Birbla

Discussion summary

Debate surrounds the EU's proposed ban on the AfD party, with concerns about its far-right views and potential implications for democracy.

What the discussion says

  • Some see AfD as a neo-Nazi or far-right threat, advocating for deportations and revoking citizenship.
  • Others argue the party's opposition to chat control is exaggerated or misrepresented.
  • Critics express skepticism about the effectiveness and motives behind EU regulations.
  • Some commenters view the ban as a threat to freedom and democratic principles.
“AfD is a far-right neofascist party hostile to democracy.”
— vrganj
“The party wants to revoke citizenship and expel certain groups.”
— inigyou

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  • Hacker News
  • If so-called "tech" companies are allowed to have control over internet users' communications ("chat control"), where control over communications lies _exclusively with the company, not the user_,^1 then it stands to reason that governments, among others, may influence how that control is exercised

    Unlike governments, generally, the companies may use control over communications for any purpose. For example, a surveillance-based advertising services is one purpose that we know about. The companies can collaborate with any party; it may be another another company, it may be a government. The company can utilise surveillance data collected and/or its ability to throttle and censor communications to further any purpose. The parties with whom the company collaborates may potentially use the data for any purpose

    Unfortunately for users, the company is not required to disclose with whom it collaborates nor the terms of such collaborations. Hence users have no way to verfiy. Users of these "free services", have few, if any, rights against the company

    This situation is preventable. What enables it to exist is user "consent" to ceding control over their private communications ("chat control") to so-called "tech" companies

    1. This is accomplished through granting the company total control over the client software, e.g., "automatic updates'. The company effectvely (a) blocks chat participants from using their own client software and (b) forces chat participants to use client software controlled by the so-called 'tech" company. This software is provided for free and primarily serves the company, not the user, advancing the company's commercial interests, e.g., surveillance-based advertising services, at the expense of the user's privacy and security interests

    This fact was summarised in a submission that reached the HN front page yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48792203

    by 1vuio0pswjnm7
  • EU politicians spend more time on chat control than on the reopening of Hormuz or EU energy security. It is a complete joke.
    by rwq-askh
  • They do have us in their power. They don't have Iran under the same power.
    by inglor_cz
  • What shows up in your news feed and what the politicians are spending time on are wildly different things.
    by athrowaway3z
  • Would've been so much better to reduce the scope of your comment to just energy security.

    I don't see how the EU lived live with already higher energy prices compared to the US for so long and still don't make better renewable policy top priority.

    by judge2020
  • > EU politicians spend more time on chat control than on the reopening of Hormuz

    I thought I'd heard it all here on HN, but expecting EU to clean up after the US shooting itself in the foot with a completely unnecessary war probably comes somewhere in top 5 easily.

    by embedding-shape
  • What i found the most fascinating, is that they say its to protect children. But when you look at real child abuse cases, there are huge gaps in sentencing, policing and protecting kids in all countries. Where i live child abuser will get lower sentence than someone who sold weed. There is a lot of real police work that can be done, honey trap pedos on roblox, infiltrate public whatsapp groups to check and monitor for soliciting. Actually listening and responding to child abuse. Work with schools. But this just requires real work. They don't want to do real work. And at the end, it will get thrown out by some senile corrupted judge.

    They just want total control.

    by kvgr
  • It's 100% about control - it's the same in the UK.

    Last year it was about having to scan your face to verify your age to access porn (to protect the children). They said: It's not about control, it's about protecting children.

    Last month the same government announced they will use the same technology to prevent access to Youtube and Twitter without giving over your ID and confirming who you are... Still under the 'protecting the children' banner.

    by Closi
  • Lobbyists control the EU. So much is clear to everyone now.

