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Thanks Joachim! Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

> The campaign has irked some recipients. “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont, a German member of the European People’s Party group and its home affairs spokesperson, of the mass emails.

What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?

Or, or, "normal people" sending emails only for the lawmakers to go "thanks for the feedback, we're doing it anyway"?

> One EU diplomat said some EU member countries are now more hesitant to support Denmark’s proposal, at least in part because of the campaign: “There is a clear link.”

> Ella Jakubowska, head of policy at digital rights group EDRi, said “This campaign seems to have raised the topic high up the agenda in member states where there was previously little to no public debate."

This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.

> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures to get child abuse material off online platforms, said in a statement that his proposal is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.

If the option is there, it will be abused.

A metaphor: I once played in a D&D campaign where a player tried to create an extremely overpowered but technically legal character. His justification was that he would only use the extreme powers in moderation, so it would not be unfair or unbalanced. But why would he ask for such unprecedented powers if he didn't intend to use them?

I actually think that a role playing game is exactly the soft of situation where this is in fact reasonable.

There is a lot of mythology about gods walking among men, hiding their true nature, etc. And more recent examples include the TV show Lucifer.

Someone wanting to roleplay that sort of being is entirely plausible. Without knowing the person's personality (which you presumably did) it's hard to say whether they would have genuinely wanted to do that or if it was an excuse.

Yeah, if you have a huge amount of trust between player and DM that can work. There are both in-game and out-of-game ways to manage issues if they arise: in-game a DM can always limit or restrict something after the fact, out-of-game a problem can spark a conversation and ultimately a D&D game is a set of people who voluntarily get together and play.

(That said, another approach is to have a conversation about "what are you trying to achieve", and find a way for everyone to have the fun they'd like to have without risking something game-breaking.)

As GM, I strongly disagree. Any player who wants a character with "I can overrule the GM but I will do that only occasionally" power is a very big red flag. A D&D game isn't a mythological story or TV show. It's a community told story where one character having an "OP" (over powered) character basically destroys the balance between player and GM as well as between player and player, both of which are extremely important.

To make it clearer, the players and the GM will be struggling against each - in a controlled way, yes, but also a meaningful way. I'm not a super deadly GM but players will be risking death in at least low-key way and so everyone will sooner or later be "using everything they have".

Edit: basically, saying "this rule/power/etc exists but won't have an impact" is more or less saying that the "rules aren't serious", in either the 'Chat Control' or the DM situation. But the very nature of rules is that we wouldn't have them if they weren't serious.

I of course agree that the player should not be able to overrule the GM. I don't think that was the situation here.

If you're playing an off-the-shelf campaign this is problematic. If the GM is creating the game as you go, then a good GM should be able work with the player to make this reasonable. The GM can always use GM-power to prevent a player from doing something, even if it involves a literal hand of God reaching down to stop them.

A conversation with the player beforehand to make sure you're on the same page about this sort of thing would go a long way. Let them know under what circumstances you're willing to allow them to use whatever the power is. Let them know the consequences if they don't follow those rules.

Unlike with ChatControl, a D&D game is a situation where the necessary trust is able to exist.

An example: agree the player character is some trickster djinn sent from another plane to learn to be a human and how to trick people. They have immense cosmic powers of life and death, but as part of being sent over, they can only use the power for immediate comedy. Violations result in the djinn getting yanked back to their plane and disincorporated.

Boom done. Now you have a massively OP character that can only use their power in humorous situations that don't affect the storyline, and if they try to abuse that then that's instant-death.

I personally, as GM, don't like to be the one that kills a character. I want to set up a situation where the situation-and/or-the-rules kills the character.

I've played in games with "the GM kills you" mechanics and it felt juvenile/arbitrary/abusive. Remember, this is a game where every players' character needs to "shine" and similarly needs to know they're being judged with fairness and compassion by the GM (compassion especially along the lines of "understand what I say my character does as something reasonable").

Isn't that what I proposed in my example though? Where a rule is made in advance that if the player abuses their power, they die. due to the canon situation in which that player's character existed?

A player that in good faith wanted to role play such a character, would work with the DM in advance to structure rules well-understood by all parties about exactly what would happen if they abuse their situation.

All the DnD situations can be trivially resolved by good-faith and communication on all sides.

Unlike Chat Control, where good faith cannot be assumed.

While I agree it's a red flag in many cases (power gaming is an issue), I think you already provided an adequate justification for it yourself: ttrpg play is a community told story. While you may want to play a type of game where the DM is always fully in control, I've played at tables where the DM intentionally gives up some of their control to the more experienced players, sharing the load of creating the world. There are even whole systems where this is an intentionally encouraged mechanic! Even giving overpowered stuff isn't fundamentally different from a DM dropping in an overpowered DMPC to help step in when the players need something.

D&D is intentionally a collaborative story, and it shouldn't be out of the question for players to collaborate with the DM. Focusing on "the balance between player and GM" is great for a dungeon-crawl style game (which I would argue is the only thing 5e is actually designed for, and is poor for what most people try to use it for, but that's a whole other rant), but putting too much focus on it in a more roleplay-centered campaign can lead to a very adversarial relationship between players and the DM. If you have great players, you should trust them to collaborate with you, not just opposed to you.

