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in reply to jankforlife

Bruh they attacked ancient vietnam as well. The list of aggressions against Vietnam isn't even complete let alone other peoples.
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to /home/pineapplelover

The People's Republic of China attacked ancient Vietnam? Like, with a time machine?
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to RiverRock

I forgot you mentioned PRC specifically.

If we're talking about PRC then China fought against Vietnam in the Vietnam War, 3rd Indochina war, and Sini-Vietnam war

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_…



Bosnian genocide survivor fired from Luxembourg school over pro-Palestine posts


A Luxembourg elementary school teacher and Bosnian genocide survivor has been dismissed from her position after the Ministry of National Education ruled that her Instagram posts in support of Gaza constituted "antisemitic expression".

The ministry’s decision was made without notice on October 7, 2025, a date Fatima described as symbolic and deeply unsettling. She said officials relied on screenshots from her personal Instagram account, where she has more than 111,000 followers and regularly shares commentary critical of 'Israel’s' actions in Gaza. According to Fatima, her lawyer reviewed the ministry’s evidence and agreed to take the case, convinced that the accusations lack merit.

Fatima says she has endured repeated police complaints and monitoring from the organization RIAL, which lists her in its annual report on antisemitism. None of the examples cited in the report provide clear evidence of antisemitic statements, according to déi aner. Fatima claims the group has monitored her for nearly two years and that the labeling has taken an emotional toll.



distros with isolated programs?


I had a program sorta freeze up my system without apparently using much resources and its something I have seen a lot in windows and it not happening as much in linux but it does happen. That made me wonder if a system that isolated it more would prevent
I had a program sorta freeze up my system without apparently using much resources and its something I have seen a lot in windows and it not happening as much in linux but it does happen. That made me wonder if a system that isolated it more would prevent that. So I guess two questions. Im curious about any distros that isolate the non os programs more and also if anyone knows if this actually would stop what I see happening (my theory is maybe it makes some sort of micro ask for resources that bogs down the system but im not really sure why it happens or for sure which program did it.)
in reply to HubertManne

I think that really depends on why the app made the system hang.

Can you reproduce it consistently? If so, you could try out different forms of isolation, like flatpak, docker, a VM. And there are linux distros focused on each of those, but you can try a solution on whatever distro you're running.

If for some reason your system hangs due to resources (which is the only case I have ever experienced), that can be limited through cgroups and such. The only resource I don't know how to limit is GPU compute.

in reply to HelloRoot

If resource usage was low, it could also be an X11 problem solved by a wayland distro



Why I Dumped YouTube (and Why You Might Want to Too – No More Crap)


Hey Lemmy fam,

After years of wading through endless crap—click‑bait thumbnails, algorithmic rabbit holes, and non‑stop ads—I finally stopped using YouTube. Below are the main reasons I walked away and a handful of privacy‑friendly alternatives that let you keep the content you love without the garbage.

YouTube’s recommendation engine throws endless crap at you, turning a 5‑minute tutorial into a 2‑hour binge you never signed up for.

What I do instead:

  • Lemmy – I follow specific communities (r/technology, c/firefox,c/degoogle ``) and browse chronologically or by “Hot”. No hidden agenda, just the posts I chose.
  • RSS feeds – Subscribe to the channels I actually care about via an RSS reader (Feedly, Newsboat, or Lemmy’s built‑in RSS). New videos appear as they’re posted, no surprise junk.

Every view, pause, and hover is logged and sold to advertisers. Even with an ad‑blocker, YouTube still harvests data through its API calls and cookies.

What I do instead:

  • PeerTube – Decentralized, ad‑free video hosting. Each instance runs its own moderation and privacy policies. You can even self‑host a node if you want full control.
in reply to afporritt1001

Peertube has no content whatsoever. The current best option for privacy is using invidious mirrors.



