For context, this refers to "Chat Control 1.0", allowing facebook and other messaging providers to scan chats for harmful content (which they had been temporarily allowed to do by a recently expired law).

This is still problematic, but the far more dangerous Chat Control 2.0 that would weaken end-to-end-encrypted messengers like Signal is not being discussed here.

Not to diminish the gravity of the new development, but the defeatist "no way to prevent this" narratives that are already popping up here are getting old -- when in fact it looks like 2.0 is off the table for good because protest against it has proven effective.

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tremon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That exemption had an expiration date for a reason. That they failed to consolidate that practice into a better law does not make forcefully overriding that expiration any more democratic.

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riedel 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the problem is really that law enforcement have got used to outsourcing this kind of policing to private operated platforms (at least here in Germany). I was actually at the local police station because I notified them via an online mechanism about sth that looked very CSAM to me in a random forum tracking some gossip/Internet meme (actually I did not really look further than a title because that can be already illegal). Just dropping the link (which I thought would be just auto scanned and sent into some central pool), led to the fact that I had to go there in person, wait and had to listen to a speech about the fact that it can be easily illegal to be in certain places in the Internet and that I should be careful because I had a daughter in the age. It was almost that they are threatening me. They told me that all the CSAM stuff anyways comes through the provider and that they would do raids if needed. They cannot do much anyhow on the state level if they do not get the local ISP and IP delivered. It felt rather absurd and somewhat scary/dystopian that there are Internet companies that sent cops out to do raids based on some IP. According to the police officer it seemed very effective.

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flumpcakes 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't this something they already do?

I would be utterly shocked if facebook et al. were not scanning all of your messages (either in transit or at terminus to get around 'E2E' claims).

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neobrain 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, this had been temporarily permitted until recently, and AFAIK they continue doing so illegally at the moment.

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flumpcakes an hour ago | parent [-]

Why is it currently illegal? If I have a service that let's users communicate, why is it illegal to look through those communications? (especially after they've signed my 400 page EULA). It would make moderation impossible otherwise.

Or are we saying this is being used for something specific that happens to be illegal?

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alwa 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Privacy laws (2020), which aim to reassert people’s control over their private correspondence.

Moderation had continued under the terms of an exemption, which expired. Chat Control 2.0 would have mooted it; CC2 didn’t pass (nice job all!); so they’re maneuvering to extend the status quo.

To the “impossible,” though: I vaguely remember, many years ago, reading through pretty cool research about content-agnostic approaches to moderation at scale. Many of which, IIRC, informed WhatsApp’s approach. They seemed to focus on damping the social dynamics of content that ended up being inflammatory, malicious, or extractive.

Things like restricting the number of times any specific message could be forwarded, or constraining the size of audience that somebody could address with malicious messages, or network analysis overlaid on messages that recipients voluntarily flagged for review. (And in WhatsApp’s case, segregating explicitly commercial speech in “business accounts” outside the e2e veil.)

I’m sure this is an entire field of study that I’m doing no justice, but I’d welcome any entry points to the current literature!

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a2128 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why should you have any right to look through everyone's private communications? Nobody really has any choice to reject your EULA if they want to stay in contact with someone on your service. I could force you to sign a ToS that includes "By using our service you owe us $10 million and agree to donate your kidney to our CEO" in order to reach your overseas grandma, but that doesn't mean it's actually enforceable or legal...

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logifail 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It would make moderation impossible otherwise.

Why would you need to moderate private messages between users?

	▲	rvnx a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		Protect the kids bla bla bla... Always the same political excuse

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NooneAtAll3 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the opposite question - why is it legal and was made legal?

it's unconstitutional in most places to read letters - same thing should be applied to other form of communication as well

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masfuerte an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Because the EU passed a law making it illegal and the temporary exemption recently expired.

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vrganj an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also, another key fact to bring up here once again:

The institution that forced this through is the EU Council, the body that represents national governments and is composed of heads of government.

The reason they have to force it through and couldn't do 2.0 is because the EU Parliament stopped them.

In other words, it's the nation states that want this and the EU institutions that are blocking it, not the other way around as often framed online.

If not for the EU, a much worse version of this would already be law in the nation states.

