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Comment by wtcactus

8 hours ago

I find it funny that right at the start the author claims he wants "privacy and data sovereignty" and then he comes into the EU.

Now, Proton is based in Switzerland (thank god for some sane countries in Europe that still remain), but EU is not friend to your "privacy and data sovereignty".

Countries in EU are going after you (and demanding that external platforms disclosure your anonymous identity so that they can put you in prison) because you write "wrong" stuff on the internet. Like, simply calling a - morbidly obese - politician fat. Imagine if that platform was based in the EU. [1]

So, no. EU is not the solution for your privacy. Unless you only care for businesses using your data (which is still bad, of course), but appreciate having the government (and the unelected European Commission) Big Brother watching over you and policing your words.

They are both bad, but they aren't both equally bad. Sure, the businesses can use what I write and see to put even more silly ads in front of me or even train some LLM. But, at least, they won't put me in a Gulag for re-education because I committed some thought crime.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/germany-started-criminal-inves...

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wtcactus

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shaky-carrousel  7 hours ago

Yes, countries in EU prosecute crime. This may be a surprise to some people, but for a long time publicly insulting someone has been a crime in Germany.

In America they don't wait for you to commit a thought crime, they throw you into a gulag right after trying to enter the country: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2025/03/13/bc-woman-us-detenti...

But they're practicing the thought crime part by requiring your social media history on entry.

scrollaway  7 hours ago

I started watching YouTuber Evan Edinger recently and it’s been a breath of fresh air because he’s been saying things I understood to be true a long time ago, but never quite verified until now.

One of those being about American exceptionalism and how Americans will only ever make judgement about other countries (including the EU) from the highly deformed perspective of their local news. And they’ll do this, knowingly, with no remorse, because they’ve been taught all their life America is the best so there are no reasons to doubt or consider that things aren’t quite right.

Being a continent away, with no idea what is going on over here, americans don’t understand EU culture, nor how it relates to German culture. Fox News does not understand what exactly happened in that particular case you linked, let alone you who is reading a ragebait-fueled summary of it.

You also clearly don’t understand how the European Commission works and what it is able to actually do.

Should I bother correcting you? Of course not: you are most likely not interested otherwise we wouldn’t be in this situation. The information is available freely online if you so desire and if you are willing to get out of your comfortable bubbles that constantly prioritise the aforementioned American exceptionalism.