Zelenskyy’s top aide quits after anti-corruption searches of his home


A seemingly indispensable aide until today, Yermak was a former intellectual property lawyer and film producer who knew Zelenskyy in his days as an actor and comedian before helping him be elected as president. Yermak became a foreign policy adviser, then the president’s chief of staff in February 2020.

Rapidly he assumed a central position as Zelenskyy’s gatekeeper in the charge of the president’s office. He was routinely consulted on foreign policy, domestic affairs and appointments. Never far from Zelenskyy’s side, the two were particularly close during the early days of the invasion, when Kyiv was under threat.

in reply to NightOwl

Corruption in one of the famously most corrupt countries in Europe!? As with most political corruption investigations I'm willing to bet this was a political purge. By whom and for what ends I don't know but I'm sure that'll be clear in due time.


Tesco worker facing hearing for refusing to sell 'Israeli' products


Pro-Palestine campaigners have turned up in their hundreds to a Tesco branch in the small County Down seaside town of Newcastle, protesting disciplinary action being taken against a worker who refused to assist in the sale of items from so-called ‘Israel’. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, objected on the basis that the proceeds from such items go to fund the Zionist entity’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people.

The action from Tesco management had first been highlighted in a post on the social media page of local activist group Mourne for Palestine, whose name is a play on words using the name of a notable nearby mountain range. Alongside the statement can be found more wordplay, with Tesco’s slogan remixed to say “Every little helps genocide”. The group said:

Today’s protest was organised by direct action group BDS Belfast, with activists pouring in from across Ireland, recognising the significance of a worker taking such a stand. A strong union presence was visible, with representatives from Unison, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and union-linked solidarity group Trade Union Friends of Palestine among those in attendance. The action from the worker represents the most noteworthy instance of this form of defiance in the North of Ireland since the Zionist settler-colony began its campaign of mass murder over two years ago.






Inside Khartoum: Sudan’s ravaged capital where paramilitaries looted history




Palestine Action prisoner hospitalised due to hunger strike


An activist held on remand in a British prison on charges connected to the direct action group Palestine Action has been hospitalised after entering his second week of hunger strike.

Kamran Ahmed is among six prisoners who launched a rolling hunger strike earlier this month after UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood failed to respond to a letter outlining demands relating to their treatment.

These included immediate bail and an end to prison interference with their personal communications, as well as lifting the ban on Palestine Action.

In July, the UK government proscribed the direct action group under terrorism legislation, making it a criminal offence to be a member of or show support for the organisation.



Switch to a Fully free Operating System


As per fsf only those linux distributions are 100% free: Dragora Dyne Guix Hyperbola Parabola PureOS Trisquel Ututo libreCMC ProteanOS Do you agree or no? I see a lot of people that want to switch from windows to a linux distro or a open os. But fro

As per fsf only those linux distributions are 100% free:

Dragora
Dyne
Guix
Hyperbola
Parabola
PureOS
Trisquel
Ututo
libreCMC
ProteanOS

Do you agree or no?

I see a lot of people that want to switch from windows to a linux distro or a open os. But from what i see they tend to migrate to another black boxed/closed os.

What is a trully free os that doesnt included any closed code/binary blobs/closed drivers etc.

Just 100% free open code, no traps.

What are the options and what should one go with if they want fully free os that rejects any closed code?

in reply to pie

Hard disagree. Only people that are already in linux-land should even think or talk about this, and only after they're aware of what they depend on and whether they can even do that in the first place.

Main reason: biggest thing holding Linux back is user-base. The more users there are, the more that companies will actually care about supporting the OS. In the meantime, newbies to Linux need an OS that is as hassle free as possible that supports what they need. Windows and macOS have their downsides, but you can't disagree that they work out of the box. You only get a few chances to get someone to even think about switching ecosystems, and going to a straight free distro is another huge hurdle on top of that. Most closed source applications only get tested on debian/rhel based distros anyway, I wouldn't be able to do my my day job on a distro outside of that without some serious headache.

There are many closed source components that don't have equivalent open source alternatives, and features are a thing that will snag many people. Most people aren't technical.



