some very specific caveats concerning disturbing the peace, but freedom is power and power is responsibility.
How is the US different from any other country in history in that regard?
You can be in North Korea and freely criticize the government, you're just not gonna be "free from the consequences".
Turns out, being protected from the 'consequences' is what actually matters.
You can say Boe Jiden is a purple Martian born in Backwaterstan.
Boe Jiden will probably sue you for defamation.
The courts will very likely give him the win, slamming you with a hefty fine and perhaps more such as prison time depending on the damages your speech incurred.
You can say Boe Jiden is a purple Martian born in Backwaterstan again, so long as you're fine going through that rigmarole again though you'll probably face even heftier penalties.
You are in no way prevented from voicing your thoughts because the 1st Amendment guarantees your right to do so. You can only ever be prosecuted for the consequences, such as the fallout from making false statements.
You have exactly described how freedom of speech works in North Korea. You are allowed to say "I think that Kim is a bad leader", which is guaranteed by the article 67 of The Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But this doesn't mean you can spread untrue claims and cause societal disrupt, so Kim arrests you for your reckless actions and you go to gulag.
Again, freedom of speech exists in North Korea and it's protected by law, it's just that you're not free from the consequences of abusing freedom of speech.
Free speech protects you from prosecution against your speech. The consequences of that speech are a separate matter and not protected by the 1st Amendment.
Again, note precisely what is prosecuted here in the US where free speech is a guaranteed Constitutional right. You can with absolute power say whatever you want, but you will need to own up to it.
If you don't or can't own up to what you say, don't speak. This isn't a violation of free speech because nobody is prohibiting or otherwise compelling you from speaking.
You still haven't explained how is that different from North Korea.
Is this some sort of sarcasm?
Yes? That's what it means. Freedom of speech is not the right to impose your opinions on other people or even to force them to listen to you.
I think the differences is that it isnt weaponised as it is in the US but it is very much valued and expected.
The solution to free speech - just like with democracy - is the education but that's not going to happen as too many actors want the power.
Anti-hate speech got you? What were you trying to say exactly? One can go on X right now and spew any hate speech that one wants.
How about just political opinions? How quickly we forgot "free speech zones." This is the government actually limiting public speech in the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
BTW, I am not for this regulation in any way. I just don't see the connection to hate speech.
Hate speech accusations are a bit like being accused of rape. Once it happens you automatically get tainted and it is very hard to defend yourself in the public sphere, even if the accusations are totally unfounded. This is of course abused by evil people. Moreover, what counts as hate speech can very suddenly alter depending on whoever is in charge, and even if the public don't go along with it, it can still be used to silence people.
I am not directing this at you, or anyone here, truly. However, this XKCD always come to mind whenever I hear the topics of hate speech and free speech mentioned within proximity of each other:
https://xkcd.com/1357/
I have an example in mind, a very recent one, in which case it was indeed the government abusing hate speech laws to silence critics. Ask Greta Thunberg.
Ask Greta Thunberg? The level is very low here. This kind of comments are not what I come to HN.
That is mainly relevant in a U.S. context, whereas we’re talking about the EU in this thread. Unlike the U.S., several EU countries do indeed make it a crime to express certain opinions.
This XKCD sucks and is essentially a thought-terminating cliche.
https://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/in...
This is poorly done. If you're banned from doing something for a long time for unfair reasons, then the unfair reasons are rectified and you can actually do it, people will still feel brainwashed to treat you as before even though they never actually wanted to.
To just think that a bunch of people not liking something means that something is inherently bad is missing the context for why those people think something is bad, and who told them to think that.
If a billion people think you're an asshole for no objective reason, then you are just doing something they are emotional about.
Social control, 'showing the door', is abused to silence dissidents.
Plenty of methaforical ideological death marches on different topics could have been avoided by social gatekeepers not having the social power to silence their friends or party co-members.
Pretending the question is really about someone being rude is patronizing by XKCD.
The concept of 'showing the door' is fine for practical reasons but the other present at the party need to follow in protest on any just so slightly transgression of power.
So now when authoritarianism and racism are in fashion again in ”the West”, those political movements that oppose it are in a quite bad spot, since freedom of thought and expression have been turned down to do a shortsighted delay of the shift in the first place.
Free speech does not mean the first amendment. I have a feeling people here would be a bit upset if the local mosque started executing people for blasphemy: look ma no government involved!
