WYR Eat the same mediocre meal or a random meal every day?
You have a chef prepare the meal for you. The mediocre meal is just like a very okay 5/10 whatever of your pick, but you have to eat the same thing every day.
For the random meals you must consume the 500 calorie meal in full each timenyou choose to have a meal. No skipping once a meal is there.
Inedible or rotten stuff is not included. Just food that might be alien to you. Like it could be balut one day and a schnitzel the next. Maybe haggis.
Nothing completely unreasonable.
Allergies will be compensated for ig. Choice based dietary preferences will not. If you're vegan you're fucked.
Nutrient needs will be met in both cases. No health issues will arise due to an unbalanced diet.
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Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come
If you're a regular internet user the Personal Data Storage paradigm won't move your data from the cloud to your personal computer. Most people will still rely on an institutional cloud service, but instead of data-banking with a shareholder-controlled corporation people’s data can be entrusted to the equivalent of member-owned credit unions for data storage.
Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come
Data Ownership as a conversation changes when data resides primarily with people-governed institutions rather than corporations.Erlend Sogge Heggen (Muni Blog)
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Got a friend or family member willing to let you drop a miniPC at their place?
You could also go the offline route - buy two identical external drive setups, plug one into your machine and make regular backups to it, drop the other one in a drawer in your office at work. Then once a month or so swap them to keep the off-site one fresh.
Also there’s really nothing wrong with cloud storage as long as you encrypt before uploading so they never have access to your data.
Personally I do both. The off-site offline drive is for full backups of everything because space is cheap, while cloud storage is use for more of a “delta” style backup, just the stuff the changes frequently, because of the price. If the worst were to happen, I’d use the offsite drive to get the bulk infrastructure back up and running, and then the latest cloud copy for any recently added/modified files.
file:// with a local path attached to access it. I also seriously doubt that klicking "Save as..." really is some secret and complex ritual known only to immortals and the priest caste, nowadays. (I might be wrong here. I just do not have anything to do with mortals or godfood in my daily life.)
Police Used Flock Cameras To Track One Driver Over 500 Times. Now They're Being Sued - Jalopnik
Police Used Flock Cameras To Track One Driver Over 500 Times. Now They're Being Sued
The cameras that catch drivers who speed or ignore red lights don't just snap you when you're breaking the law. They can shoot you hundreds of times a month.Paul Stadden (Jalopnik)
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I'm so glad this is slowly getting more solid traction. For more viewing and reading pleasures on the topic,
Videos:
Breaks down the technology and deployment of the systems. Builds his own and shows strategies to beat the analysis of your data.
Citizens address Austin Mayor on AI Surveillence cameras; AS EXPECTED on September 25th part 1
Louis Rossmann attempted to address the surveillance systems in his local town, couple of other videos on his channel showing the hurdles and bureaucracy that's making it harder to address these situations.
- The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
Another video detailing ALRP's (automatic license plate readers/flock safety systems) and their uses in local and interstate areas
EFF Members' Speakeasy: Police Surveillance and ALPR - The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Articles:
Data Driven: What Is ALPR? - The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Lots of articles listed in here, one of the major groups trying to spread information on these programs.
Data Driven: What Is ALPR?
This text was adapted from EFF's Street-Level Surveillance project. For a deeper explanation, please visit this page.Electronic Frontier Foundation
Domenica In, Corinne Cléry e Kekko dei Modà tra gli ospiti. Nel talk su Ballando arrivano Rosa Chemical e Fialdini: anticipazioni del 5 ottobre 2025
Mara Venier torna domenica 5 ottobre 2025, alle 14.00 su Rai 1, con il terzo appuntamento stagionale di Domenica In. In scaletta interviste, musica, talk di attualità e un focus sul mondo di Ballando con le Stelle.
OSPITI E ANTICIPAZIONI: Domenica In, Corinne Cléry e Kekko dei Modà tra gli ospiti. Nel talk su Ballando arrivano Rosa Chemical e Fialdini: anticipazioni del 5 ottobre 2025
Domenica In, 5 ottobre 2025: ospiti e anticipazioni
Domenica In, anticipazioni del 5 ottobre su Rai 1: Corinne Cléry, Kekko dei Mod, Rosa Chemical e Francesca Fialdini. C’è anche Aldo Cazzullo.Redazione (Atom Heart Magazine)
La Verità Scomoda: Dalla Scienza alla Sanità, Tutti Ci Vogliono Malati?
