Comment by baxtr
16 hours ago
I think because most people, even tech savvy ones don’t understand how this might effect their lives. It’s too abstract. At least how it’s portrayed here.
Contrast that with chat control.
My government can read my WhatsApp messages? Not good!
What’s the non-technical narrative here?
The non-technical narrative is very simple: Google, Apple, or the German government can revoke your ID at any time. You cannot purchase or sell anything[1], sign any contracts, have a job, rent an apartment, use public transportation, or receive any kind of government services without an ID. This should sound extremely alarming to everyone regardless of technical knowledge.
[1] Maybe with cash, for now, but cash is clearly not long for this world, and your bank account will be inaccessible already.
It also makes you sound like a conspiracy theory nutjob, and the current political climate in Europe is such that people are really sensitive to this sort of alarmist messaging (which they erroneously perceive as fascist rhetoric) and will not listen to you because they don't want to be associated with those people.
I don't think we can win this fight. Personally I tried to advocate against eIDAS in Austria and I've had negative success. After my warnings, people like it more.
"Oh, it's an EU thing? it must be good!".
I feel like if you frame it against the Americans you might have more success? Given this implementation is fully Google/Apple-based. Then it's not "conspiracy theory" but "something that is literally happening and in the news already", where you can point to the Europeans who were sanctioned by the US. But after demonstrating the American threat is real, it is also important to turn around and ask whether your own government should have that much power either, and for what benefit do you stand to gain by giving them that much? For those people who think you sound like a fascist nutjob, I would ask: you might be okay with the current government having this power, but will it still be okay if the FPÖ comes to have this power?
But then again, maybe there is nothing that can be done. It boggles my mind that even on HN most people are defending this. It seems like freedom is a completely lost cause.
> Write too many color emojis in a row on a YouTube livestream chat
> Get banned from society for life
Well, it affects a tiny percentage of people today, so why would they see it as impacting them?
Do people in Europe not intuitively understand that willingly making yourself [more] dependent on a foreign corporation is disadvantageous to you?
Do people outside of Europe do not understand how Germany is just a small fraction of Europe.
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US dependency did bring a lot of value to a lot (albeit not all) of Europeans in past, specifically 1938-1988. If you were born, raised and lived in that timespan, you might have developed a deep seated and hard to break habit to rely on that dependency for security and lifestyle/wealth.
Also, that same lifestyle is based on ignoring externalities applied to commons and/or events happening “somewhere else”, even when factually proven. Little wonder and tiny bit ironic that the same principle has embedded itself so deeply, that it holds true even when the damage is inward, just a few indirections away.
On your side, yes, I think that “people in Europe” intuitively understand that, it just needs time to blossom. The reputation/trust damage self inflicted by the current US administration is triggering a pushback that will expand into the future. As a point in case, it will lead to reconsidering assumptions on habits that many generations of US businesses and diplomats have built.
Many in this thread point at difference instances of services that should be decoupled. Connecting the dots, the larger picture looks painfully obvious to me: Silicon Valley never was a partner to be trusted, and certainly not after they built or bent every business to rely on an ad ecosystem that exploits users.
That original sin, on which a huge portion of Wall Street rests, is now at the center of discussions. Hence, the EU will build tools to address this because it has to, but consumers will flock to them especially from the US, since at this point no one can trust SV companies on data privacy (since Snowdens at least), no one can trust the US administration to protect citizens (since Trump at least), and about half of the US is scared about what’s going on deeply enough (the emotional push needed to break the habit). They will move their data it the EU (where else? China?).
This will be compounded by the fact that everyone tries to build better LLMs and to get AGI, while forgetting that LLMs work on data pipelines.
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No, most people aren't interested at all. They say it will nothing happen. Changed a little bit since Trump, but not enough to have really impact.
"My government can read my XXX" also affects only a tiny percentage of people today, but due to historical precedents and a lot of history and civics lessons, everyone thinks it affects them personally.
But there is nothing abstract here. A private entity, situated in a country that is very hostile and pro-Russia, controls parts of the software stack and implementation here. That's a law written by lobbyists.
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