That XKCD, ironically but not intentionally ironically, starts off by claiming the opponent (the "asshole") is conflating the first amendment with free speech rights, then goes on to conflate the first amendment with free speech rights in service of limiting someone's speech.
Maybe it's easier to see if you're not American and thus aren't covered by the first amendment.
This kind of attitude is of course why the government is more than happy to have megacorporations in control of our public square who they can then push to implement the censorship they want.
Of course unless you are trying to win an internet argumet about free speech with a gotcha that makes you feel smart then you will realize that free speech doesn't just mean preventing the government from directly interfering with your speech but is a much broader concept.
Really because all the people I've seen who bitch about both the lack of their freedom to speak and of being accused of hate speech never shut up, in fact it's seemingly their entire career now to make public appearances at venues and complain about how silenced they are, into hot microphones, for an audience.
Free Speech Absolutism was/is connected with hate speech because sites that hold up such an ideal end up being the landing pad for the very worst people who were banned everywhere else. There aren't enough normal people who vote with their money/time/engagement to reach critical mass on those platforms.
And turns out very few people want actually free speech. We're in a forum with strong moderation and the discussion is better for it. Most communities self-enforce norms even without central moderation. There's no easy answers when you have to reckon with the real effects speech has. Germany wasn't special, they weren't even alone at the time. What folks call "fascism" naturally precipitates under the right conditions and I can't think of any time in history where it's been dealt with by the socratic method and not violence of a kind.
But once you have a word you can accuse someone of with actual repercussions folks acting in bad-faith try to fit people they don't like into the mould. We think ourselves so much better than those silly puritans accusing people of witchcraft but we just changed the words. I'm sure you could name five off the top of your head that people level without any kind of justification.
I broadly agree but present two caveats.
Firstly, that Germany's descent into fascism and anti-semitism were both helped by the lack of free speech. Blasphemy laws prevented the anti-semitism preached from the pulpits to be challenged, and hate speech laws actually helped the Nazis publicise their movement[1].
As to norms, they can be self-enforced because free speech allows such a choice, otherwise it would be the case that those norms were imposed or not even available. Most likely, they'd be someone else's norms.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v... Interview with Fleming Rose about his book.
This post makes no sense. Your both cases are an example where was too much "free speech" (preeches) and too few ( govermental fight against Stürmer)
I guess the analysis about Nazis in the Weimarer Republik are far more complex than a matter of free speech. It tells a lot that I never heard historians seriously discussing it in this context.
When your ideas are so bad that you need to censor any discussion of opposing ideas lest they immediately win, it's time to change your ideas.
Wanting free speech on internet forums is different from wanting it at the government level. I'm not sure what Free Speech Absolutism is, but if it means unmoderated internet forums, yeah that usually doesn't end well even if only a small minority has bad intent.
Big online forums with any kind of global popularity already have an inherent problem despite the moderation, not because of hate speech but because of ragebait and other forms of grifting. Especially with anonymous users.
OP specified “culturally”, ie people who stand up for free speech regardless of its content are painted as alt-right bigots, even if they only care about preserving the right to speak freely.
I’m also in this camp and have been down-voted into oblivion many times for just saying something like “I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
It’s not fun to be a defender of truly free speech because you get painted into the same camp as the bad guys.
I don't believe that anyone is truly for absolute free speech, it's just some theoretical utopia which sounds great, until you actually dive into details. Would you defend my right to call your little brother or sister terrible disgusting names? Threaten you or your family's lives? Say that your entire ethnicity doesn't deserve to exist? Because that would be absolute free speech. I don't think anybody should have the right to do that. I mean they can try, but if it happened in real life, they'd find out real quick that it wasn't a good idea.
If you disagree with me on major issues, I will defend your right to state that. But if I find myself in a place full of hate, be they nazis, or tankies, or whatever, I leave and don't come back.
The U.S. might not be a free speech utopia but it’s pretty close.
Out of these three examples, the first and third are totally legal in the U.S.
Legal yes, IRL not very good for one's health though.
I know I sound like a horrible evil person, but yes I truly would like to live in a world where you can say any of those examples. As another commenter said, 2/3 of those are already legal to say anyway, and I am so glad that I live in a place that has that freedom.
I don’t agree with or like any of the things you say but I would rather live in a world where you can say them instead of being arrested.
It's illegal in a lot of countries.
Honest question: why would a free speech absolutist start a discussion here, on this site? I have a feeling that plenty of rules here [0] wouldn't be accepted by such a crowd.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Free speech doesn't mean you can force anyone to listen.