Il punto non è solo l'immunità dei produttori di vaccini o le ombre su figure come Anthony Fauci; il dramma è che ogni livello del sistema guadagna se restiamo malati. Le carriere degli scienziati sono legate alle aziende, le riviste sono diventate "contenitori di propaganda" e i bonus dei medici dipendono dai profitti.
Non è forse questa la vera pandemia? Quella di un sistema finanziario che, in nome del profitto, mette a rischio la nostra salute? Dobbiamo esercitare il nostro obbligo di cittadinanza: fare le nostre ricerche e resistere al pensiero unico imposto.
La Scienza, la Democrazia e gli Incentivi Perversi: Le Riflessioni di Kennedy JR che Fanno Tremare il Sistema
Oggi voglio parlarvi di un'intervista che mi ha profondamente colpito, quella a Robert F. Kennedy JR. È una voce che che non ha paura ...Giuliano (Blogger)
How the US got left behind in the global electric car race
How the US got left behind in the global electric car race
Despite a recent surge in demand, the US is a laggard in EV sales compared to much of the rest of the world.Natalie Sherman (BBC News)
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[RESOLVED] GDM Issues (Fedora 42)
I've recently been unable to use my computer running Fedora 42 with gnome. It boots up, and GDM starts running, however it shows a flat grey screen with no login option. I can pull up a tty and login as normal (although using gnome-session to start a GUI session from there doesn't work). I have tried to use systemctl to restart GDM from the tty, but that l brings me back to square one.
What can I do from here to resolve this issue?
GPU: Radeon 7800xt, Open Source Drivers
Window System: Wayland.
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Resolved, it was an issue caused by a faulty display port cable. Different issues from this cable had happened recently, I just initially assumed it was a software issue due to the fact that only GDM was affected.
Talk about choosing "a community", not "a server"
It stroke me that saying things like "First, you have to choose a comunity to join the fediverse" might be a better way to ease onboarding nwecommers than "First, you have to choose a server".
Although the latter might be technically more accurate, the former is what people might
* understand better;
* ends up being what they're really doing;
* frighten them less;
* reinforce the "community" contribution aspect;
* lead them to better understand the federated aspect as they realize that communities are not isolated and can talk to eachother.
What do you think?
"Let me know in the comments bellow..." - just kidding!
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Except you don't have to interact with other users on your server, so why label them as "communities". Communities on Lemmy or subreddits are already more deserving of the term "community" because that's where you actually go to interact with other people.
Edit: Typo
Except you have to interact with other users on your server
Says who? I don't know the server of anyone I'm interacting with. I think "gateway" would be a better choice, but that isn't any less confusing.
think about the children
being bourgueois democrazycomplaining falsely about those evul commies gathering all your data
proceed to gather your data to get big profit from ads
have an important data breach
F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree
Recently Google decided that in the future for an app to be installable on an Android device, the developer of this app needs to be ID'd and registered at Google. They claim this is in order to "to better protect users". However, I think, this is a move to get more control over the Android ecosystem, and the data they can collect with it. If anyone who wants to develop an app for Android devices has to be registered with Google, this puts all the power of who to allow distributing an app to Google.
Furthermore F-Droid shows, that safe app stores can exist without registration, neither of users nor of developers. There is zero malware or spyware on the F-Droid store. What there is on F-Droid is thousands of beautiful, useful and, most importantly, safe apps. And this entire ecosystem is at risk, because Google wants to gain more control over its users and over the Android operating system.
F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
For the past 15 years, F-Droidhas provided a safe and secure haven for Android users around the world tofind and install free and open source apps. When cont...f-droid.org
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Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?
Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?
Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about itCory Doctorow (The Guardian)
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Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs
Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs
One of Discord’s third-party customer service providers was compromised by an “unauthorized party” that may have accessed things like names, usernames, and emails.Jay Peters (The Verge)
adhocfungus likes this.