Oh, giving the player power to make a world and otherwise help in GMing process is fine, something I do sometimes. The thing is, a reasonably skilled player can do that without it involving adding power to their character. Indeed, I've seen this device make players less "power-gamey" because it makes them think of the larger picture, they want to interest the other players in their story etc.

But I don't think this really relates to "my character has excess-or-god-like powers but I won't use them" situation. The point isn't the characters can't have more free-form powers that GM interprets sympathetically. The point is if the player has to say their character has special over-the-top-powers, they are creating a rule, not leaving things for free collaboration. I remember in a FATE game in which one player specified has character's aspect that "world's greatest thief" and this both abuse of the FATE system and actual harassment/psychological abuse of another players. I learned the lesson that aspects never should superlatives to them.

I understand the metaphor, but there is a huge difference between a D&D player and an entity such as a government.

For starters the government is not in the habit of releasing these new powers, once it's established it will stay for a very, very long time.

And you can be sure the new powers will be used in unintended ways, which the citizens will have a hard time blocking.

So it's actually very simple: No to Chatcontrol, now and forever.

The threat already silences the opposition. You don't have to use it to silence people.

I actually did that for a campaign. It wasn't extremely overpowered but I did have some abilities that could have been extremely OP if abused. I don't even think it was really legal as far as RAW was concerned. In the end I was probably one of the least effective characters, but I was able to do some cool things with those powers and we had fun roleplaying it.

Another one: someone buys a sports car and promises to drive within legal speed limits at all times.

A better one: the large number of individuals who drive super-duty pickup trucks only for commuting to their office jobs.

IMO that's a little different since many of them also buying the utility of appearances, which be flaunted at entirely legal speeds or even while parked.

In contrast, an expensive speedy car disguised as a cheap slow one would be much more suspicious.

There are also ways to drive fast legally

Allow me to introduce you to sleepers which are somewhat expensive cars disguised as cheap pieces of shit. Most I've been in are absolutely terrifying but seem like lots of fun.

You can buy fancy sports car for looks and status.

A sports car could be bought just for the looks.

Based on how often I find myself watching laden work vans pass vehicles that can easily "do better" this, or something like it, is likely a common reason for purchase

"and my successors will all do the same"

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Sir, this is a comment thread about speed limits.

> Looks like I upset the manosphere.

Please. Your comment was plain old flamebait that's clearly against the guidelines, particularly these ones.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

Users did the right thing to flag that comment, simply because it's against the guidelines and the intended use of this site. Please take a moment to read them and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Nobody does that.

Except in Germany!

(Technically correct is the best kind of correct)

I believe the Autobahn still carries the legal requirement to drive at a safe speed at all times. Pedal to the floor racing is not often safe speeds for a public road.

Yes, yet [1] happened where someone took precautions to drive safely at >400 km/h speed.

[1] https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/no-charges-laid-on-bug...

It sounds like an investigation was quite reasonable, and then it cleared him before charges were pressed. Seems pretty good!

I mean, every person who purchases a car does so, at least implicitly. The very act of obtaining a driving license contains an (often explicit) promise to abide by the rules of the road.

You’re conflating two things and ignoring the thrust of the point: nobody buys a fast car to drive it slowly. Maybe some people do, the vast majority do not.

If promises about licenses meant a damn, we wouldn’t have speeding cameras.

The promise is still made, regardless of whether one plans to keep it

No, the “promise” is forced. It’s like an arranged marriage.

Let's not forget that a former politician AND member of the Danish parliament, colleague of Peter Hummelgaard, went on trial this year for being in possession of CSAM, his name Henrik Sass Larsen [0].

[0] https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/08/21/trial-begins-f...

It's not so surprising that the original proposal includes an exception for politicians, they don't want to be scanned themselves: https://european-pirateparty.eu/chatcontrol-eu-ministers-wan...

It is a really bad bill idea. It’s ironic that the proponents want to exempt thrmselves from the very mass surveillance they're proposing! It definitely isn't about protecting children and it can't work this way. What a propagandist article. :/

> “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont.

She's German, so probably a letter on approved paper in an approved envelope. And you will get a response via a certified letter. Or maybe a fax?

Or the dialog should be in the next election cycle when she is voted out and then it will be interpreted as "the people have spoken". I find it funny how politicians when they're cornered start claiming that this is not the right way to stall for time to pass whatever laws they want to pass anyway.

Fax. Definitely fax. It's legislated to be equivalent to a certified letter, and cheaper, and you don't have to walk to the post office like an animal! headdesk

(Did you know it's a criminal offense in Germany to have your fax "participant ID" set incorrectly? The one transmitted in-band, that you configure on your fax device, not the network provided caller ID.)

Maybe she would prefer a phone call?

It's a dialogue between Thorn, who sells scanning software and the EU commission working group, and the relationship is murky at the best:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-EU-Ombudsman-criti...

Thorn hires Europol police officers to lobby their software.

> This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.

As a general rule, politicians don't actually have a strong opinion on, or much context on, most things which they are asked to vote on. This can make this sort of lobbying/campaigning quite effective; at a certain point you're forcing the politician to _think_ about it, and that's half the battle.

> "[...] A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?"

