What you think are two sides of a spectrum, others might consider to be completely orthogonal.

Who get to decide, other than the individual, what to do about that?

A bunch of bureaucrats in EU?

Thanks but no thanks.

Who decides here? A bunch of corporations that will always put humans last? Thanks but no thanks.

"Faceless bureaucracies are bad!"

"So, corporations are bad?"

"No no, not those faceless bureaucracies, obviously."

Which is why we have RIGHTS so that we can go after those who do us wrong.

What the EU is doing is regulation HOW they should act which is the sure way undermine your own citizens ability to stay competitive in the long run.

There's nothing special about "rights" as one person or other defines them. They aren't written in the fabric of the universe. We collectively decide what qualifies as a basic right, and we can (theoretically...) change our mind about that over time.

Rights aren't about "going after those who do us wrong". It's about establishing a relative framework by which we can try to mediate differences in opinion about whose liberties are more important in this or that situation.

Codifying something as a "right" is basically just society's way of signalling that this particular area is one where we all agree we're going to be very reluctant to step on people's individual liberties. But that doesn't mean that there are NO situations where those liberties can be impinged. Incarceration is one example.

You seem to draw a hard distinction between rights and regulation, but they're really just two tools in service of the same goal.

You are completely missing the point. Regulation isnt written into the fabrics of reality either.

The point is that rights are given to individuals so they can use them if they are violated to get justice in the legal system.

Regulation is forcing companies not just to respect those rights but to force to respect them in a certain way. This breeds stagnation and ends up hurting the rights of the individual because now large companies will be able to push responsibility away under the guise of we followed the regulation.

the fact that so many here on hacker news of all places seems to be ok with that is puzzling.

rights are the same as regulation

The representatives of the people of the European union.

Which no one voted for because of this.

This is what governments are for. Sometimes your individual liberties collide with other people's individual liberties, or the collective liberties of the society. You elect a government and then they act on your behalf in order to reconcile these conflicts of interest. The people of the EU elected their representatives. They're free to leave the EU (individually or collectively) if they don't like how that's working for them.

If you're not in the EU and you don't like their terms, don't do business with them.

> don't do business with them.

Looking at economic trends, this is an increasingly popular choice

Seems that you are unaware of how the EU is working with direct and indirect representatives validating laws and acts. The DSA was voted by the EU Parliament in July 2022. The EU parliament is elected directly by EU citizen.

Every time I see someone yelling "EU bureaucrats" I can guess that they don't really understand what the word really means.

As a European, most people I know have a very vague idea of what EU is or does. They know it's a trade union and that you can get across the borders easily and even work in other EU countries, but beyond that it's a blur. Like if you ask them what the difference between the EU parliament and the EU commission is they wouldn't be able to answer. They vote because "I guess you should" but don't really know what they are voting for.

So even though they might be elected, you can't assume that their actions represent the will of the people (I should really say peoples, plural, because Europeans don't really consider themselves a people either).

i am unfortunately all to aware how the EU work. No EU politician went to the ballot boxes on this issue.