What do you think of tools for setting colorschemes in many apps at once, like pywal and base16?


It's very clear that the ricing community wants to set any given colorscheme in many apps automatically, most tools do so either with wallpapers (which is inherently opinionated), or the base16 spec. The original base16 repo hasn't been updated in over 2 years, and 16 colors simply isn't enough to make rich granular themes, especially when code has many different syntax elements. We need a successor that allows for more colors on both TUIs and GUIs, more than 16 colors (like 24 or even 32), mapped more granularly.

My story:

I've spent lots of time looking at how to have good colorschemes in apps that change dynamically, to make my desktop pretty and with variety. Many tools can apply colorschemes to apps using image / wallpaper colors like Matugen and Pywal. These tools are very well made, but I realized I actually prefer rainbow colorschemes like Catppuccin. Either way I got attached Matugen, fortunately it can be used without wallpapers and supports custom keywords, there are also base16 colorscheme managers like flavours and tinty.

But Cattppuccin's base16 theme didn't look right compared to its Neovim plugin. The plugin is very well integrated and colors a lot things for you that base16 plugins may not, I would have to set certain UI colors myself if I wanted them to match. Some of the major colors (variables, keywords, brackets, etc.) were shuffled around, so out of the box Catppuccin's base16 theme doesn't even match Cattppuccin's original vision / color harmony. All of this probably applies to other colorschemes as well. So if I want to switch between different schemes while staying true to each one, I would need to set up plugins for each app rather than automatically.

in reply to TheTwelveYearOld

I love pywal, i also love tuis because i need only to change terminal's colors. If i want catpuccin then i can just download catpuccin wallpaper. I use pywal on every tui and librewolf. Don't need to change antthing else. I love when i download new tui and it is already themed


Gaza nurse held by Israel says she was abducted by Abu Shabab gang


A Palestinian nurse says she was abducted by an Israeli-backed gang from the Gaza Strip earlier this year and handed over to the Israeli army, who used her to pressure her detained doctor father during interrogations.

Tasneem al-Hams, 22, was released in Khan Younis on Thursday, nearly two months after she was arbitrarily taken into Israeli custody.

Upon her release, she told local media she was abducted by members of the Israel-backed Popular Forces armed group - otherwise known as Abu Shabab gang.

"They then handed me over to the Israelis, east of Khan Younis," she added.

The nurse was abducted while working at a medical facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to her family.




If I keep js disabled and then use extension will it still be a fingerprinting issue?


I mean for fingerprinting protections I go minimal with extensions. I only have Ublock origin. I want to keep dark reader but for fingerprinting issue I’m not doing it. So if I keep js disabled with Ublock origin (I’m doing it for a while now) and then in
I mean for fingerprinting protections I go minimal with extensions. I only have Ublock origin. I want to keep dark reader but for fingerprinting issue I'm not doing it.
So if I keep js disabled with Ublock origin (I'm doing it for a while now) and then install dark reader will websites still be able to tell that I have dark reader installed?
in reply to url

This could be a fingerprint as very few people keep JS off and you might stand out.

On the other hand, the browser gives out very little information without JS active. Turn off JS and test your browser on deviceinfo, amiunique, etc and see how many entries are "unknown".

in reply to url

I played around with coveryourtracks.eff.org/ and realized that I'm quite unique whether I allow js or not. Many trackers get blocked by the absence of js though so that would hamper them somewhat.
My Sony phone with 21:9 screen ensures I'm uncommon compared to most.