    I think there is no way to fix this system from the inside - it is designed to be abused like that. We need an alternative system.

    by shevy-java
  • Even if there was no lobbying or corruption, the EU is structurally flawed: the Council, which is made up of 27 mandates that were given for local politics, is used by nations to launder their domestically unpopular laws through an EU indirection layer, the Commission has no electoral link (VDL was appointed, when afaik the Parliament should nominate a Commission President), the Parliament, the legislative body, has no legislative initiative, and despite rejecting laws drafted by the Commission, as we've seen, those laws can be forced through indefinitely until the Commission gets the rubber stamp it needs.
    by budududuroiu
  • So many messages about child safety in the press and even here... Who cares about chat control when they already have mind control.
    by rixed
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
    by iamyemeth
  • Chat control 1.0

    "A temporary derogation from the ePrivacy Directive that allowed (but did not require) providers to scan private messages of unsuspected users for potential child sexual abuse material."

    Does that imply it's currently not allowed?

    EDIT: apparently not enforced at least:

    "Chat Control 1.0 expires

    The legal ground for voluntary, indiscriminate scanning ends. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Snap state they will continue scanning private messages regardless. "

    by olejorgenb
  • > Does that imply it's currently not allowed?

    Not for the last few months, no; Chat Control 1 expired.

    by rsynnott
  • This should not be put in the same category as Chat Control 2.0. Doing so severely dilutes the brand Chat Control.
    by inigyou
  • Yes, the derogation expired on 4 April 2026.
    by closuregarden
  • The same governments pushing for this type of regulation are also the ones that fail to condemn high profile individuals involved in the crimes that these regulation are supposed to help fight. Makes you really wonder if it's about protecting the children.
    by keraf
  • You make it sound as though this is a proposal for legislation in the US...
    by wavemode
  • It was never about children. They're just using children as political weapons to justify their 1984 panopticon dictatorships.
    by matheusmoreira
  • They claim to protect consumers and privacy and then push this creepy surveillance state.
    by Zufriedenheit
  • Well it's privacy from private companies. The government still needs to see everything you do just in case. Its not like you have anything to do hide? Do you?
    by pqtyw
  • You are now finally realizing what a trojan horse is.
    by rvz
  • >everyone else is doing it so why miss out the opportunity
    by nenadg
  • At this point I think it's obvious that EU is in turmoil. They're struggling to come to grips with the idea of a Russian invasion on their eastern borders, and simultaneously USA pivoting to Asia and not willing to front their defense after 40+ years of imploring them to do so themselves.

    They've outsourced nearly every critical component of a large sustainable society to the rest of the world: Russia, USA, China, India.

    But at the same time, their politicians can't do anything because the minute they suggest that they might have to start cutting pensions and public welfare, and all of these different things in order to start supporting national industry and defense, they lose support immediately.

    by petcat
  • > Is scanning mandatory? - No — voluntary.

    Voluntary for whom? The service provider? Can I opt out of getting scanned?

    > Does it touch encrypted messages? - No. End-to-end encrypted communications were never scanned but providers could deploy client-side scanning under this law.

    So it circumvents e2e encryption?

    ---

    How would these laws prevent me from just side loading my own open source client?

    by worldsayshi
  • > How would these laws prevent me from just side loading my own open source client?

    They do not.

    by cbg0
  • I don't understand. How does it affect encrypted messages? It seems like either you need:

    1. allow MITM decryption by a privileged authority

    2. require all devices doing E2EE have a non-user-modifiable piece of functionality to scan on-device

    The second is the Apple style on-device CSAM scanner? I have to say that I do sometimes think about it while taking a photo of my baby playing in the bathtub - photos like my parents have of me which have been kind of nice to see later. It would be a pity if I had to have a separate analog camera just for baby photos because then I'd need to learn the whole developing film stuff.

    by arjie
  • Apple's proposal was only for photos being uploaded to iCloud and not local ones.

    IIRC weren't there some thoughts that they'd switch iCloud to E2E but add local scanning on upload (compare to what it currently when Apple, Google, etc. freely scan all your cloud photos anyway). That didn't seem like a terrible deal on paper.

    by pqtyw
  • There are in betweens of an iphone and analog camera. You can use a digital camera with an SD card that you plug into a laptop that never connects to internet.
    by earth-tattoo
  • You are correct in that both option 1 and 2 are possible. For end-to-end encrypted messages only option 2 is possible. The content will be scanned directly on your own device and the data will be sent to the authorities without your knowledge, if the software detects something suspicious. This is called client-side-scanning.
    by vaylian