Birbla

Discussion summary

The EU Parliament approved Chat Control 1.0, raising concerns about privacy and rights. Critics argue it favors big tech and undermines liberties, while supporters cite child protection.

What the discussion says

  • Critics say it erodes privacy and rights.
  • Supporters claim it helps protect children from abuse.
  • Some see it as a necessary compromise for safety.
  • Concerns about government and corporate overreach.
“Our children lose out”
— Breyer
“Big Brother loves us”
— miroljub

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  • Hacker News
  • One thing that should be noted is that, since the Parliament has been able to approve an amendment by absolute majority (which explicitly excludes E2E chats), the procedure is not over and the law is still not enacted, a third reading is still needed, after negotiations with the Council and the Commission, and in this case the Parliament will be able to reject the act by a simple majority
    by CrisMystik
  • I was looking for information about this. So this new reading and vote would happen after summer?
    by sebastiennight
  • This article seems to make good points about how useless and invasive Chat Control 1.0 is, but then posits Chat Control 2.0 as the answer. Is the latter not also terrible for privacy, demanding backdoors in all encrypted chat tech?
    by largbae
  • You're asking a community that couldn't decide if Client Side Scanning was safe and private at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741

    Surveillance is a branding issue. If you wrap a shit in crepe paper and Corinthian leather, most people will admire what an artist you are.

    by bigyabai
  • The proponents argue that those backdoors are a good thing because then the government can keep you safe from people saying nasty things.
    by londons_explore
  • Some people say im rather pessimistic - but i still kinda hoped that the EU will not go down this path.

    That said - i was obviously wrong.

    I don't really know what else to say than : this breaks a fundamental foundation of privacy. Sure i was never 100% aligned with EU level decisions (neither with my residing country one's) but that's just... wrong on so many levels... how can i even still argue to people that EU and democracy are good if this is what its heading for?

    Usually i try to explain stuff with common grounds, the bigger picture or whatever is fitting. You can't have everyone happy on every decision.

    But at this point im lost of arguments. They just betrayed every citizen from my pov.

    So whats my point of this comment? Maybe i need to vent in an environment where i think people might get how bad this actually is, since people IRL around me don't seem to remotly understand the impact....

    by voodooEntity
  • This is extending an existing law that expired.

    Really you should have felt betrayed back in 2011.

    This isn't Chat Control 2.0 - which is the thing that has been getting attention for the last few years.

    E2E encryption should not be broken, we should find other ways to catch and find predators.

    Scanning messages in platforms (Chat Control 1.0)? I honestly thought this has always been done, I don't consider any platform private.

    A lot of Internet regulations are just catching up to ones that exist in meat space.

    I think what scares people when the regulations come to the Internet is that they are highly automated, and I think there's potential for mass injustices when automated systems.

    At the same time, the abuse of children has also been automated and amplified by the Internet. https://youtu.be/QYcAFanHwf8?t=1666

    by flumpcakes
  • (Based on https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/07/07/eu-to-extend-t... and https://www.euractiv.com/news/how-the-epp-pushed-the-chat-sc... as well as the stuff in the link).

    Here's a quote from the article itself, which works for both pro and con arguments:

      "What is still NOT being scanned: End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp, have always been exempt from these scans. Additionally, European providers of messaging and email services have never implemented chat control measures."
    As I'm not trained in law, I have no strong opinions on if this proposal is a net positive or negative, almost any big name LLM will do a better job than I can manage by looking at the legal text, stroking my goatee and saying "I recon…". But what I can say that I've just seen a headline about a class action lawsuit in the USA due to grok making CSAM and the company failing to assist the police in their investigations, and another about Meta facing a lawsuit in India for delivering advertising for CSAM on Instagram.

    My steelman in favour of the legislation:

    The regulation closes a legal gap that would otherwise force platforms to stop using existing CSAM detection systems; it's a temporary framework that doesn't require universal mandatory scanning or ban E2EE, just keeps the legal basis for companies which choose to use detection/scanners while lawmakers continue negotiating a more comprehensive longterm solution.

    My steelman against the legislation:

    Scanning private communications, even allowing companies to "voluntary" do this, sets the precedent that the confidentiality of private correspondence is conditional rather than fundamental. Also, automated scanning inevitably has false positives. Also, has chilling effect on free speech, undermines trust in encrypted messaging.

    Also, situationally, that it's "voluntary" means offenders can migrate to platforms which don't "voluntarily" do this.

    by ben_w
  • Real time notifications here would solve a lot of issues...

    Imagine Alice, an 18, 19yo girl, having a boyfriend, Bob, and since Bob is on a student exchange, she decides to send him a boob photo. Since alice is skinny, her boobs are on the smaller side.

