Today is a dark day for freedom and democracy in Europe. General chat surveillance has been implemented in Brussels. A disgrace.
The so-called Chat Control 1.0 cleared a crucial hurdle in the European Parliament today. This means platforms may once again be allowed to scan private messages, officially on a “voluntary” basis, but in practice this marks the return of indiscriminate monitoring of private communication.
What makes this especially bitter is that a majority of the MEPs who voted were reportedly against it. According to Patrick Breyer, 314 MEPs voted against the regulation, 276 voted in favor and 17 abstained. And yet the rejection failed because it was not enough to have a simple majority of those voting. An absolute majority of all MEPs would have been required.
That is the democratic scandal.
When a majority of those present votes against a proposal and it still passes because a formal threshold is not reached, it does not feel like democratic decision-making to many citizens. It feels like a procedural trick.
And it becomes even more problematic when you look at the context: Chat Control had already been rejected before. Yet the issue was put back on the agenda shortly before the summer break, through an urgent procedure, at a time when absences could become decisive.
This is not just some technical regulation. It goes to the very core of private communication. It is about whether digital messages remain fundamentally private or whether platforms may systematically scan content again, without concrete suspicion, without a court order and without any individual cause.
A free society must not turn private communication into a potential surveillance zone. Anyone who takes digital fundamental rights seriously cannot accept millions of innocent people being placed under general suspicion.
Today, a dangerous signal was sent: fundamental rights can be hollowed out through procedural logic, timing and political tricks. Not through an open, clear and honest majority, but through a system in which absence effectively helps the supporters.
This is a dark day for Europe.
Not because the fight is over, but because today showed how easily digital fundamental rights come under pressure when surveillance logic, symbolic politics and institutional tricks come together.
Anyone who wants a free internet, anyone who wants to protect private communication and anyone who takes democracy seriously should talk about this.
Share this issue. Inform yourself. Look at who voted how. And never forget: freedom rarely disappears all at once. It disappears step by step, often in technical details, often in complicated procedures and often exactly when too few people are watching.
@stjepansejic come on, having a book/comic/manga that had a printing/cutting/binding issue is fun. i mean sure, maybe not on the moment but still a reminder it's made by a human. especially now with everything being more and more artificial.
@BorderReloaded Also, they did a rapid nuclear exit before slowing down on fossile fuel.
So they had a lot of waste for those green energy and for those coal, fuel and gas plants they had to reopen.
Poeple were bringing back Chernobyle to the table to speed the process as usual.
@SatisfactoryAF easily atleast 90% of everything that i built in one picture...
an organised mess with unfollowed output.😅
missing from the picture (atleast what i remember): 1 SAM mine, 1 Sulfur mine, 1 Nitric Gas pump, 4 oil pump, and 6 refineries.
@Enezator yes. blessed are those who helps animals.
Sadly, the video is showing 4 different owls... and 2 different locations (one where palm trees can live and another where they can't)...
@protectbabysif1 He will then claim that they are trying to silence him...
There is no real solution...
Prove it's false -> "that's what you would do if i was right!"
Prove it's right -> "I'm the greatest of game journalist!"
Say nothing and look away -> "They are trying to hide the truth!"
Après, j'accepte la politique et le sociétale dans les jeux, films, livres, etc... sous UNE condition, que ce soit BIEN réalisé.
Exemple, Mass Effect a robot crevette, poulpe psychique unisex, pieuvre mental consanguine, oiseau militariste, hypocondriaque et ça reste logique