The government should not make any speech illegal on a federal level, but individual private businesses or websites (like HN) can still decide what's tolerated on their property.
And the corollary -- I believe in free speech but there are some people I'll never listen to, even though I believe in their right to speak.
What about individual private businesses like Spectrum and Verizon?
Wouldn't the analog counterpart be the postal system? They have no right to poke in your private communications.
Edit: That said postal systems are generally owned by the government. So I suppose ultimately (if nothing else) it would be up to their T&C. But I don't see how they could reasonably justify monitoring the traffic. It's not like it's a PR issue for them what users share through their tubes. I would imagine it'd make sense to have them regulated similarly as the postal system (ensuring private communications).
No, it'd be FedEx, since the USPS is the government.
This is touching on the whole obvious problem with no controls on speech: cancel culture is free speech since it's just me asking other people not to freely associate by freely speaking that I don't want to freely associate with them. Then you enter the whole "tolerance of intolerance" debate and so on.
This whole thing is a question of degrees. I think "common carrier" was a useful concept: loss of control traded for immunity.
Listened to an interesting debate on this topic
https://opentodebate.org/debate/mock-trial-murthy-v-missouri...
The first debater said it was okay because the companies complied voluntarily. I found myself at first nodding along.
Then, at least for me, after hearing more arguments I was like, "okay, she's basically saying if President Trump calls Musk and says (please censor anything pro-Biden)" that's fine as long as there's no "or else". To me it seemed wrong for that to be ok.
The other debater also pointed out that even if there was no explicit "or else" the twitter files made it clear the people there thought there was an implicit "or else".
It's a hard problem.
Because 15 years ago this was the default point of view everywhere online. Then the unwashed masses came and banned us.
Well, calling people "unwashed masses" because they don't agree with you isn't the greatest way to start the discussion, I guess.
It doesn't matter, insulting people is fine. Censoring them is not.
A majority of people aren't worth talking to. I'm interested in letting the few that are know they aren't alone, aren't crazy and don't need to be like the rest.
Yup. Using the early internet required a moderate amount of intelligence. The current internet does not. And now when things are being optimized for the lower 50% of the bell curve it results in things looking a lot different.
The early internet was like a race track for experienced drivers. Nowadays even kids are allowed to participate so all cars are heavily speed limited, with soft bumpers and a huge framework of regulations and protections.
That's fine in itself, but more importantly (to the point) it doesn't mean that pure race tracks should be banned. That's where all the interesting stuff happens.
Free Speech as a political principle is about relations between a state, and citizens, not a website, and its users. There are some gray-zone cases (e.g. formally private press/platforms can be heavily influenced by a ruling party using economic means, or for whatever reason some press/platform conglomerate controls market share so big it can influence gov't to legislate conditions harmful to potential competition), but it's definitely not about this site.
So I could have no ability to say anything at all, and still have free speech?
Yes. To test this, close the website and go and shout out of your window.
Do you only participate in forums with which you are 100% ideologically aligned?
Why would a vegetarian shop at a supermarket that also sells meat?
Free speech absolutism doesn't exist in a bubble, but falls under a broader civil rights umbrella. Most free speech absolutists here would likely understand that Hacker News is a privately ran forum.
Many free speech absolutists would agree that Hacker News should not be compelled to publish off-topic or rule-breaking discussions any more than a cake shop owner should be compelled to sell you a cake displaying a message that the cake shop owner doesn't agree with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v_Ashers_Baking_Company_Lt...
I think one of the main problems "free speech absolutist" have is that they chose such an awkward phrase to self-identify themselves. The word "absolutist" is so unambiguous that it implies that seemingly no one would qualify for it besides true loons which makes the whole idea easy to dismiss.
When you really get down to it, almost everyone supports some type of restriction on speech. This should be especially apparent when discussing legislation like this in which the goal is preventing the distribution of child porn. How can a "free speech absolutist" be okay with a government making certain images and videos illegal to share? Wouldn't a true absolutist fight for people's right to distribute child porn?
The ambiguity of "absolutist" ends up making any reasonable "free speech absolutist" debate the meaning of the word "speech". Suddenly things like child porn, defamation, threats, fraud, and/or the location of Elon Musk's private plane need to be debated as whether they qualify as "speech". The chosen phrase necessitates that the "absolutist" need to weaken the idea of "free speech" in order to seem reasonable. Which in turn makes people who are ostensibly pro-free speech start to question whether something like hate speech should even qualify for free speech protections.