Fucked my computer trying to upgrade processor, please help me unfuck it
Installed a Ryzen 7 5700G processor to a Gigabyte GA-AB350M-HD3 motherboard. Plugged computer back in, hit power button. Computer powered on but no video output. Double-checked cables, then started Googling. Apparently this is commonly a result of an out-of-date BIOS. Got the latest BIOS update on a flash drive with my roommate's assistance, then went to put the old processor (a Ryzen 5 1500X) back in so that I could run the system BIOS and flash the update, at which point I learned that I accidentally bent several of the pins when removing it. Tried to seat the processor out of a sense of wishful thinking, and sure enough, no number of attempts would get the computer to turn on with it inside.
So, in short: I have a new processor my motherboard doesn't recognize, an old processor it does recognize but is now broken, and a BIOS update that would presumably let it recognize the new processor but that I can't install without a working processor. I've read that some Gigabyte motherboards support loading BIOS updates from a flash drive without a processor, but as far as I can tell, the GA-AB350M-HD3 isn't one of them. Not sure what I'm supposed to do here. I could order another Ryzen 5 1500X, but 1) that costs money and 2) I'd have to wait for it to arrive.
Trump administration moves to relax rules on climate super pollutants
Trump administration moves to relax rules on climate super pollutants
The rule required some places to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment. Read more at straitstimes.com.ST
The Trump administration, everyone in it and everyone that supports it are never going to be a net positive or, arguably, ever do anything positive for anyone, anywhere, ever. They are self-proclaimed terrorists, racists, misogynists, pro-war, anti-life, pro-suffering, pro-pedophile.
This is where we are now and we either need to fight it or accept it. I would hope the former.
The instance chooser is filling up nicely
It took a few days for instances to be upgraded and admins to fill in their profiles but it's looking much healthier now!
piefed.social/auth/instance_ch…
Which server do you want to join?
[Join us on chat.piefed.social!](https://piefed.social/post/970751)piefed.social
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Sunrise Movement, Founded to Fight Climate Change, Pivots to Fighting Trump | As Trump targets his critics on the left, Sunrise says it needs to battle authoritarianism to protect the climate.
Sunrise Movement, Founded to Fight Climate Change, Pivots to Fighting Trump
While Trump targets his critics on the left, Sunrise has decided that it can’t fight climate change without fighting authoritarianism.Matt Sledge (The Intercept)
The prosecution’s case against dozens of Stop Cop City protesters collapsed last month when a judge dismissed most of the charges against them
Well that's great news
Populist billionaire Andrej Babiš wins Czech parliamentary election
Populist billionaire Andrej Babiš wins Czech parliamentary election
With Babiš’s victory the Czech Republic looks set to join Hungary and Slovakia in refusing support for UkraineGuardian staff reporter (The Guardian)
Rachel Corrie, The American Activist Who Was Crushed By An Israeli Bulldozer While Protesting In Gaza
On March 16, 2003, 23-year-old Rachel Corrie and several others were protesting against the demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah. The Israeli government claimed that militants were using the structures to fire on soldiers, but Corrie and her fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement wanted to protect the families who lived in Rafah. When a bulldozer started to approach the home of a family Corrie was staying with, she stepped in front of the machine and began shouting through a bullhorn so it would stop — but the driver continued forward, crushing Corrie to death.
The operators claimed they didn't see Corrie because she was concealed behind a pile of debris. However, others there said Corrie was wearing a neon orange jacket and was clearly visible. One man later recalled, "Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer's blade, and the bulldozer operator and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, the operator continued forward, which caused her to fall back, and out of view of the driver… she tried to scoot back, but she was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer." Israeli officials ultimately ruled Corrie's death an accident.
Go inside the untimely killing of an American peace activist by Israel: allthatsinteresting.com/rachel…
How American Activist Rachel Corrie Died While Protesting In Gaza
Rachel Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah.Kaleena Fraga (All That's Interesting)
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US war secretary tells military to commit war crimes, as Trump threatens 'enemy within' USA
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Morrison, CO.
I seem to have somewhat of a knack lately, for positioning astrological bodies at the top center of cool pictures.
Thank you for seeing my work!
Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance - Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement
Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance - Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement
The world is entering an era where identity is no longer a matter of personal relationships, lived experience, or even paperwork. Increasingly, it is reduced...Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement
“Crime”, The Trojan Horse For Colonial Control — The Black Alliance for Peace
“Crime”, The Trojan Horse For Colonial Control
The concept of “crime” is not a fixed, objective reality but a fluid and politically potent construct which has been meticulously weaponized to serve the interests of power.BAP Communications (The Black Alliance for Peace)
Opening Parks During Shutdown Part of Plan to Ruin Them
Opening Parks During Shutdown Part of Plan to Ruin Them
The Trump administration is selling out America’s national parks. Keeping them open during the shutdown makes them dangerous, filthy, and easier to seize.Whitney Curry Wimbish (The American Prospect)
America Is Overdue for a General Strike
America Is Overdue for a General Strike - Inequality.org
Workers have the power to bring the whole economy to a halt. Will they use it?Inequality.org
ProtonVPN or Mullvad? Why would you choose one over another?
I'm thinking about paying for a VPN, I currently don't use one.
I'd like to use Mullvad but they don't seem to have regional prices, while Proton does.
I wonder if Proton is still a reliable option, Proton is 60% cheaper in my country, probably because regional pricing (but I didn't check if it's really the case).
If anyone has any other suggestion I'd like to hear it.
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Definitely Mullvad, the whole point of VPN is to stay private and Proton does not accept crypto while Mullvad does.
If the VPN has your payment details then any privacy just goes out the window.
Drone victims, terror and death: 30 minutes inside a Gaza hospital | UN News
Drone victims, terror and death: 30 minutes inside a Gaza hospital
UN aid teams on Friday highlighted the disturbing situation in Gaza’s makeshift hospitals, where premature babies cry for scant oxygen and medics attempt to save child survivors targeted by airstrikes in their tents and quadcopter victims reportedly …UN News
The Private Conversation
The Private Conversation
The Threat Against the Cornerstone of Democracy and the Individual’s
Right to Choose Who Listens
Introduction
“Chat Control 2.0” is once again on the table, and one can’t help but wonder why our politicians are so eager to outlaw private conversation between citizens.
This is not the first open letter written about this legislative proposal. Many people far more technically competent than I have addressed lawmakers and voiced strong criticism against it, often with detailed and well-reasoned arguments. Yet these arguments have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Since our elected representatives seem unwilling to listen to the experts, I am instead turning to you, the people, the very ones who will be affected. Time is short, but our democratic rights are not yet lost.
We have had democracy for a very short time, as little as a few decades in some parts of Europe, The fact that it is so poorly protected, especially by those who are supposed to be its champions, is deeply tragic. Sitting in democracy’s front hall, they now cast their votes in the name of self-interest rather than in the name of the people. Let me make one thing absolutely clear right from the start: this legislative proposal uses children merely as a costume to conceal its true nature,
to open up Sweden’s and the EU’s citizens to mass surveillance.
Perverse Argumentation
Every objection to the proposal is met with the same response: “We just want to protect the children.”
This line is used to force opponents into a defensive position, where their moral intentions are questioned, instead of engaging them in a proper, mature debate. It is, quite simply, a deceitful form of argument.
Consider this: If someone were to oppose locking all children in isolation without human contact until the age of 18, on the grounds that it would “protect them” from online harm or exploitation, one could respond with:
“So you don’t want to protect the children?”
Most of us would recognize how absurd that is. Just because someone opposes total isolation of children doesn’t mean they wish them harm.
Questionable Motivation and False Pretenses
Let’s take a closer look at two specific paragraphs from the proposal currently on the EU agenda, soon to be voted on.
(2) “Those providers often being the only ones in a position to prevent or combat such abuse.”
It has always been, and will continue to be, parents who are primarily in the position to prevent their children from coming to harm online. The widespread apathy toward digital literacy among parents and the general public, ongoing since the late 1990s, bears much of the blame for why adults today are so detached from what their children do on their devices and on the internet.
Even today, in one of the world’s most digital societies, people still toss around phrases like, “I’m not good with technology,” “I’m technically incompetent,” or “I’m from the wrong generation to understand the internet.” But this isn’t a funny joke. Humanity sent people to the moon in 1969, radar was invented in 1904, and the internet has been publicly available for 30 years. Technology is not new.
Of course, there should be moderation on platforms where children are expected to frequently interact, but to claim that technology companies are the only ones in a position to prevent harm to children online is an admission of impotence. It reveals, quite clearly, the staggering technical ignorance of those who support this proposal.