Why, yes... that's exactly what the types of outfits like the European People's Party [1] expect on many things. But year after year these incompetent grouches get the majority of votes. And that's before one has to deal with the full-blown far right, fascists, and the like (e. g. ESN [2], PfE [3], et cetera).

1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People's_Party]

2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Sovereign_Nations_Gr...]

3. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots_for_Europe]

This is not a left-right issue. You have the danish S&Ds pushing it and ALDE opposing it.

Agreed. Even in the U.S. personal privacy is not a left/right issue. Both major political parties will sometimes pay lip service to privacy when campaigning yet when in power they both engineer votes that permit further erosion of privacy rights and expand exceptions for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to vacuum up personal data from citizens with little oversight.

Conservatives and allied centrists have, and traditionally always had, much more access to the levers of power than leftists even in democratic countries. And right-wingers will oppose such intrusive government power only until they get to be the ones calling the shots and it's finally time to "drain the swamp". ;)

Besides, your reading of the decidedly centrist Danish Socialdemokraterne as leftists is bizarre to me, especially since they moved more and more towards the right. Something they share with other classic social democrat, i. e. centrist (status quo), parties in the S&D, e. g. their German compatriots from the SPD.

In the past half century, “progressives” have pushed through huge societal advances (particularly) across Europe in areas of family rights, women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, worker's rights.

Things that were anathema in my very Catholic country just 20 years ago (divorce, abortion, gay marriage, assisted dying, but also maximum work hours, minimum wage policies, equal pay policies, women's quotas, tax funded subsidies/pensions for people who never contributed to social security, etc) are now so mainstream that even “conservatives” (never mind “centrists”) have co-opted most of them.

But for certain leftists, “ideological purity” apparently trumps all of those advancements.

Now, we're starting to find out what “ideological purity” looks like when that gets co-opted by the right side of the spectrum. And it's not pretty.

> "In the past half century, “progressives” have pushed through huge societal advances (particularly) across Europe in areas of family rights, women's rights, gay rights, minority rights, worker's rights."

Progressives, sans scare quotes, fought long and hard for lobbying access to get the parties in power push through what should be considered basic human rights in any civilized society.

> "Things that were anathema in my very Catholic country just 20 years ago [...] are now so mainstream that even “conservatives” (never mind “centrists”) have co-opted most of them."

In my reality, many conservatives, especially of the clerical variety, are very busy rolling back these basic human rights. And their centrist allies play ball. As usual.

> "Now, we're starting to find out what 'ideological purity' looks like when that gets co-opted by the right side of the spectrum."

Starting to find out? You sound like you labor under the absurd illusion that conservatives/right-wingers of any couleur never had some sort of ideological ideal they tried to pitch to hoi polloi. Well, there's enough libraries worth of works to cure someone of that misbelief.

None of my quotes should scare you. What you might call progressives, liberals, centrists, whatever, varies widely across the EU. That's the only reason I've put those terms in quotes.

Given the dealings with Pfizer and the blocking of an ethics committee, why, yes, the EPP prefers lobbying to remain opaque.

> is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version

It doesn't require analyzing of all text and sound. Everything else is still fair game.

> and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.

This is completely besides the point, and illustrates exactly what he doesn't want to understand: as long as that last-resort mechanism is available, it will be used and abused. The latest clear example of that exact same thing is the terrorism charges brought against the pro-Palestine campaigners in London: terrorism legislation was also brought in under the excuse that "it would only be used in the narrowest of circumstances".

This kind of legislation is a red line that democracies should never cross.

> given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

Anyone remember OTR on Pidgin/gaim back in the day? That kind of system could work on any medium rendering this whole thing completely pointless.

> Anyone remember OTR on Pidgin/gaim back in the day? That kind of system could work on any medium rendering this whole thing completely pointless.

Fun days those were.

Somehow I think in the eyes of the politicians the next step would be that you can only install government approved chat apps on your phones.

Desire for control knows no limits.

> Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM

Their framing it as "Spam campaign" is just as awful, rather than "Outreach campaign". Politico is just another capital interests establishment outfit despite occasionally pretending otherwise.

> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures

Good, this is the person that should be blamed loud and clear

Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45473136

I'm sure the Stasi would very much agree with him.

The fact that he's actually saying this is incredible, and not in a good way.

I'd love to hear him explain the government exemptions in the bill with this in mind.

Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/danish-justice-min...

I'd love to see this argument transfered to physical mail. Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?

If that somehow seams reasonable on its face to someone, then I don't know where to begin a reasonable discussion.

The cops can intercept physical mail

Yes, but that parallel example is not relevant here because modern online messaging is profoundly different in crucial ways. Governments can (and do) intercept and store nearly all electronic messages which permits instant searching and deep cross-referencing of all content and sender/receiver metadata for every message ever sent by anyone, anywhere, at any time. None of which is true for physical mail. If you don't find that terrifying, you don't fully understand what it means.

When they do intercept physical mail messages, if the sender has encoded the message, in most democracies, the government is not permitted to compel the sender to decode the message. And even if you come under suspicion today and they start intercepting your physical mail, they can't have an LLM read ALL the physical letters you've ever sent at the press of a key. With electronic communications they don't even need suspicion first. The LLMs are already actively searching everything hunting for anything the government labels sufficiently "suspicious." The "Five Eyes" intelligence agencies have been capturing all email, instant messages and phone call metadata for more than 15 years already.

>> Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?

> The cops can intercept physical mail

You didn't answer the question...

The post you replied to mentioned encrypted messages

Yes but it too can be encrypted

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Perhaps the EU should consider adding access to secure encrypted communication to the human intrinsic rights to prevent such things in the future. He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for.

> He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for

...which is the government's fault and they should be blamed.

I'd love to have access to his private email then. Please lead by example, Peter!

He has no good explanations or arguments. He was beaten as a child by his father and now he is reproducing the abuse of power he experienced on all of us. I'm not even trying to be snarky, it's the only framing that can explain his behavior.

It's not even the fact that that belief is unfounded, but that he's actually equating a sense of security with security itself that makes that statement a bold yet easily overlooked lie. That he calls himself a social-democrat!

Wouldn't that party lean more towards early identification and rehabilitation of potential predators with therapy etc.?

Sexual orientation cannot be changed as far as science knows.

I was thinking about cognitive therapy to decrease the likelihood they would harm people as a result of the proclivities they cannot change. Some people have a natural urge to murder people all the time, if they learn to control it there is no reason they cannot contribute to society.

There's a program in Germany related to this, called Kein Täter Werden (to not become an abuser / don't become an absuer). I think it's controversial because the therapy is confidential, even if the participants have committed abuse.

Honest but hard question: do you believe evolution applies to humans.

I am worried what happens when those people who would otherwise be in prison instead have children and those children don't get this kind of therapy.

Do we have any evidence that sexual preference is genetic? My understanding was that it was primarily based on hormone levels during pregnancy, kind of like handedness. Some amount pf experience also certainly plays a factor when it comes to abusive behavior, people can turn people into abusers via abuse.

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Absurd

The quotes I've been seeing from him, makes him sound like a cartoon villain, I'm hoping for his sake he is misquoted.

> Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"

I mean, he's kinda right. It just depends on if you feel you're a target or not. If you're not the target, you feel an increased sense of security from any threat caused by the people who are the target.

A really obvious example is a dictator like Kim Jong Un: there's a huge amount of surveillance in North Korea, but all of it serves him and none of it threatens him.

So, especially someone kind of unthoughtful and ignorant of the complexities might feel "an increased sense of security" from this surveillance, because they know they're not a pedophile so assume surveillance purportedly targeted at pedophiles will do them no harm. You might even feel "more freedom" to the degree you feel pedophiles are a threat to you or your family.

It's not freedom if it's only afforded to a privileged few at the expense of everyone else. And no oppression is ever truly limited to the intended targets only. It'll always be abused and applied beyond the original or stated intent.

This guy is insane

He probably also believes that war equates to more peace.

Sounds like believer in managed democracy.

He's the one screaming "Dude, where's my Chat Control?" the loudest, but there are a lot of those digital-Stasi politicians

The bill is bad, but this is disingenuously stupid:

> Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

Obviously, many people will not because many are already caught not using any, and many more are just using simple consumer options that this legislation would eliminate.

We can agree that the legislation is horrible without lying to ourselves and asserting that it would have zero impact

Agree that it would have impact, but not the good kind.

The services that deal with CSAM would be flooded with false positives from the automated scanning. They would, in turn, have to find methods of short-cutting the assessment of these false positives so that they can actually function.

The real CSAM would be drowned out by family snaps of kids in pools, of teenagers sexting each other, etc. The ability of the relevant services to actually detect and catch real abusers would be severely hampered. Actual abuse would be caught less and more kids would be harmed.

Five minutes of thought leads to this obvious conclusion. Which implies that this was never about protecting kids in the first place. It's about controlling what people say, as always.

>Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.

MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON witch can be any of the following labels: hate speech, misinformation, fake news, woke left, radical right wing, Putin supporters, etc. Just spin the roulette and pick one.

>What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?

Yes, that's precisely how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdbF-nRJqs

> MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON

What a load of crap! There is still tons of "mainstream media" outlets that don't do this. One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian, there are hundreds like it.

The decision to toe the line, like the WaPo, are purely because of money (Jeff's and his readership's), not because anyone is "shutting them down" for X or Y.

The US is seeing lots of pressure on media because of not parroting the ruling party line. The current US president openly says any news he doesn't agree with is not only a lie but that the media companies are literally the enemies of the people. This doesn't even get into the tweet storms and the canceled programs in order to fall in line!

Your last point seems to be the parent's point as well -- if you want to keep your media business alive (to make money; that's what businesses are) in the US you have to be careful criticizing those currently in power. Unless I misunderstood you to and you meant that parroting the party line is a way to make more money but not doing it is also perfectly effective and not at all a risk.

>One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian

I used to like the Guardian in 2009-214 but now, I trust someone's "it came to me in a dream", before I trust The Guardian, given their recent flops and biases.

The quote from Yes, Prime Minster - "The only way to understand the press, is to remember that they pander to their readers prejudices" which makes those news aggregations sites more appealing, though cheaper to stick with other avenues for balance.

So much wisdom on comedy, even 80s comedy Who reads the papers? - Yes, Prime Minister - BBC comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

I haven't checked the Guardian in dept, but I believe they towed the same messaging during COVID as any other major Western publication and the same regarding the Russia / Ukraine situation right now.

