Why stop there? This system can easily be used to target welfare recipients, immigrants, LGBT+ people, black/brown/indigenous people, pretty much any disfavored group of choice!

You're just one election away from "that was during the previous term of office"

https://media.mullvad.net/web/chatcontrol2_en.jpg

“Chat Control”, along with the version numbers, is a naming invented by the opponents, not by the proponents.

I think it's the contrary. People don't want Zuckerberg reading their private messages, and everyone in Eutope uses WhatsApp, which is advertised as E2E encrypted.

Therefore it makes Chat Control 2 a harder sell.

To be fair I think "<anything> Control" makes it pretty clesr it's nefarious. They missed the opportunity to call it "Chat Safety".

I think the name is meaningless to the average layman, therefore useless. Something like "(private) chat police" would probably transmit what this is about but is not as catchy.

That's suitable for Chat Control 2.0. Applying the same name to v1 just muddies the waters, probably intentionally..

Not everyone. Politicians and all their communication are to be excluded, for they have decided it is obvious that we can trust them. It's just the rest of the world that is considered untrustworthy. This also absolves them from having to go through a trial period of having the software tested on themselves, so they will never have to know about any ridiculous false positives. Or worse: all the stuff they communicate which they never considered to be problematic - it would have been so nice if they had at least had such a trial run, for say, about one or two years, with anything that is being flagged open for anyone who wishes to see.

The problem with this software is at the very core of why any sane person should reject it; a company like Thorn has no incentive whatsoever to actually come up with something that would work properly, especially since the target demographic that is to be monitored, is European. No worries if some firmware update bricks a massive amount of devices. Good for business. And I bet the US Government would also prefer if they prioritized having the backdoors work properly for listening in, over having the software scan properly (taking all the cultural and linguistic differences across the continent into account) just so that it will be capable of actually flagging what it is (for now) meant to flag.

Having your entire infrastructure of digital devices augmented with surveillance software is a bad idea in itself, but it's sheer madness if you're having this done for the whole of Europe, by using an American software endlosung/solution that was pushed by a Hollywood-actor who was so genuine in his motivation to save the children... truly impressive show of tears for someone who had the chance to save a number of girls from his predatory co-star a long time ago, like, to save them for real, yet he chose not to intervene... Years later, he's with Thorn, but still what he knows best is acting, so instead of focussing on actual victims, he's acting as if he gives a toss about present day children, knowing full well he is selling a dodgy technology using horror-scenarios they actually invented themselves for this very purpose.

In subsequent years this has led to an actual increase in number and variety of perpetrators in the field of sexual abuse and/or trafficking of minors - where it was quite a niche field in crime before - niche and overall way more predictable, making it possible to prevent quite a bit of it, too. Thanks to the fearmongering and constant need for succesfull detection of victims (as it is the metric they've used for years to keep the people providing them with money and power excited about the project) it has become much more problematic. The efforts of groups like Thorn have so effectively spread these horrorstories by pushing them as 'news' using so many newsoutlets, that this in itself caused a whole new demographic of messed up people to act them out, making the horrors a reality.

All this should be enough for anyone to know that, if you're totally hellbent on having a thing like chat control implemented, doing so by choosing to stick with software sold by these people or anyone from their circles will be disastrous.

Why do you think this is only going to be in Europe? This will be the global norm modulo some astroid hitting earth or civilizational crash.

The trajectory is crystal clear: access to information (AI), control over personal finance (CBDC), privacy of personal communications (handful of big tech MITM in everything), metered social interactions (today China, tomorrow the world over).

Car could also become judge and executioner. Swift justice is just one curve away

I think this should go one step further. If you don't praise the magnificence of your local EU politicians then your car's breaks will stop working and an electric shot will be administered to everyone presently in the car. That will satisfy EU-rocrats.

The coming revolution will be well deserved I think.

This is called eCall, a fairly intrusive system built into even some motorcycles.

The car’s computer voice: John Spartan you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality code!

Danger, danger. Cannabis detected in the vehicle.

Well, it is some kind of social control. People who conform, have more rights than those who reject fascism.

That provision did get removed, but only for ICE cars.

It's not particularly effective with school shootings in the USA.

> The worst thing I have to hide is knowledge about my intentions, none of which are bad/illegal/immoral.

Correction: None of which are bad/illegal/immoral _right now_. The "I have nothing to hide" crowd will surely change their tune the moment any of their data starts to be used against them.

Somewhat unsurprisingly too, since the negotiations about a more comprehensive CSAM legislation (the one that now doesn't contain chat control 2.0) isn't done yet.

Hmm, so… what happened while it was online? Any scandals?

> basic American philosophy towards civil liberties.

Errrr, america does not look like country that cares about that. It does care about liberties of rich companies tho.

This is being heavily pushed by certain actors so it's not just politicians wanting to do something about CSAM: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

Many abuse survivors and youth advocates strongly oppose Chat Control; here is one voice detailing why: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-dont-support-privacy-in...

Other governments across the Channel also want to protect children online, while at the same time dismissing thousands of reports of grooming, for fear of being labelled "racist".

>It's entirely possible that politicians just want to do something about CSAM

except that honest-to-God child rapists get extremely lenient sentences in Western Europe and rarely (if ever) get deported afterwards.

This is a wedge.

Not even that. The government outsources a lot of their functions, so a LOT of organizations have access to extremely private data, where necessary.

For example, Palantir gets access to "large and diverse (government) databases with Dutch citizens’ data for analysis" (including mental health treatment data) under the GPDR to help police in the Netherlands do terror investigations (from 2012 to 2019). I'm sure you can appreciate the wisdom and privacy-enhancement in that just as much as me!

There are large lists of private organizations that get access to government data about citizens ... every country has multiple (public and secret ones).

Oh, they also "failed to mention" this to parliament, and this was only discovered after a journalist got a tipoff and requested financial data about the deal ... for about 5 years. Of course, there was never even the slightest investigation into this.

https://nltimes.nl/2025/08/22/dutch-police-also-use-controve...

(paywalled) https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/ook-nederlandse-politie-gebru...

Given the choice of trust between, lets say Amazon/Meta/Google and the EU (or some European government), 9 times out of 10, the EU is the lesser evil.

The government's worse nightmare: People who own Pixels talking to their family members.

Easier? You mean easier to duplicate? No need to split up the discussion. There's the link, welcome to continue discussing over there, instead of pushing the news back in front of the rest of those who may not have missed it.

Welcome to share the url over there. Duplicate discussion.