Comment by freehorse
9 hours ago
So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270
Just pointing this out because yesterday there was the myth around that "chat control is pushed by the conservatives", obscuring the actual political dynamics in the EU about it.
EPP proposed it, but then it got amended (ie toned down) so much that they turned on their own proposal. This apparently happens quite a lot. So the way I understand it is they turned it down not because they thought it was bad, but because they didn't think it was bad enough.
> So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.
There's also the DDR and Stasi as a counter example if anyone think mass surveillance is incompatible with socialism.
Mass surveillance isn't really a question that projects well onto the left-right scale, and attempting to make it fit a left-right question is more likely to distract than provide a useful understanding.
Yes. I would place it on the authority–liberty axis.
While your examples were on the economic left, they were clearly authoritarian.
Greens based as always