Alternative voices are to be found on tight corners of the internet, like an individual on Twitter for example.

That doesn't make that much sense, those issues are ones that the Guardian would be aligned with anyway - at least in general. I'm pretty sure I've read disputing opinion pieces on there on both subjects.

If I didn't know any better, I would think you are describing Congress.

"Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM"

Why wouldn't they? It's a NATO aligned, pro-Israel rag under Axel Springer, of course they're helping to sell surveillance technology that can be abused by militaries and state agencies, one of the main israeli exports and generally appreciated industry by NATO.

I love it. Especially since:

> The campaign has irked some recipients. “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont, a German member of the European People’s Party group and its home affairs spokesperson, of the mass emails.

It is a dialog. Millions are against it, a few (powerful people) in favor. The powerful are too detached from reality and consider this "not a dialog".

On a meta level, it even gives them a taste of the millions of messages that‘d get flagged false positively monthly, overwhelming police and other systems.

> It is a dialog.

It's as much of a dialog as they allow for people to express their views. If I write a politician a well reasoned, thorough explanation of why I support or oppose something, the best outcome I get, as a non-lobbyist, is having a "for" or "against" viewpoint tallied into a giant bucket.

So if elected reps are going to distill our "dialog" down to an aggregated tally of support or opposition, then a canned email covers the entire dialog that's allowed.

We are very talented at distilling the noisy information going through the web each day into lists. Let’s distill diplomatic topics and their sub topics into lists as well. Let’s keep the lists around. They should be as indefinite as the topics they trace. Do some tech-AI-open-source-local-… stuff to compile our many mouths into the lists they belong. Unstructured data-> structured data.

Compile collective thought by semantic meaning. Each person should be able to influence the whole proportional to total participants of the list.

It could be a dialog! A dialog takes two sides. Now that the other side has finally heard the voice of literally millions of people who oppose Chat Control, it can respond intelligently, and a dialog would start.

Saying "it's not a dialog" is just evading the (uncomfortable) dialog. Maybe some MEPs are going to actually engage in the dialog.

Yes, and in fact, Lena's response is part of the dialog. And its dismissiveness is telling. Not only does it reflect her attitude toward her constituents, it also exposes her tacit premise that digital communications are somehow unreal.

It's as if, for her, only phone calls, speeches, or handwritten letters would be enough to start a dialog. She seems to be under the misapprehension that digital communication is something to which norms and laws and, fundamentally, rights don't apply. Which is a misguided and dangerous belief.

Textbook CDU conduct. The best democracy money can buy!!1

Saying “it’s not a dialogue” when someone tries to talk to you just means “don’t talk back, you don’t get a say”.

Representatives work for us. If they don't like the terms they can quit. The terms are that they enact the public demands. This does not require any form of "dialog." Their point of view in the role is irrelevant.

They have the additional duty of convening meetings to discover facts and information useful to the public and to the creation of new laws. In this they consult experts with specific questions relevant to current national interests. The experts are also not there to engage in "dialog" but to provide data.

In my entire life I've not seen "dialog" between a politician and a citizen produce anything useful other than tragic comedy.

Exactly. That's the right dialogue to have about this: repeated "no" combined with as much power and leverage can be brought to bear to get people out of office for trying.

Make it a radioactive career-ending move to try.

> The powerful are too detached from reality and consider this "not a dialog".

It's 2025. That the citizens don't have a government run website which allows them to register their sentiment, if not outright direct democratic vote, on every issue put before them is baffling to me.

Representatives made sense when horses were the fastest way to send news. They're a vestige on an otherwise powerful ideal.

Not to accuse the Germans but politicians rarely protest lobbying when it involves bribes.

Feel free to accuse the Germans. Russian bribes is basically why they have some of the most expensive energy in the world now. They're surprisingly corrupt for a "developed" "high tech" nation.

Search Gerhard Schroder for more info.

And Merkel, just as much as Schroeder.

Merkel was the worst european politician by a lightyear (or two). Maybe growing up in East Germany affected her negatively, don't know but these days she is a huge (and publicly outspoken) putin and russia apologist. Looking at history of her political moves, she was actually the same before, there just wasn't such an obvious war against whole Europe so it all could be labeled as 'low cost gas and oil is good', probably mixed with typical german 'we must atone for the sins of our grandparents' backwhipping.

Current russian war in Ukraine is also her doing. Making german military a joke, sending tens if not hundreds of billions euros to russia. She still admits no mistakes at all, despite being very actively hated across whole eastern part of EU. When asked directly about any of this she just goes into her fairy tale mental space not anchored in reality.

Overall she did a lot of long term harm. I don't believe she is evil at the core, just severely delusional, easy to manipulate and overall a bad, very bad leader. Wake me up when regular germans realize what rest of EU grokked a decade ago.

The fact that she gets a pass from lots of people is somewhat confusing to me. Clearly she is a major cause, whether through incompetence or malice isn't really all that important, though her most recent utterances make me now lean towards 'malice' more than 'incompetence' when before it was the latter (and a dose of hope that this time around it will be different).

This can't be, bribes can only happen in corrupt Eastern Europe. No way it's happening in founding EU member, they will be kicked out of the club at once

did you forget your /s?