My goal isn't to be untrackable but to block the ads they try to shove in your face as step 2.

in reply to anamethatisnt

Another thing, I'm wondering. What if it's not so much being un-unique as much the sum of the fingerprintable things looking not strange compared to others. Chances are that a lot of people also use some ad blockers, some common hardwares, etc.
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to anamethatisnt

If it makes you feel better I have a Sony with 21:9 too. So there's at least two of us😅
in reply to anamethatisnt

I use IronFox and I do pass that test. Only browser that I use that does. FF and Cromite do not.
in reply to FriendBesto

Interesting, it seems that while IronFox has the protections activated by default (and with some changes) you can also activate most of them on Firefox.
github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox…

Ironfox Devs themselves say that the only browser that can truly protect you against fingerprinting is the Tor Browser.
github.com/ironfox-oss/IronFox…

Do you feel IronFox breaks many sites for you?



Taiwan is illegitimate lemmy libs


Its like if the US south government would have fled to Cuba after the civil war 😁
in reply to sephallen

And the last time the KMT controlled anything even nearly ressembling what they claim to be the rightful rulers of was in the 40s.
in reply to jackeroni

Liberals be like "this is a legitimate and not at all totalitarian government"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Te…

Wanting to consolidate its rule on its remaining territories, the KMT imposed harsh political suppression measures, which included enacting martial law, executing suspected leftists or those they suspected to be sympathetic toward the communists.[5] Others targeted included Taiwanese locals and indigenous peoples who participated in the 28 February incident, such as Uyongʉ Yata'uyungana, and those accused of dissidence for criticizing the government.[6]


Another classic case of "every anticommunist cliche is actually projection"

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NATO members terrorizing their own people – Russian envoy


in reply to jackeroni

Oh? Negotiations must not going well... Vlad was quiet for a couple days but is back at bullshitting. Of course the orange puppet is busy with something else so Vlad has to do all the work. Poor Vlad
in reply to jackeroni

NATO does. I mean, broken clock right twice a day and all that.


Yermak Resigns After Ukrainian Anti-Graft Investigators Launch Surprise Search Of His Office


Andriy Yermak, the influential chief of staff of Ukraine's President, has resigned hours after the country's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) conducted searches in his office.


I keep seeing the same things in my feed


On another popular site I can refresh my feed and it's instantly all new things to explore. But here on Lemmy when I refresh, I get either the same top posts (with little new activity) or I see them just down a bit.

I've chosen subs that are active, and a mix of subscribed and local subs.

What settings are best to have a similar experience where if you refresh your feed you see new things to subs you're interested in? Even choosing 'new' its like.. there's no new activity when I refresh.

Thank you in advance

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to phed

I go by all but I block communities I have just zero instance in. I select the setting to not show things in my feed that I have read or interacted with. Works for me.
in reply to phed

Go into your settings and unclick show read posts , and save. Then you won't see any of the same posts again after you've read them.



Michael Carley: Rewriting WW2 - Historical Revisionism in Geopolitics





UAE launched 'lobbying blitz' on European Parliament over Sudan war resolution


The United Arab Emirates “embarked on a lobbying blitz” of European Parliament members to ensure its involvement in the war in Sudan was not mentioned in a resolution calling for the conflict's end, Politico reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Dutch Member of European Parliament (MEP) Marit Maij told DW News about plans to “call on the European Commission to stop the trade negotiations with the UAE for as long as we see that weapons are going through the UAE to the RSF,” referring to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The call comes in the wake of the widespread atrocities committed by the RSF during its siege and eventual capture of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, which were abetted by advanced weaponry from the UAE.

But following a lobbying effort from an Emirati delegation to Strasbourg led by envoy Lana Nusseibeh, the final resolution passed on Thursday included no references to the UAE’s role in the war.




Possible to avoid Google's future open source ban on Android devices?