So a "free speech absolutist" either needs to argue some truly extreme views like why child porn should be legal or they weaken the overall pro-free speech side of the whole debate.
see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712506 for my argument that making child porn illegal protects abusers more than abuse victims. i guess that makes me a free speech absolutist?
I think it is fundamentally dishonest to point to a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph as any sort of representative example of "child porn". Neither of the photos you specifically call out would meet the "I know it when I see it" standard cited by the US Supreme Court and the photos that do would never be published by reputable news sources regardless of their actual legal status. Therefore, your argument isn't even really about the law, it is about societal standards of decency.
it sounds like you didn't read very much of my comment, because you didn't understand what my argument was about, even as a vague outline
separately, you say, 'I think it is fundamentally dishonest to point to a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph as any sort of representative example of "child porn".' however, the thing you think is dishonest is something you made up, not something i said, suggested, implied, or agree with
It remains me how I created stations of cross recently with a help of Midjourney... I was not allowed to put words ”virgin" and "jews" in prompt. Clearly, my intentions was not to harm anyone.
Without responsibility there is no free speech. Making bunch of regulations, collective guilt etc. wont learn those few abusers why their actions might harm others.
also child porn laws: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40712506
Yeah and there are even worse things that haven't been internationally banned.
Because frankly free speech absolutists got hijacked by people who have no intention of creating free speech (such as Musk). And frankly, many of the arguments are not meaningful to normal people or to those opposing it. You have to talk to your audience. And in this case it is recognizing that most of laws controlling speech has not been aimed at those universally hated like Nazis, but rather those who have little power, like minorities. People think there is a free lunch here, but it just doesn't exist.
So the free speech absolutist groups got infiltrated by those that wanted to dog whistle and (almost) never tailored arguments to those who were strongly opposed; and worse, those who need free speech the most.
The same often goes for encryption. And we have to deal with adversaries that are willing to straight up lie and promise things that sound nice and sound accurate (things that follow when using basic logic but don't if nuance is incorporated). There are no universal optimas, things with no downsides/costs. But most importantly we have to tailor arguments to audiences, not expect them to be just taken and understood like we do. The priors are different and their objective functions may be different as well. So often people will argue what they think is most important to fall of deaf ears because people don't consider that thing important (at least in context).
I didn't expect this much of a reaction and didn't have time to engage, as mentioned this is not my fight anymore, but I will try to be helpful.
Free speech absolutism is also known as 'Meiklejohnian absolutism' which pertains to the 1st amendment with a particular opposition to the liberal interpretation of 'clear and present danger'. Heather Lynn Mac Donald is prominent person who holds similar views on speech and she makes the case that calling for end of Israel is protected free speech since there is not a 'clear and present danger'. The people calling for that genocide are presently unable to carry it out. It's actually one of the things I agree with Claudine Gay about. The problem in Harvard's case is that it's selective free speech but that is a different issue.
The liberal interpretation of the 'clear and present danger' carve out for the 1st amendment is the reason why there is so much emphasis on tying speech to violence. This is why safe spaces must be created where views that could make things unsafe are not permitted. For example, misgendering people could cause them to commit suicide therefore you are in effect murdering people with your words. It's a total stretch of the 'clear and present danger' but it is done at such a scale that is has been effective.
The last thing I fought against was the removal of The Daily Stormer from the internet. I figured it set a bad precedent which was sure to be abused. Once services have signaled that they can be swayed then immense pressure would be brought to bear to sway them further. Another reason is that I think it's important to hear what people say instead of what some people say about what some other people say. I think the Taliban and ISIS should also have websites. I also figured it was very counter productive. If you're going to do it once, fine, but don't keep doing it. By first forcing the most extreme people out of mainstream and onto alternate sites the character of those sites will change to be more extreme. By subsequently forcing less extreme people out of mainstream these people have no where to go except for the already extreme sites where they will be outnumbered and they will see the existing extreme views as the new consensus. Slowly salami-slicing the mainstream fosters the creation of a large and very extreme population which is extremely counter productive. A similar effect can be seen in prison populations where many people who go to prison are forced to join dangerous gangs for their own protection and instead of becoming rehabilitated they become far more dangerous than when they went in.