Lena Düpont is an authoritarian and an enemy of free democracy.

Sounds like it could even be a “modal” dialog!

One interesting anecdote about this bill was that the European Commission allegedly funded digital advertisements promoting it, targeting specific political demographics, which is something that could possibly be prohibited by their own regulations.

https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-complaint-against-eu-commissio...

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transpare...

What the hell?

The EU is spending funds, given to it by member states, to further its own interests? This stinks.

Europol has also used tax payer funds for "research" to lobby for weakening end to end encryption

Absolute hero, and a slap in the face to many commenters here who seem to believe that individuals can’t have a political impact through the clever application of technology. Fairly simple technology at that. A good comparison is the deflock.me site that seems to be successfully raising awareness of widespread surveillance.

Note that this technology complemented ongoing campaigns rather than standing alone; that’s important. It would be difficult to have an impact by building a tool in isolation.

Yep, the tech doesn't have to be complex to be powerful. It just has to move people

The article is written in an extremely manipulating way, the following phrase will trigger the intended knee-jerk reaction in anyone reading this who is not already pretty familiar with the actual content of the proposal and its implications.

> "The website, called Fight Chat Control, was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark. He made it after learning of a new attempt to approve a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM)"

Now that the casual reader has already drawn a conclusion, they're also primed to dismiss the group referenced in the next sentence as as outliers and crazies (probably with hidden motives regarding CSAM):

> — a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance.

So yeah, thanks to Joachim for making this. Of course, it won't actually work, these people don't give a damn about the children, they just want total control, and surveillance and there's no lower bounds for what they will argue to achieve it.

The piece is likely a hired job by someone close to the EU commission. Of course not paid directly, but paid in favours inside the EU. It's unlikely the author is impartial.

Also the responsibility is put on one person. That's bonkers, the emails aren't sending themselves.

That's how it always work. You're against the genocide in Gaza? "Activists think Israel doesn't have a right to exist". You don't like ICE abducting people on the street? "Activists think we shouldn't punish crime". Etc. etc. On and on it goes, this incessant ballet of "moderate" media kissing power's boot, painting the most ungenerous portrait possible out of the people who actually care about bettering the world.

And when the wind turns, they'll quickly sweep these articles under the rug and pretend they were always on the right side of history, defending democracy and freedom on the front line.

> A website set up by an unknown Dane

> The website, called Fight Chat Control, was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark.

That's a lot of knowledge about an unknown person.

Further down the article explains:

> Joachim himself declined to provide his last name or workplace because his employer does not want to be associated with the campaign. POLITICO has verified his identity. Joachim said his employer has no commercial interest in the legislation, and he alone paid the costs associated with running the website.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was still targeted by the people and companies lobbying for the law.

Yeah, there were 119 people born in 1995 with first name Joachim, and 123 in 1994[0]. There is a pretty good chance that there is currently only one 30-years old Joachim employed as a software engineer in Aalborg.

[0]: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/navne-ti...

Could be a German immigrant. I don’t know much about Danish naming conventions, but I imagine Joachim is more prevalent in Germany.

Dunno, but there aren't enough German immigrants to do much to the statistics anyways.

Gosh I hope Joachim isn't his real name.

You can't fire people in Denmark for having the wrong opinions.

Work is more than being fired or not.

True, but having worked for quite a few software companies in that city, most probably agree with him. Hell, he'd probably get job offers.

But I don't blame him, the Danish minister of justice who is pushing for this bill is a complete nut job. So technically it go hurt him if he needs a security clearance with Danish police or military intelligence.

[flagged]

Yeah, a quick search says there's 21000 men aged 25-34 in Aalborg. Let's say an equal spread of 2100 men in each age, how many would be named Joachim? Probably a few dozens...

You can find statistics about number of people born in Denmark in a given year with a given name at https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/navne-ti...

There are 119 people born in 1995 with first name Joachim, and 123 in 1994. So probably somewhere around 120 30-year old Joachims in Denmark right now. About 3.75% of the population lives in Aalborg. So assuming an even distribution of 30-years old Joachims, we would expect 4-5 people in Aalborg. There seems to be a very good chance that there is only one possible software engineer named Joachim then.

The fake anonymity journalists often give to sources (‘Richard D , from small town X, aged 34, works as a carpenter specializing in 16th century house renovation’) is something I find rather striking.

What’s not clear to me though is whether they’re deliberately tricking their source, or whether they genuinely don’t understand that their source is not anonymous when they give that many details.

Over 2,000. It's not as common as Joe.

I think they mean of the ~2100 which are 30.

"unknown" means "not known by most", not just "not known by anyone"

I'm not as fiercy minded as Joachim, but this article is manipulative as hell:

   - "spam campaign"
   - "trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping CSAM"
   - "a bill _seen by privacy activists_ as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance" (emphasis mine).

> The journalism at its worst.

It's propaganda under the guise of journalism.

> a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance

Why not call it: "a proposal to break encryption and enact mass surveillance, claimed to be used to fight CSAM"?

How did the author decide which part to present as plain fact, and which as mere activist opinion? The choice isn't arbitrary - the proposal definitely will break encryption and enact mass surveillance - that's what the text of the proposal directly commands governments to do!