If these lawmakers truly wanted to protect children from exploitation, and if this proposal wasn’t just a Trojan horse for mass surveillance, then why don’t they instead propose things like:
-Requiring parents to become digitally literate.
-Providing more resources to schools.
-Laws regulating children’s unsupervised use of the internet and smartphones.
-Support services for families and children targeted by grooming or online exploitation.Or even active police protection for every child.
Why not? Because that would cost money!
The cost of implementing this proposal will be astronomical, but that’s fine, because as a bonus, they’ll gain the ability to monitor the population. That is apparently priceless, unlike a child’s innocence, to which they’ve clearly assigned a monetary value.
Of course, I care deeply about our children and want them to be safe. But I cannot leave my children alone in Sarek National Park and then claim that the only ones who could have prevented them from getting hurt were the park rangers, and therefore, the rangers must have the right to listen in on everyone hiking in the wilderness.
The Return of the Class Society
(12a) “In the light of the more limited risk of their use for the purpose of child sexual abuse and the need to preserve confidential information, including classified information, information covered by professional secrecy and trade secrets, electronic communications services that are not publicly available… should be excluded from the scope of this Regulation…”
First, one must ask: how do the authors of this proposal even know how much CSAM (child sexual abuse material) passes through or within corporate internal communication systems? Moreover, they openly acknowledge here that there is a need to preserve confidentiality between two parties for communication that is not childporn.
But apparently, the individual citizen is not deemed worthy of this right. Companies, like feudal lords above the serfs, are placed above the individual. The proposal even carves out exemptions for what it calls “Bodies of Authority,” hammering home the vision of a return to a class-based society across Europe, where rights are stripped from ordinary citizens and reserved only for the so-called elite.
There’s an even darker implication here. Let’s unpack it logically:
• Lawmakers claim that encrypted communication is used by pedophiles to share child pornography.
• Yet they want scanning to apply only to individual citizens, while they themselves are exempt.
• Meaning: politicians want to retain the ability to freely share images and videos on the very platforms they describe as being “used” (and note they changed the wording from misused to used) for child pornography.
So, the only logical conclusion is that those who wrote, support, or vote for this law must either be pedophiles themselves, or wish to create an environment where such material can flow freely within the political and corporate elite, away from public scrutiny.
Do I seriously believe all supporters of the bill are pedophiles? No. Most are likely just useful idiots serving those who stand to gain power or money from it. But history is filled with examples of immoral people seeking positions of authority precisely because those positions lack oversight, so they can indulge their perverse desires at others’ expense.
Returning to paragraph 12a, its wording “in the light of the more limited risk” essentially says: a certain acceptable amount of child pornography is tolerable, as long as corporate interests and trade secrets remain unharmed.
In fact, if you read the paragraph literally, it implies that even a group like “The Berlin men who touch Boys. Inc.” could legally create a private organization and share child abuse material among themselves without oversight.
Let me repeat this clearly: this law’s only purpose is to lay the groundwork for a new class-based society, one in which the individual is perpetually considered suspicious and therefore must be watched by the elite to maintain order.
We cannot allow our elected officials to elevate themselves into a higher social class, standing above ordinary citizens.
A Tiger Without Teeth
We can ask more questions about this obsessive desire for surveillance. Suppose the law passes and comes into force. Let’s even ignore that only massive corporations will have the resources to implement this fantastical solution, and that it will not immediately expand into direct monitoring of all communication.
Do these technically infantile politicians truly believe that criminals won’t adapt? That they won’t find new ways, like TOR, which already exists? But of course, they can’t touch TOR, because many national security agencies depend on it for their own secret communications and operations.
I would even dare to say that the lawmakers probably don’t understand that it’s entirely possible for motivated and skilled groups to communicate secretly, in plain sight, online, using data that is neccesarily random.
A law like this will be like pouring wine on a goose: a complete waste of money, leaving only an angry goose, and the total decay of democracy, of course.
The Unspoken Consequences
The proposal suggests that one or several technical systems (never explained in detail) will automatically scan all images and videos shared between private individuals, to detect known illegal material, but also to identify new, previously unknown material.
First, this is not technically feasible today, not securely or reliably.
Second, it means that this “AI,” which must be a generative model trained on known illegal material, will by definition be capable of generating new child pornography itself if the model is inverted.
