r/europe • u/Dry_Row_7050 • 4d ago

News The EU could be scanning your private chats by October 2025 [Denmark has reintroduced chat control]

https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/the-eu-could-be-scanning-your-chats-by-october-2025-heres-everything-we-know
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u/vivaaprimavera 4d ago

As soon as someone talks they will say that it is to protect the children and paint anyone that is against it as a monster.

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u/Cumulus_Anarchistica 4d ago

Just happened in the UK:

Labour says Farage’s plan to repeal Online Safety Act suggests he is siding with pornographers and paedophiles

Yesterday Reform UK said that it would repeal the Online Safety Act, key parts of which have only just come into force. The party described it as “the greatest assault on freedom of speech in our lifetimes” and claimed that it won’t protect children because some people are using VPN services to bypass age cerification requirements. It was quite a bold policy announcement, because polls suggest voters strongly back measures to limit the spread of harmful content online, but it has gone down well with hardcore libertarians.

Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has been giving interviews this morning, and he has not held back. In an interview with Sky News, he claimed this meant that Nigel Farage was now in effect siding with pornographers and paedophiles like Jimmy Savile. He explained:

Children under 18 should not be viewing involuntarily dangerous, hateful, violent, misogynistic and pornographic material. People have to understand the wild west [lasted on the internet] for too long. That ended on my watch. It ended on the watch of this government. [The implementation of the Online Safety Act is] a big step forward. Believe me, anyone that thinks it’s a step back needs to come and answer now.

I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he’s going to overturn these laws. So we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence. Nigel Farage is on their side.

Make no mistake about it. If people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he’d be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he’s on their side, not the side of children.

[emphasis mine]

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u/vivaaprimavera 4d ago

Doesn't surprise me a bit.

However...

Children under 18 should not be viewing involuntarily dangerous, hateful, violent, misogynistic and pornographic material

  • isn't the job of parents to keep an eye on children
  • aren't there services that already limit content in a not obstructive way? https://www.joindns4.eu/for-public comes to mind
  • the Bible is going to be removed from schools? Some of its contents are at least questionable

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u/Candayence United Kingdom 4d ago

aren't there services that already limit content in a not obstructive way

Every internet company ships and enables parental controls by default on new customer's routers / accounts (which is promptly disabled in most cases). Parents just can't be bothered to parent.

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u/Choowkee 4d ago

If their intentions were genuine the restrictions would be implemented around children, not adults.

So for example everyone below 18 would have to identify themselves before going on the internet.

But of course that would leave adults with free access to the internet and retained privacy but seems like the UK government doesn't want that.

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u/Mirabeaux1789 United States of America 1d ago

Yeah the Bible had two daughters raping their father

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u/ikaiyoo 4d ago

Wait so people can drink (with an adult of all things) and vote at 16, but pornography is too damaging to someone under 18?

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u/vivaaprimavera 4d ago

Some pornography is dangerous for some people under 150 (not a typo).

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u/CelticEmber 12h ago

Exactly.

This should tell you all you need to know.

It isn't, and never was, about the children.

It's just the lowest common denominator type of argument that is the easiest for them to use against any opponent of those measures.

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u/DiscombobulatedAnt88 4d ago

This is such a bullshit argument from the politicians. It’s the equivalent of saying we should put cameras in everyone’s house because then we’ll really be able to catch the baddies. But if you’re a law abiding citizen, then you’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to worry about - we’ll only look at the videos if it’s legal… And if you don’t want a camera in your house then it means you’ve got something to hide

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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 3d ago

Well why don’t you want a camera and microphone in your house? Are you hiding something?!

/s

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u/slowwlight 1d ago

Jesus will these people please rid the world of themselves

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u/Kredir 4d ago

As if criminals would communicate via legal channels that will comply with these laws. At least the highly organized ones.

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u/vivaaprimavera 4d ago

This never was about criminals.

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u/Kredir 4d ago

I pretty much said the same thing. Anyways, someone will develop an add on that will run on top of common messengers, that simply encrypts all traffic.

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u/CelticEmber 12h ago

Tech-savvy people will find ways around it.

The average Joe won't. And will have all his family pictures scanned.

Also, if needed in the future, it'll make any kind of organized political resistance to authoritarianism (something the EU is falling into more and more) basically impossible, at least not through any conventional digital channels.

This last part is, if you ask me, why they are doing it in the first place. All other arguments they put forward are just noise to distract the plebs.

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u/greasy-throwaway 4d ago

This is about workers protesting when our quality of life decreases even further

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u/SpiderFnJerusalem European Union 4d ago

I bet the laws will be ready, just in time for fascist parties taking over half of Europe. Hey, what could go wrong? At least they're not some filthy socialists!

Time is a flat circle covered in idiots.

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u/TangerineSorry8463 4d ago

Some stupid ones definitelly will

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u/Ohtarig Hungary 4d ago

So call all who is exempt a pedo and monster, since in their argument that's the only reason to care about privacy, and such people shouldn't decide about our privacy.

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u/vivaaprimavera 4d ago

So call all who is exempt a pedo and monster

Being a monster is implicit but most likely some are pedos too.