I guess such subtleties fade compared to the two bald lies in the title alone - it is not "spam" to simplify EU citizens contacting their representatives, and since that "spam" was sent by those citizens themselves, it is not a "one-man" campaign either, but a mass movement.

> Why not call it: "a proposal to break encryption and enact mass surveillance, claimed to be used to fight CSAM"?

That doesn't have the same ring to it to persuade clueless and weak politicians to support anything with the word "child" in it.

> How did the author decide which part to present as plain fact, and which as mere activist opinion?

They have a very obvious bias, and the parts supporting their bias are presented as positive.

Oh I'm not objecting to presenting some parts as negative and others as positive. I'm objecting to presenting some parts as uncontested truth, while others as mere "activists say" (especially since what those activists say is simply what is written in the law - there's no room for opinion).

Absolutely; that is a standard tool of biased writing.

See also the "exonerative tense".

Politico is being overly dramatic as usual.

While of course we’re grateful to the person who setup the website, this isn’t the first time a campaign against a piece of policy has included a website. Politico makes it sounds like it’s a fight between the little man and the “big parliament” but emailing your MEPs (the ones you elect every couple of years) has always been an effective way to signal your views. And yes, for bigger issues there have been websites and flyer actions to remind people to voice their views.

It’s democracy and absolutely a form of debate.

Also, I think Politico should absolutely review how they try to protect the identity of people they’re writing about because naming the guy and providing so much information in this day and age is just plain doxing.

FYI: Politico is owned by Axel Springer SE, a hateful, aggressive and undemocratic German media and news company.

They have also dumped their barely disguised spyware called Upday onto Samsung customers for years by preinstalling that crap

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the article is more-or-less fine, but the headline is ridiculous

> one-man ... campaign

it's a website that drafts an email for you, and then you send it yourself. it's an organizational tool, yes, but broad involvement is sorta the point

> spam campaign

gross mischaracterization, citizens sending emails to their govt representative for legitimate purposes - making their political opinion known to the politician - is not spam under any sane definition

It's also not a "one-man campaign".

The whole point of it is that it enables a duckton of people to campaign against it in an easy way. And much more noticeable than a stupid change.org petition where you're just one of an easily-ignored number on a website.

Ok, we've removed spam from the title above.

The site is linked in the article but adding it here: https://fightchatcontrol.eu

Please go have a look -- this is really well done with a clear message, good documentation and the call to action implemented very nicely (which is the background for TFA).

Do I need to be an EU citizen to reach out to a representative in this case, or do they represent all legal residents regardless of citizenship?

Politico is so wack, they cant cope with the fact people dont want a surveillance state.

Politico is owned by the Fox News of Germany (Springer/Bild).

I knew Politico was right wing. Better chat control than wrong think.

> Joachim himself declined to provide his last name or workplace because his employer does not want to be associated with the campaign. POLITICO has verified his identity. Joachim said his employer has no commercial interest in the legislation, and he alone paid the costs associated with running the website.

This type of approach from the journalist always confuses me. Why would his employer matter? What does that have to do with anything?

Because astroturfing is a real thing and because finding hidden loyalties is frequently a good indicator that the source has been lying.

Even before journalism was under a sustained assault from the right, clarifying potential conflicts of interest was fairly standard practice. Now, I see journalists more frequently bending over backwards to (futilely) preempt criticism.

I'm ususally not for both sides but in this case it would have been fair if the Politico Author had contrasted that with the ownership background of his own employer.

You read the article right? Would you say that it was written in an unbiased manor? Let's be honest, it was a poorly written piece of propaganda masquerading as journalism. Criticizing that isn't a "sustained assault". Its also quite clear that the left is no longer liberal in any way. Because liberals would oppose this type of censorship

Writing from a point of view only further necessitates due diligence, assuming the author wants to be convincing.

The alternative would be ultra-dry, wire-style reporting, That does exist because there's some demand from the left and center for that kind of journalism. Though I see little demand on the rights for just-the-facts reporting.

Funny, I see rating dropping for the networks which engage in the kind of propaganda masquerading as journalism that you claim has demand. What you don't seem to understand is that only worked because of the credibility that decades of just-the-facts reporting built up. Now that that is gone, so are the ratings. And doing more hit pieces doesn't reverse that. What would reverse that is just-the-facts reporting which builds up credibility. Also, on YouTube, the channels with the largest consistent viewership are often the ones that try to be unbiased, not your yellow journalism.

Because there is a difference in optics between a guy doing something and a company (with likely much larger resources) doing the same thing.

A person speaking up is cool. A company speaking up is lobbying.

The site fightchatcontrol.eu was posted here, though not much discussed per se - like all of these threads, it's pretty generic:

Fight Chat Control - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44856426 - Aug 2025 (498 comments)

(As for Chat Control threads in general, there are too many to list.)

> Joachim's campaign is blocking more traditional lobbyists and campaigners, too, they said. Mieke Schuurman, director at child rights group Eurochild, said the group’s messages are no longer reaching policymakers, who “increasingly respond with automated replies.”

So, previously they could blow off people like Mieke personally, and now they're getting too many messages to be able to do that. That seems like a pretty clear win.

Well I don't mind that they're blowing her off because she's campaigning to monitor everyone's communication.

