Post #788427

2026-03-21 18:02 UTC

Personally I think that win (while really a win) is being overcelebrated. It’s easily reverted. All they’ll have to do is find some csam or terrorism related scandal in the news and pump it as a big deal, and all the resistance will be gone at the next vote.

Replies (1)

@schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-03-21 18:33

With chat control we actually have to distinguish two different things that people sometimes confuse: - voluntary chat control ("chat control 1.0"), which is currently already the law in the EU - mandatory chat control ("chat control 2.0"), proposed in 2022 Voluntary chat control is about *letting* operators of communication services *voluntarily* scan messages for certain illegal activity (without this constituting a violation of data protection laws). This doesn't break encryption and isn't a part of a war on general purpose computing. While there are many good arguments against it, it's not especially catastrophic. It's a detail of business regulation. Mandatory chat control is about forcing them to do so, which must necessarily break encryption and impose limits on software freedom. This is what is most important to oppose. The most recent win ended up rejecting even (most) voluntary chat control, which is a good sign that mandatory chat control won't get a majority either.

Open ##1401624