> This will require them to monitor and scan the communications of citizens en masse – even if they are still securely encrypted end-to-end so far.
Seems the Belgian push to ban E2EE / Signal isn't an isolated case and part of a wider campaign: https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2022/05/10/belgium-wants-to-ban...
Usually these parties have a European level, some political "brotherhood" that also exist in the Netherlands.
As is, it just is meaningless fist waving in the direction of Belgium. It's a shame because I think we have so many like minded people in both the Netherlands and Belgium, that making this a national issue, "look at those Belgians" loses us (those who care for freedom of speech) on both sides.
It's not really a small matter.
China's one child policy now seems "reasonable"
Their mass surveillance is almost desired now, with our new "Ministry of Truth"
Jail time for speaking out against the government -- something I saw plenty of people vouching for when dissenting views about the pandemic were offered up.
Re-education camps for speaking out against teaching certain ideologies and concepts to young children are almost implicitly implied.
There's more, but it's clear this is where we are headed. The slippery slope isn't a fallacy, and 1984 was a prediction.
Sure, China is far from perfect. But the post above is pure propaganda, aligned with general activity of this “mildmotive” account here: American right-wing political shilling.
Any good cartoonist out there that would make the EU version of this masterpiece?
I have a special hatred for GDPR for contributing to balkanization of the internet, and for the annoying cookie warnings that sometimes breaks sites when you disable cookies at the browser level. The only way GDPR actually improves my privacy is by forcing me to use a VPN to access some sites.
Pretty much any website threatened with GDPR will remove your photos/phone number/email/whatever, they're not worth the fine. You could then still report them tbh (it has to be reported to whatever enforcement agency in the country it's hosted in, though, which only exist in the EU and are a pain to deal with).
These are from companies who are too lazy to properly comply with the GDPR, or worse, plainly illegal. It's not the fault of the GDPR that many companies choose not to be compliant. (The national regulators should absolutely clamp down harder on these non-compliant cookie popups)
A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in the world has huge problems with sex trafficking, rape and prostitution. And you guessed it, state officials are involved. All these cameras and this online surveillance didn’t make a dent to the social rot that China is suffering from. In fact, this moral (/s) state is running concentration camps, and is justifying it.
Mass-surveillance is a form of power-transfer from the majority of people to a select few. When you, as individuals, as families, as communities, as the people lack power, you’ll be less able to prevent your children from falling prey to government officials. Instead of facing a weak outcast, you’re facing an individual that’s linked to your government.
> This spying attack on our private messages and photos by error-prone algorithms is a giant step towards a Chinese-style surveillance state.
Well said. I’d like to add that even if the system was free from errors, it’s terrible.