In other words, EU lawmakers want to build a child-porn-generating AI model trained on EU’s combined police databases.
Now imagine you send a picture of your toddler playing in the bath, or smiling on a changing table, to their grandparents. A completely normal, innocent family photo.
Would you want an unknown third party to have access to that image? Or for it to be absorbed into a generative AI that could then produce child pornography based on it?
The supposed safety of such a system would rely entirely on the hope that no ill-intentioned individuals ever gain access. But no system is secure.
Remember the Swedish Miljödata Data leak? Now imagine that instead of that data, it was all your private photos from every chat with your family, partner, and friends, open for anyone to search.
Clean Flour in the Wrong Bag
As historian Wilhelm Agrell once said:
“Clean flour in the wrong bag; even the most innocent are caught in the machinery of a surveillance society, and this is nothing new.”
He tells the story of April 29, 1978, when a carpenter named Torsten Leander parked his car at a schoolyard in Norrköping, not knowing that the area was reserved for attendees of a cultural association’s annual meeting.
It wasn’t an offense, but a local security agent recorded all license plates, and Leander’s name ended up in secret police files.
He had done nothing wrong, merely been unlucky enough to get caught in one of the Cold War’s invisible surveillance nets.
It is not up to individuals to prove their innocence. Our justice system was never meant to work that way.
Now imagine that same innocent family photo to the grandparents. If the automated scanner falsely flags it as child sexual abuse material, what happens?
Studies show that AI-based image and facial recognition systems vary wildly in accuracy, sometimes over 90%, but in other cases as low as 36%.
I wouldn’t board a plane with a pilot that inconsistent. Yet in this case, you could be wrongly branded a pedophile.
Good luck clearing your name, even if the investigation is dropped.
The Broken Trust
If this law passes, the foundation of a new class society will be cemented. Along with it, public trust will be irreparably broken.
How could we ever again trust our representatives, knowing that they so easily and ruthlessly discard our civil and human rights in the name of self-interest?
Final Words
I sincerely hope that you, the reader, found parts of this text absurd, because the truth is, the law being proposed is absurd.
Under the banner of “think of the children,” it seeks to dismantle the very foundations of a democratic society.
We cannot allow democracy to become a fleeting curiosity, a relic in the history books.
Capacity takes time to build, but motivation can change overnight.
We need only look across the Atlantic to see how quickly democracy can be dismantled. Laws once made with good intentions are now used to suppress free speech and democratic values.
I know it’s tedious to read EU legislation and proposals, but these 209 pages could be what cements European democracy as nothing more than a historical chapter.
The flour in your bag may be clean today, but who knows how it will be judged tomorrow?
Today it’s legal to criticize your government. Tomorrow, it might not be.
, Folke Arbetsson
-Requiring parents to become digitally literate.
-Providing more resources to schools.
-Laws regulating children’s unsupervised use of the internet and smartphones.
-Support services for families and children targeted by grooming or online exploitation.
I'm not from Europe, but this was my response. Kind of the same energy. lemmy.world/post/34673832/1888…
The Private Conversation
The Private Conversation
The Threat Against the Cornerstone of Democracy and the Individual’s
Right to Choose Who Listens
Introduction
“Chat Control 2.0” is once again on the table, and one can’t help but wonder why our politicians are so eager to outlaw private conversation between citizens.
This is not the first open letter written about this legislative proposal. Many people far more technically competent than I have addressed lawmakers and voiced strong criticism against it, often with detailed and well-reasoned arguments. Yet these arguments have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Since our elected representatives seem unwilling to listen to the experts, I am instead turning to you, the people, the very ones who will be affected. Time is short, but our democratic rights are not yet lost.
We have had democracy for a very short time, as little as a few decades in some parts of Europe, The fact that it is so poorly protected, especially by those who are supposed to be its champions, is deeply tragic. Sitting in democracy’s front hall, they now cast their votes in the name of self-interest rather than in the name of the people. Let me make one thing absolutely clear right from the start: this legislative proposal uses children merely as a costume to conceal its true nature,
to open up Sweden’s and the EU’s citizens to mass surveillance.
Perverse Argumentation
Every objection to the proposal is met with the same response: “We just want to protect the children.”