    Now imagine Alice hitting 'Send', and getting an automated message from whatever CSAM AI bot:

    "Your message has not been sent, the system detected the breasts in the photo to be probably underage, the photo was forwarded to <your local police station> for manual review"

    And half an hour later

    "Detectives Rob Johnson, John Robson and Bob Bobson from police department XY, have done an extensive manual review of the photo of the breasts and have 2:1 decided that they're probably not underage, so the photo was sent to the intended destination. Than you, your friendly CSAM AI bot!"

    by ajsnigrutin
  • >CSAM detection systems

    Blackboxes which scan your messages and photos for anything 3rd party want with undisclosed criteria.

    by u8080
  • This, and other similar legislation, serve as a constant reminder of why the American founding fathers had to revolt against tyranny, and why constitution amendments like the 1st and 4th exist. The 4th in particular was written as a response to a British law similar to Chat Control (writs of assistance).
    by tasn
  • Sadly doesn't seem to make much difference, though. If anything the UK is less authoritarian than the US now.
    by globular-toast
  • And then you got the patriot act.
    by ajsnigrutin
  • Instead of solving real problems, the EU Parliament supports the globalists' agenda for privacy and human rights violations — our fundamental rights
    by aw124
  • The US built mass surveillance by bypassing congress, at least in the EU we do it democratically /s
    by goldenarm
  • >EU Parliament supports the globalists' agenda

    word. thats the entire point of the existence of the EU

    by akimbostrawman
  • I don't want to hear about the EU's "strong digital privacy" laws and protections ever again.
    by petcat
  • Do you think people should have privacy from the government? That exists in a completely different realm than privacy against a private company.
    by Fizz43
  • Already was done hearing that day 0, before the cookie banners started showing up.
    by frollogaston
  • Multiple things can be true at the same time.

    There can exist strong consumer protections against misuse of their personal data by various entities.

    And there can simultaneously also exist governmental overreach against citizens private data.

    The world is complex, few things are truly binary.

    by Y-bar
  • Roberta Metsola's actions this week jeopardise the legitimacy of the EU project as a whole.

    It's clear that member countries use the EU as a blame-laundering mechanism to pass domestically unpopular laws, but the forcing of this vote under the urgency procedure that requires absolute majority to reject, on the last EP session before summer break is so blatant that it might awaken people that might've overlooked the structural failures of the EU and finally radicalise them

    EDIT: bad wording, it's not that the urgency procedure causes the voting to require absolute majority, it's that an absolute majority second-reading is forced through an emergency procedure which is designed for first readings of legislation that's the implied meaning above

    by budududuroiu
  • Yes, this basically means the EU pushed a new censorship regulation using lawfare tricks without ever having a majority vote for the proposal.

    If it's not a dictatorship, a regime, a shithole, a kleptocracy, or whatever name they use for a government they don't like, I don't know what it is.

    by miroljub
  • The urgency procedure has nothing to do with the absolute majority requirement. It's necessary because, in the second reading, the Parliament should have an absolute majority to reject or amend the Council (i.e. the governments of the member states) position but only a simple majority to approve it
    by CrisMystik
  • I don’t understand how a governing system requires a majority to reject a change to the status quo. The status quo must be maintained unless a majority decides to change the status quo.

    It is the equivalent of having a gas pedal in a car that is fully activated unless you put your foot down.

    by __turbobrew__
  • To understand whether/to what extent this is brazen, I'd be interested to learn the reasoning why urgency procedures are possible, and in particular, why the apparent majority against shouldn't have been enough, and what is needed to classify something as urgent.
    by Vinnl
  • I think I'm one of those to whom you refer (except that I'm already "awake", or at least I like to think so). I'm normally pro-EU but this chat control is anathema to me. I'll be voting anti-EU in future I think.
    by tenthirtyam
  • > it might awaken people that might've overlooked the structural failures of the EU and finally radicalise them

    Haha, no. As long as there is bread and circus, nothing wil happen.

    by superloika
  • I'm really surprised at the hurry. The EU, and many EU governments, have been ramming through deeply unpopular legislation at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately.

    It feels like the last turn in a board game where everyone is busy taking points with no regard for the impact of the decisions on the theoretical next turn - because there is no next turn. Its really weird.

    > blame-laundering mechanism

    Also, I'm stealing this.

    by nick486
  • This is a nice piece of democracy right here:

    "a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028."

    "Oh no we can't get a majority to pass the law!"

    "Have you tried getting a majority to not pass the law?"

    "Worth a shot!"

    "It worked, should we also do this multiple times?"

    "Of course not! Pass the law, quickly!"

    by teekert
  • Can it be undone? One of the key aspects of any society is that it can in fact change law/policy/leaders/etc without war/rebels. yes harm happens when bad crap gets in but if the system still supports change, it is working.

    For all the bad in trump era like roe vs wade among many others. The same mechanism are what allowed roe vs wade to exist. A double edge sword but better than alternative variants of totalitarian multi decade long regimes.

    by rustystump