I think cynical political operatives knew this and did this intentionally as part of the 'pied piper' strategy where the 'basket of deplorables' needs to both be large and unpalatable to the rest of the population in order for that group to be effectively disenfranchised. The problem is when that basket gets too big and is no longer able to be disenfranchised and instead elects the pied piper president. I think Q-anon is an soviet style 'Operation Trust' that basically sent a substantial portion of the population insane - intentionally. One would think that they would have learned their lesson the first time when Trump got elected, but having succeed the second time they're going to try for a third time. This whole process is immensely damaging. Even now the attempts to destroy Trump are counter productive and instead helping him.
My primary concern is for the health of the middle class and I worry about mass immigration undermining that. I say this as an immigrant with the understanding that I would be personally worse off were it not for immigration. I think those in the middle class have legitimate grievances and ignoring the issue of mass immigration and deriding those opposed to it as hateful bigoted stay at home xenophobes has lead to the success of populists parties. Attempts at disenfranchising those populists parties with coalitions has only delayed the now seemingly inevitable.
I'm vehemently against hate speech laws, they start out as hate speech modifiers and through that simple existence now require the courts to establish thoughts through invasions of privacy. I think this rises to the level of thought crime in effect and is of course very Orwellian. Once the notion of hate speech crimes has been established it was just a matter of time before legislation makes it official, if not at the federal level then at the state level. I think the new 'anti-Zionism is antisemitism' conflation in combination with 'antisemitism is hate speech' in effect now makes criticism of Israel illegal, it'll be interesting to see how that is enforced as it's such a ridiculous notion. Predictably the left is now on the receiving end of the very policies there were instrumental in establishing. They have been hoisted by their own petard.
The attempt to stamp out 'hate' makes as much sense as the Soviet attempts in their creation of the 'New Soviet man' free from 'greed'. There are already proposals to stop companies from being 'greedy' though legislation.
I find it rather interesting that Popper's paradox espouses the idea that one must be 'intolerant of the things that threaten tolerance' sounds really similar to George Lincoln Rockwell's philosophy of 'you must hate the things that threaten what you love.' In both cases giving people license to do what they wanted to do anyway.
For me the battle is over, limited to posts like this, my focus these days is to avoid the crushing of the middle class by being as economically far away from the middle class as possible.
That's how you get another level of super-government, i.e. one more tyrant in the chain
Historically the circle breaks only with revolution and violence .
Maybe checks and balances would work as a system, but the EU has neither
This sort of rhetoric is dangerous.
It does seem to be working well in America.
How?
Because it implies the only way forward is with violence, a premise I thoroughly reject.
It states that historically government oppression has resulted in revolution and violence. It doesn't imply its the only way, but it's certainly a human trope repeated countless times in history, and it will occur again.
Could provide an constructive alternative viewpoint instead of calling plain facts of history "dangerous" or "rhetoric" as if acknowledgement of history is dangerous?
This is a really unfair reading of my stance, and I'm fairly confident you knew what I meant - especially since I spelled it out in my last comment.
Acknowledgement of history is fine. Implications that the way things have always went is the only way it can go is silly at best and dangerous at worst.
I apologize if I was unfair, I'm just trying to have a provocative conversation, no offense intended.
Calling an acknowledgement of history either dangerous, rhetoric, or weighed with the burden of intangible implication seems like a way to shame the observer for observing what is obvious. Just mentioning historical violence is not an endorsement of it or a suggestion that it's the only tool available to the slighted. I find that reaction itself to be the actual danger.
If we're being (constructively) provocative, let's not pretend that the implication is all that intangible. Is it an endorsement? No. Is it an explicit statement that violence is the only way forward? No. But simply pointing it out, without expanding on it with, as you say, constructive alternative viewpoints, is very clearly implying that it's the only solution. If it's not, I ask GP: What is their point in what they said?
As for my position being dangerous... I don't see how that's the case. Again, as I've clarified, I do not find it dangerous to acknowledge history (of course that would be dangerous itself) just using history to imply dangerous things.
It's probably worth pointing out that this is a common propaganda tactic of the powerful.
Fair points, thanks for playing along, hope you have a lovely day today.
The comment above literally says "only."
And conditions it as "historically".
It does not state "revolution and violence is the only way forward"
For governments.
They say ignorance is bliss.
Ahh yes, because only government officials die in war.
Who's ignorant?
" Maybe checks and balances would work as a system, but the EU has neither " This is just wrong. There are courts (on EU level and national level), the council and the parlament.
The largest organisations are the trillion dollar ones we interact with every day, not the eu or even the German or us governments .
The US Government spending is an order of magnitude bigger than the largest private companies in the world...
WalMart is the largest private spender in the world at around ~$400B per year. The US Federal Government alone spends >$400B per month...