If I am already using a rooted but proprietary smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S23), downloading my apps from other sources than Google Play, how would Google be able to control what I do with it? If necessary, I could just stay on my current OS build as well. All in all, while politically and philosophically, Google's new policy is bad, I don't feel threatened by it with my current understand of the situation and technology...
in reply to emotional_soup_88

From what has been explained to me in some other posts, the issue is that most probably this will land on AOSP level from which all de-Googled androids fork. And with Linux phones not quite ready yet (I'm observing liberux.net/ though) that leaves us at their mercy
in reply to INeedMana

De-Googled forks of Android would have just reversed that limitation
in reply to Special Wall

I'm guessing that maintaining such forks would be prohibitive. Especially since they do have resources to play cat and mice

But I don't really know much about Android code, I'm just relying what I've heard

in reply to Special Wall

Reversing malicious changes is an extra burden. Google has been slowly making everything worse for years and the forks haven't been able to do much about it.
in reply to INeedMana

LOL AdAway blocked liberux.net wtf😂 but thanks! The specs are surprisingly good too! 😮
in reply to INeedMana

Looks nice, but I tried this sort of thing with the FXTec Pro, and never received it. After 4 years, they announced the last ones going out, and they apparently "lost" mine. Contacted them and their response was equivalent to a shrug. Next time I buy a product, it's going to be verifiably on sale publicly.
in reply to MasterBlaster

It's not crowd-funded anymore mastodon.social/@Liberux/11561…


Great News, Liberux Community! 🎉

1️⃣ The Liberux NEXX is moving forward with new self-funding. We listened to your feedback, and the NEXX will come with improvements. We maintain our #opensource commitment and #privacy focus. More details soon!

2️⃣ We are looking for a Developer (Open Source, C++, Wayland, Linux Kernel, ModemManager, D-Bus, PulseAudio) for #liberuxos. If you are passionate about digital freedom, join our team!

➡️ Send your CV to people@liberux.net.

#liberux #Linux #Jobs


in reply to emotional_soup_88

Google has partly backed away from this plan, and it was only announced for "certified" Android devices, which yours isn't after rooting.

It does affect you indirectly though. If open source on Android gets harder, fewer people will do it.







Average Debian system update experience:


No I'm not using Kali for "hacking" I'm experimenting if I can play games on it and I guess my little experiment failed here, I never had a smooth experience with Debian before it always break itself when doing a system updates.

don't like this

in reply to Villainess

No I'm not using Kali for "hacking" I'm experimenting if I can play games on it


Sorry but.. why on earth would you do that? Kali is a specialized distro, it's not made for day to day desktop use, much less for gaming on it. If you want to game on Linux, pick either a generic or gaming-oriented distro, and use Kali in a VM or dualboot.



Using a custom domain with two seprate email accounts.


I purchased a custom domain to use with mailbox.org.

The MX records are setup and basic tests are working. I'm getting myname@customdomain.com showing up in my mailbox.org account.

But I got confused with setting up a family member with theirname@customdomain.com

Do they need to pay for a plan too?

There not worried about the privacy they just want the custom email address. Is there anyway to do this for free or cheaper, without self hosting email?

Side question. I've been paying for anonaddy to hide my normal @outlook account. Are there any benefits in keeping anonaddy to send emails to my custom domain. Instead of just using a catchall, or pre-configuring some aliases?

The only benifits I see are

  • Anonaddy can make accounts on the fly
  • On The Fly accounts might be easier to disable than
    things sent to a catchall
  • Anonaddy dosnt reveal your domain (maybe this is the big draw card?)

Thanks.

in reply to trailee

Is this via a rule, as in the email hits the inbox then gets sent on.

Or is it a setting when you configure the alias.

Where the email goes to fastmail then gets sent onto gmail, are you limited to replying from the gmail?

in reply to GlenRambo

Each alias has a configured delivery destination. Aliases that only point externally never reach the main account inbox.

You are limited to replying from the gmail unless you jump through more advanced hoops. Those include telling gmail in its settings that it can “Send mail as” something else, and also giving gmail authorization to send mail for your domain by adding them into your SPF and DKIM records. Those are more complicated than I want to describe here, and it will be complicated to merge both mailbox.org and gmail into them, so if you don’t already know about them, let’s just say yes, you can only reply as the gmail user.




10 Syrians killed in Israeli operation in southern Syria’s Beit Jin, 6 IDF soldiers injured


An Israeli operation in the village of Beit Jin in the Damascus countryside killed 10 people, including women and children, Syrian state media reported, marking the latest Israeli incursion into southern Syria.

