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Comment by NitpickLawyer

9 hours ago

> USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy.

I laughed at this, as an european. I mean just this year we've had like 3 scares with chat control, and the latest news is that they're still trying / succeeding on some fronts. Please don't reduce such complicated matters to red vs. blue, it's really more complicated and there are no easy solutions anywhere.

> I laughed at this, as an european. I mean just this year we've had like 3 scares with chat control,

Strange to compare "scares" with a business model that's 20 years old now. Sure the EU is far from perfect but it's like comparing a well known problem to a potential one. One is bad, the other might sucks. It's definitely not equivalent.

  • > It's definitely not equivalent.

    We agree, but not for the reasons you think we do.

    Chatcontrol is literally 1984. It's mandated at the provider level. You can't opt out.

    You can always chose not to participate in the social media, sharing whatever you do. You can't not participate in chat control. Same same, but different.

    • You can't opt out because there's nothing to opt out from, chat control is not law, it failed to be approved every single time people tried to bring it up, sometimes it even failed before being voted on (like this last time)

    • But you get that it's still hypothetical at this point, while it's been going on in the US for, what, 20 years now?

> I laughed at this, as an european. I mean just this year we've had like 3 scares with chat control,

Chat control is an EU thing. The article is about a move to Proton which is Swiss and therefore outside the EU and not directly affected by chat control or other EU laws. Of course the EU might make it illegal for them to supply their services to EU countries, but then no platform anywhere can avoid that problem.

On the whole EU govt surveillance (assuming you live in the EU) is better than EU govt surveillance plus US govt surveillance plus big tech surveillance.

  • Proton already announced earlier this year that they are leaving Switzerland due to legal uncertainty and relocating their physical infrastructure to Germany, which obviously is in the EU.

    • Have they moved yet? If not they are not EU yet.

      Its also interesting that they have chosen specific EU countries and the differences between countries does matter.

      What happens if, as is probable, the EU brings in similar laws?