That doesn't even include state and local governments which basically doubles that.
That and I can choose not to directly do business with a company without having to upend my entire life. Also none of them have armies. Not that I'm a libertarian or something, just gotta remember that the big nations are very clearly more powerful than corporations.
I could easily see a self-employed Google user who decided to cut all ties with Google basically having to build a new life from scratch.
It'd mean directing people to a new email address, downloading stuff out of Drive, and maybe not advertising via Google. That doesn't seem like a lot. If your job is YouTube content creation, you'd need a new job, but you also had to make specific choices to end up there.
The German government can put you in prison. The US government can do that, and additionally can even kill you.
And the French can bomb your ship, even if they're not competent enough to hide that they're the ones who did it.
The entities that need to be circumscribed need to enforce a law that circumscribes themselves? Those incentives do not seem to align to form a stable structure.
The only way is to have a broad-based idea among the people about exactly what is allowed for a government and a big business.
There's a strong and widespread expectation among many that it's morally imperative for them to be able to elect their own government. So any moves by the government to limit this will be met by fierce resistance.
If a similar idea existed about privacy, these sneaky moves wouldn't be feasible and would leave a bad taste in the mouths even of the perpetrators. Unfortunately, many among us are of the "But I've got nothing to hide" persuasion.
That's not really true as far as it comes to the EU though? The EU parliament has always been a joke with limited power (both because of structural reasons and because most of it's members are clueless and extremely easy to influence) and besides that the EU population has no way to exert any direct influence on EU policies (they could do that through the council but they'd have prioritize the EU over domestic issues when voting in national elections which will never happen)
In the same vein, EU does not have an idea of sanctity of free speech. Various forms of censorship exist in various EU members, all for apparently good causes.
Neither does any country if you look closely enough, all for apparently good reasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
That's why you need to always ensure authority rests with individuals, or the ability to secure against unjust authority.
The second your only recourse against authority is to politely ask it not to do something bad to you (maybe, for instance, on a piece of paper with multiple choice questions), you have no real autonomy.
Tell that to the people cheering the EU "sticking it" to the megacorporations like Apple. Not that those policies were bad on their own but we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that the bureaucrats in Brussels ever cared about anything else than exerting their power and control over anything they can touch...
The administrative budget of the EU should be cut by 3-4x times and the money should be spent on something more useful because clearly they are out of control and have nothing better to do. While we're at turning Belgium into something like DC and disenfranchising their government/people living there wouldn't be the worst idea since they clearly have been co-opted into propagating this nonsense.
You can be against these changes without immediately bending over for megacorps.
Certainly. Although megacorps at least still have some incentives to compete with each other and therefore try to appease the consumers. Unfortunately the EU does not.
There isn’t much incentive for them to compete. They have demonstrated numerous times they would gladly work together and not compete openly if it were entirely legal. Non compete clauses are an example of this. Additionally, as we’ve seen with asbestos & lead use in personal care and beauty products after it was demonstrated to be horribly toxic, many corporations would gladly even kill their own customers as long as they got paid first.
That is to say, megacorps have way too much power and access and this must be globally curtailed. To achieve such a goal the EU cannot be going forward with these changes that put more power into the hands of megacorps who will have no problem complying, as they do in China.
Sure but privacy is still a selling point (e.g. Apple has different incentives than ad companies like Google and (regardless of how abusive their policies regarding app publishing are) was pushing the industry towards a positive direct on their own).
I don't see how this policy specifically is putting more power into the hands of megacorps, it's hardly something they ever really wanted (even if it's certainly not a hill they are willing to die on). Don't get me wrong, their power needs to be curtailed but I just don't see how can we get just the DMA but no Chat Control (it's not like the EU bureaucrats are driven by anything besides self interest, they might get some things right now and then but IMHO consumers generally have more real direct influence on what the megacorps are doing than them).
The corporations want to grow and eat each other's lunch. They'll cooperate for short periods of time when there's only a handful of them and it's feasible to pull it off. But long-term, in any pair of megacorps, one will always grow at the expense of the other.
What about letting people to learn about privacy in digital world in first place? Regulations take individual responsibility and create feeling of something is solved by government. But no one knows what exactly, how is it done and most important... Why.
Circumscribed by whom? The government is notoriously bad at stopping itself from abusing power.
This already exists in the EU, the EU charter of Fundamental Rights https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/7-respect-privat.... states "Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications", however it seems to have been ignored.