The Israeli military said six soldiers were wounded — three of them seriously — after troops came under fire from gunmen during an arrest operation early Friday.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, shortly before 3 a.m., soldiers from the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade entered Beit Jinn — around seven kilometres (4.3 miles) east of the Israeli border — to arrest two members of the al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) based on recent intelligence suggesting they were planning attacks on Israel.

https://www.firstpost.com/world/10-killed-in-israeli-operation-in-southern-syrias-beit-jin-6-idf-soldiers-injured-13954788.html

in reply to geneva_convenience

to arrest two members of the al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) based on recent intelligence suggesting they were planning attacks on Israel.


Always the same lie about security concerns because they know they can

in reply to geneva_convenience

55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade entered Beit Jinn — around seven kilometres (4.3 miles) east of the Israeli border


Golan Heights are not Israel territory, Israel-Syrian border it's at 20 km






Digital Omnibus: How Big Tech Lobbying Is Gutting the GDPR


Cross posted from: feddit.uk/post/40232992

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Digital Omnibus: How Big Tech Lobbying Is Gutting the GDPR
Last week we at EFRI wrote about the Digital Omnibus leak and warned that the European Commission was preparing a stealth attack on the GDPR

Since then, two things have happened:

The Commission has now officially published its Digital Omnibus proposal.

noyb (Max Schrems’ organisation) has released a detailed legal analysis and new campaigning material that confirms our worst fears: this is not harmless “simplification”, it is a deregulation package that cuts into the core of the GDPR and ePrivacy.

What noyb has now put on the table

On 19 November 2025, noyb published a new piece with the blunt headline: “Digital Omnibus: EU Commission wants to wreck core GDPR principles

Here’s a focused summary of the four core points from noyb’s announcement, in plain language:

New GDPR loophole via “pseudonyms” and IDs

The Commission wants to narrow the definition of “personal data” so that much data under pseudonyms or random IDs (ad-tech, data brokers, etc.) might no longer fall under the GDPR.

This would mean a shift from an objective test (“can a person be identified, directly or indirectly?”) to a subjective test (“does this company currently want or claim to be able to identify someone?”).

Therefore, whether the GDPR applies would depend on what a company says about its own capabilities and intentions.

Different companies handling the same dataset could fall inside or outside the GDPR.

For users and authorities, it becomes almost impossible to know ex ante whether the GDPR applies – endless arguments over a company’s “true intentions”.

Schrems’ analogy: it’s like a gun law that only applies if the gun owner admits he can handle the gun and intends to shoot – obviously absurd as a regulatory concept.

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Digital Omnibus: How Big Tech Lobbying Is Gutting the GDPR
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Digital Omnibus: How Big Tech Lobbying Is Gutting the GDPR
Last week we at EFRI wrote about the Digital Omnibus leak and warned that the European Commission was preparing a stealth attack on the GDPR

Since then, two things have happened:

The Commission has now officially published its Digital Omnibus proposal.

noyb (Max Schrems’ organisation) has released a detailed legal analysis and new campaigning material that confirms our worst fears: this is not harmless “simplification”, it is a deregulation package that cuts into the core of the GDPR and ePrivacy.

What noyb has now put on the table
On 19 November 2025, noyb published a new piece with the blunt headline: “Digital Omnibus: EU Commission wants to wreck core GDPR principles”

Here’s a focused summary of the four core points from noyb’s announcement, in plain language:

New GDPR loophole via “pseudonyms” and IDs
The Commission wants to narrow the definition of “personal data” so that much data under pseudonyms or random IDs (ad-tech, data brokers, etc.) might no longer fall under the GDPR.

This would mean a shift from an objective test (“can a person be identified, directly or indirectly?”) to a subjective test (“does this company currently want or claim to be able to identify someone?”).