This line is used to force opponents into a defensive position, where their moral intentions are questioned, instead of engaging them in a proper, mature debate. It is, quite simply, a deceitful form of argument.
Consider this: If someone were to oppose locking all children in isolation without human contact until the age of 18, on the grounds that it would “protect them” from online harm or exploitation, one could respond with:
“So you don’t want to protect the children?”
Most of us would recognize how absurd that is. Just because someone opposes total isolation of children doesn’t mean they wish them harm.
Questionable Motivation and False Pretenses
Let’s take a closer look at two specific paragraphs from the proposal currently on the EU agenda, soon to be voted on.
(2) “Those providers often being the only ones in a position to prevent or combat such abuse.”
It has always been, and will continue to be, parents who are primarily in the position to prevent their children from coming to harm online. The widespread apathy toward digital literacy among parents and the general public, ongoing since the late 1990s, bears much of the blame for why adults today are so detached from what their children do on their devices and on the internet.
Even today, in one of the world’s most digital societies, people still toss around phrases like, “I’m not good with technology,” “I’m technically incompetent,” or “I’m from the wrong generation to understand the internet.” But this isn’t a funny joke. Humanity sent people to the moon in 1969, radar was invented in 1904, and the internet has been publicly available for 30 years. Technology is not new.
Of course, there should be moderation on platforms where children are expected to frequently interact, but to claim that technology companies are the only ones in a position to prevent harm to children online is an admission of impotence. It reveals, quite clearly, the staggering technical ignorance of those who support this proposal.
If these lawmakers truly wanted to protect children from exploitation, and if this proposal wasn’t just a Trojan horse for mass surveillance, then why don’t they instead propose things like:
-Requiring parents to become digitally literate.
-Providing more resources to schools.
-Laws regulating children’s unsupervised use of the internet and smartphones.
-Support services for families and children targeted by grooming or online exploitation.Or even active police protection for every child.
Why not? Because that would cost money!
The cost of implementing this proposal will be astronomical, but that’s fine, because as a bonus, they’ll gain the ability to monitor the population. That is apparently priceless, unlike a child’s innocence, to which they’ve clearly assigned a monetary value.
Of course, I care deeply about our children and want them to be safe. But I cannot leave my children alone in Sarek National Park and then claim that the only ones who could have prevented them from getting hurt were the park rangers, and therefore, the rangers must have the right to listen in on everyone hiking in the wilderness.
The Return of the Class Society
(12a) “In the light of the more limited risk of their use for the purpose of child sexual abuse and the need to preserve confidential information, including classified information, information covered by professional secrecy and trade secrets, electronic communications services that are not publicly available… should be excluded from the scope of this Regulation…”
First, one must ask: how do the authors of this proposal even know how much CSAM (child sexual abuse material) passes through or within corporate internal communication systems? Moreover, they openly acknowledge here that there is a need to preserve confidentiality between two parties for communication that is not childporn.
But apparently, the individual citizen is not deemed worthy of this right. Companies, like feudal lords above the serfs, are placed above the individual. The proposal even carves out exemptions for what it calls “Bodies of Authority,” hammering home the vision of a return to a class-based society across Europe, where rights are stripped from ordinary citizens and reserved only for the so-called elite.
There’s an even darker implication here. Let’s unpack it logically:
• Lawmakers claim that encrypted communication is used by pedophiles to share child pornography.
• Yet they want scanning to apply only to individual citizens, while they themselves are exempt.
• Meaning: politicians want to retain the ability to freely share images and videos on the very platforms they describe as being “used” (and note they changed the wording from misused to used) for child pornography.
So, the only logical conclusion is that those who wrote, support, or vote for this law must either be pedophiles themselves, or wish to create an environment where such material can flow freely within the political and corporate elite, away from public scrutiny.
Do I seriously believe all supporters of the bill are pedophiles? No. Most are likely just useful idiots serving those who stand to gain power or money from it. But history is filled with examples of immoral people seeking positions of authority precisely because those positions lack oversight, so they can indulge their perverse desires at others’ expense.
Returning to paragraph 12a, its wording “in the light of the more limited risk” essentially says: a certain acceptable amount of child pornography is tolerable, as long as corporate interests and trade secrets remain unharmed.