You can see this play out in real-time in the UK, which has gone real dystopian ever since Brexit.

	▲	inglor_cz 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		"If not for the EU, a much worse version of this would already be law in the nation states." In some, in some not. Not everyone is the UK. Many nations which had a totalitarian government in the 20th century are more wary about this sort of sweeping surveillance power. The "charm" of pushing this through the circuitous path via Brussels is that few people and even few media outlets are paying attention to what happens in Brussels. Everyone is still obsessed with their national politics.

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Thraway198 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wow. Talk about ragebait.

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surgical_fire 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Those narratives pop up from users that have a clear anti-EU bias (and I suspect they might not even be from the EU considering how ignorant they seem to be about how it works, its function ans structure, etc.

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joe_mamba an hour ago | parent | next [-]

>users that have a clear anti-EU bias

If a government body wants to interfere in your privacy and take it away, isn't it normal to be against that government body pushing that policy?

It's not a bias, it's just a normal common sense reaction to tyrannical behavior, and pushing against that government body is the only way to enact the positive change you want to see.

Otherwise if you just bend over and take it all the time, just so randos on the internet don't accuse you of being "anti-EU", then nothing will change and you'll see more and more of your rights taken away. And even if it were "EU bias" it's my right as an EU citizen and taxpayer to have it if I want to.

Alos BTW, what's with this defensive attitude of treating the EU like some sacred cow that's somehow beyond reproach HN? Are they paying you guys to AstroTurf or what?

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CrisMystik an hour ago | parent [-]

In that case you're against the people currently in government, not the body itself, i.e. some people against Chat Control ask for the dissolution of the EU, but would they ask for the dissolution of their national state if a similar law was passed in their national parliament? I think no

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constantius an hour ago | parent [-]

I've never seen anyone ask for the dissolution of the EU in chat control threads, and I read every one of them.

What I see people (Europeans) lamenting is how undemocratic the EU is. As much as I think von der Leyen should be imprisoned, the issue is not the people in the government, but the institution itself. The Commission and the Council are the ones pushing these things, every time.

The people in government are bad, and there's no reason whatsoever to think that'll improve amy time soon: what prevents bad people from doing bad things is the regulatory apparatus of checks and balances, which the EU very much lacks (in parts, granted). Worse, it has introduced US style corruption (or "lobbying") into countries that historically lacked it.

If Chat Control 2.0 passes, given the general direction this would be showing, I'd very much understand people wanting to exit from the EU and cut the amount of undemocratic bullshit they have to contend with.

But to return to your point, when something people strongly reject happens in their country, they do, rightfully, advocate for the dissolution of that government. Much harder to do with unelected bureaucrats sheltering in another country.

	▲	kmeisthax 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Something particularly ironic is that much of the EU's undemocratic nature comes from features designed specifically to prevent the EU from subsuming its member states. The best path to making Europe democratic again... would be a federal EU, with all the protections for individual member states stripped out, because member states are not a protected class. The Euroskeptics want to go about this backwards. They correctly see the anti-democratic nature of the current EU structure and conclude that this is the only way European integration could happen, ergo we should not integrate Europe. The problem with this is that, even as 27 individual sovereigns, the former EU member states would still need to form agreements with one another and with other countries. Except this negotiation process is completely outside the democratic process even more than the EU currently is. The underlying problem is that democracies do not stack or sum. Two democracies negotiating with one another become a dictatorship of whoever is doing the negotiating. The only way to preserve democracy is to give the people of both countries equal control over the matters assigned to the whole. The people must rule as one or they cease to rule at all.

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vrganj an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Call it what it is: Propaganda designed to stir anti-EU sentiment from groups that would benefit from being able to divide and conquer Europe.

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mdp2021 an hour ago | parent [-]

The EU already has in place, apparently, a Digital Services Act that basically stops access to some part of the web. That the slope may bring to enlarged web inaccessibility - and an unlivable eu ("What do you mean you have no internet, no web access?! We take it for granted").

That some actors may ride it, is not their stain, but the eu's.

	▲	vrganj an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The DSA doesn't stop access to any part of the web. This is precisely the misinformation I mentioned earlier.