Therefore, whether the GDPR applies would depend on what a company says about its own capabilities and intentions.

Different companies handling the same dataset could fall inside or outside the GDPR.

For users and authorities, it becomes almost impossible to know ex ante whether the GDPR applies – endless arguments over a company’s “true intentions”.

Schrems’ analogy: it’s like a gun law that only applies if the gun owner admits he can handle the gun and intends to shoot – obviously absurd as a regulatory concept.

Weakening ePrivacy protection for data on your device

Today, Article 5(3) ePrivacy protects against remote access to data on your devices (PCs, smartphones, etc.) – based on the Charter right to the confidentiality of communications.

The Commission now wants to add broad “white-listed” exceptions for access to terminal equipment, including “aggregated statistics” and “security purposes”.

Max Schrems finds the wording of the new rule to be extremely permissive and could effectively allow extensive remote scanning or “searches” of user devices,ces as long as they are framed as minimal “security” or “statistics” operations – undermining the current strong protection against device-level snooping.

Opening the door for AI training on EU personal data (Meta, Google, etc.)

Despite clear public resistance (only a tiny minority wants Meta to use their data for AI), the Commission wants to allow Big Tech to train AI on highly personal data, e.g. 15+ years of social-media history.

Schrems’ core argument:

People were told their data is for “connecting” or advertising – now it is fed into opaque AI models, enabling those systems to infer intimate details and manipulate users.

The main beneficiaries are US Big Tech firms building base models from Europeans’ personal data.

The Commission relies on an opt-out approach, but in practice:

Companies often don’t know which specific users’ data are in a training dataset.

Users don’t know which companies are training on their data.

Realistically, people would need to send thousands of opt-outs per year – impossible.

Schrems calls this opt-out a “fig leaf” to cover fundamentally unlawful processing.

On top of training, the proposal would also privilege the “operation” of AI systems as a legal basis – effectively a wildcard: processing that would be illegal under normal GDPR rules becomes legal if it’s done “for AI”. Resulting in an inversion of normal logic: riskier technology (AI) gets lower, not higher, legal standards.

Cutting user rights back to almost zero – driven by German demands

The starting point for this attack on user rights is a debate in Germany about people using GDPR access rights in employment disputes, for example to prove unpaid overtime. The German government chose to label such use as “abuse” and pushed in Brussels for sharp limits on these rights. The Commission has now taken over this line of argument and proposes to restrict the GDPR access right to situations where it is exercised for “data protection purposes” only.

In practice, this would mean that employees could be refused access to their own working-time records in labour disputes. Journalists and researchers could be blocked from using access rights to obtain internal documents and data that are crucial for investigative work. Consumers who want to challenge and correct wrong credit scores in order to obtain better loan conditions could be told that their request is “not a data-protection purpose” and therefore can be rejected.

This approach directly contradicts both CJEU case law and Article 8(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Court has repeatedly confirmed that data-subject rights may be exercised for any purpose, including litigation and gathering evidence against a company. As Max Schrems points out, there is no evidence of widespread abuse of GDPR rights by citizens; what we actually see in practice is widespread non-compliance by companies. Cutting back user rights in this situation shifts the balance even further in favour of controllers and demonstrates how detached the Commission has become from the day-to-day reality of users trying to defend themselves.

EFRI’s take: when Big Tech lobbying becomes lawmaking

For EFRI, the message is clear: the Commission has decided that instead of forcing Big Tech and financial intermediaries to finally comply with the GDPR, it is easier to move the goalposts and rewrite the rules in their favour. The result is a quiet but very real redistribution of power – away from citizens, victims, workers and journalists, and towards those who already control the data and the infrastructure. If this package goes through in anything like its current form, it will confirm that well-organised corporate lobbying can systematically erode even the EU’s flagship fundamental-rights legislation. That makes it all the more important for consumer organisations, victim groups and digital-rights advocates to push back – loudly, publicly and with concrete case stories – before the interests of Big Tech are permanently written into EU law.