In fact, if you read the paragraph literally, it implies that even a group like “The Berlin men who touch Boys. Inc.” could legally create a private organization and share child abuse material among themselves without oversight.
Let me repeat this clearly: this law’s only purpose is to lay the groundwork for a new class-based society, one in which the individual is perpetually considered suspicious and therefore must be watched by the elite to maintain order.
We cannot allow our elected officials to elevate themselves into a higher social class, standing above ordinary citizens.
A Tiger Without Teeth
We can ask more questions about this obsessive desire for surveillance. Suppose the law passes and comes into force. Let’s even ignore that only massive corporations will have the resources to implement this fantastical solution, and that it will not immediately expand into direct monitoring of all communication.
Do these technically infantile politicians truly believe that criminals won’t adapt? That they won’t find new ways, like TOR, which already exists? But of course, they can’t touch TOR, because many national security agencies depend on it for their own secret communications and operations.
I would even dare to say that the lawmakers probably don’t understand that it’s entirely possible for motivated and skilled groups to communicate secretly, in plain sight, online, using data that is neccesarily random.
A law like this will be like pouring wine on a goose: a complete waste of money, leaving only an angry goose, and the total decay of democracy, of course.
The Unspoken Consequences
The proposal suggests that one or several technical systems (never explained in detail) will automatically scan all images and videos shared between private individuals, to detect known illegal material, but also to identify new, previously unknown material.
First, this is not technically feasible today, not securely or reliably.
Second, it means that this “AI,” which must be a generative model trained on known illegal material, will by definition be capable of generating new child pornography itself if the model is inverted.
In other words, EU lawmakers want to build a child-porn-generating AI model trained on EU’s combined police databases.
Now imagine you send a picture of your toddler playing in the bath, or smiling on a changing table, to their grandparents. A completely normal, innocent family photo.
Would you want an unknown third party to have access to that image? Or for it to be absorbed into a generative AI that could then produce child pornography based on it?
The supposed safety of such a system would rely entirely on the hope that no ill-intentioned individuals ever gain access. But no system is secure.
Remember the Swedish Miljödata Data leak? Now imagine that instead of that data, it was all your private photos from every chat with your family, partner, and friends, open for anyone to search.
Clean Flour in the Wrong Bag
As historian Wilhelm Agrell once said:
“Clean flour in the wrong bag; even the most innocent are caught in the machinery of a surveillance society, and this is nothing new.”
He tells the story of April 29, 1978, when a carpenter named Torsten Leander parked his car at a schoolyard in Norrköping, not knowing that the area was reserved for attendees of a cultural association’s annual meeting.
It wasn’t an offense, but a local security agent recorded all license plates, and Leander’s name ended up in secret police files.
He had done nothing wrong, merely been unlucky enough to get caught in one of the Cold War’s invisible surveillance nets.
It is not up to individuals to prove their innocence. Our justice system was never meant to work that way.
Now imagine that same innocent family photo to the grandparents. If the automated scanner falsely flags it as child sexual abuse material, what happens?
Studies show that AI-based image and facial recognition systems vary wildly in accuracy, sometimes over 90%, but in other cases as low as 36%.
I wouldn’t board a plane with a pilot that inconsistent. Yet in this case, you could be wrongly branded a pedophile.
Good luck clearing your name, even if the investigation is dropped.
The Broken Trust
If this law passes, the foundation of a new class society will be cemented. Along with it, public trust will be irreparably broken.
How could we ever again trust our representatives, knowing that they so easily and ruthlessly discard our civil and human rights in the name of self-interest?
Final Words
I sincerely hope that you, the reader, found parts of this text absurd, because the truth is, the law being proposed is absurd.
Under the banner of “think of the children,” it seeks to dismantle the very foundations of a democratic society.
We cannot allow democracy to become a fleeting curiosity, a relic in the history books.
Capacity takes time to build, but motivation can change overnight.
We need only look across the Atlantic to see how quickly democracy can be dismantled. Laws once made with good intentions are now used to suppress free speech and democratic values.
I know it’s tedious to read EU legislation and proposals, but these 209 pages could be what cements European democracy as nothing more than a historical chapter.
The flour in your bag may be clean today, but who knows how it will be judged tomorrow?
Today it’s legal to criticize your government. Tomorrow, it might not be.
, Folke Arbetsson
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