I can't decide if it's entitlement or bias (false equivalence), that the group feel they deserve more of a voice than anyone else.

For any Danes out there, you can sign here: https://www.borgerforslag.dk/se-og-stoet-forslag/?Id=FT-2115...

I didn't know about this, thanks for posting it! Signing was very easy (MitID) and I sent it around in my circle as well.

I'm fascinated by ultra high impact, nonviolent interventions by individuals, such as this.

My favorite example was when a few people made Twitter accounts masquerading as large companies, bought a verified stamp, and then issued a couple tweets that single handedly wiped billions off the companies' stock prices.

If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.

> If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.

One that comes to mind is Keith Gill [1] of GameStop fame [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Gill

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze

He isn't alone, lots of people sent the emails from their personal account.

You can have outsized impact by participating in democracy.

> You can have outsized impact by participating in democracy.

That's exactly my point, the normal mode of "participating" in democracy is usually called voting, which, individually, in most elections, does nothing. Only in aggregate does a vote matter, there's not been an election decided by a single vote in my lifetime, that I'm aware of anyway. So in reality, to effectively participate in democracy at minimum requires doing something as an individual that causes more than just your vote to happen for the candidate you want. Door knocking or calls for example.

So just saying "participating" isn't enough because many people just interpret that as voting, which is an act with no individual impact.

I'm interested in actions individuals can take that have actual impact, and are thus individually empowering. I believe liberal democracy has made nations of sleepwalkers and the result is becoming apparent in the 21st century as governments seem to act more and more against the will of the people.

Your right that some people think voting means participating in democracy.

But public debate, petitions, the press, demonstrations, etc. is also an important part of democracy.

But really, if you want impact, don't do it individually: join a group, a party, an NGO, etc.

As an individual you shouldn't have much impact in a democracy. The fact there are many individuals trying kind works to keep the barrier for impact high - which is good, without it no stability.

How will the bill stop organized pedophile operations which certainly use specialized covert technologies, websites, messengers, sharing platforms unavailable in official app stores? Anyone thinking it's going to improve detection of such stuff is an idiot.

I'm sure these politicians are doing all they can to pressure the US into releasing the Epstein list. Since they seem to care so much /s

Isn't this an egregious headline for such a neutral article? I guess it's just clickbait, but I haven't previously found Politico to be this extreme.

And the article itself describes the actual setup accurately in one of the opening paragraphs, so clearly the author knows the facts:

> The site lets visitors compile a mass email warning about the bill and send it...

And most of the other headlines on their current front page are quite boring and descriptive.

"spam" is a grave mischaracterization, at that. It's a tool assisting citizens to voice their concerns to their elected representatives.

I also feel uneasy about Politico putting the lights on the creator this way and stopping short of doxxing them when they clearly wish to have their identity unknown and could face threats from having their personals broadcasted.

It's also telling that the two opponents to the bill named in the article are Musk and WhatsApp - hardly the most sympathetic picks for the Politico audience.

My main problem with Fight Chat Control is that it asks people to send messages to the wrong audience. The site asks me to contact members of the European /parliament/, while the proposal is being discussed by the EU /commission/, a completely different body.

The commissioners are not elected by the citizens of their respective countries. Instead, they are selected via a parliamentary vetting process, and approved by the European Parliament.

The commission has no direct responsibility towards the citizens in EU. It is also the European Parliament that scrutinized and votes on the laws created by the commission. The commission job is only to write proposal for laws.

This is a bit like complaining that people have objections about a politician speech and send emails to the politician rather than the employed person who wrote it. Should citizens direct their messages and complaints to speech writes?

This does not seem a fitting metaphor: you complain only after the politician has read that speech. But this whole campaign is about a speech that has not been written yet, i.e., a proposal that has not been finalized. You are writing to a MEP about a certain draft that is still being worked on, and that they might have to vote on in the future.

What do you expect them to answer, other than "thanks, I can do nothing for now, but I'll keep that in mind if and when I have to vote on it"? Why not wait and write to them when they actually have to vote on this proposal?

Just like a political speech writer do not invent what they write independently without some input and oversight by the politician, so does the commission.

This is also politics. You don't wait until last second to file a complaint. Politics is a slow moving process, not a single event, and creating support takes work over time. MEP are not subject experts so they will usually seek input long before it comes down to voting, which occur in parallel with the work of the commission.

"thanks, I can do nothing for now, but I'll keep that in mind if and when I have to vote on it"? is basically all that an citizens can expect by talking to a politician which only job is to vote on things. The same goes the other way around. If a politician today speaks about a political subject, I as a citizen can only say "thanks, I can do nothing for now, but I'll keep that in mind when its time to vote".

I don't understand. I thought politicians are a subset of the people. If millions are aware of the issue and the speech, why would the politicians be oblivious?

Yes you are correct, but technically the parliament passes the laws, so they have the final say. It should be the commission that gets slapped in the face (or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic), but what can you do...

>>or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic)

I never understood this argument. The comission's job is to write the laws, the parliment's job is to make sure they acceptable to all member states and either pass them or send them back.

It's the same how say, UK government uses various comissions to write legislation which then goes in front of the parliment which then either passes it or don't - and I don't think we would call the British system undemocratic(well, other than the monarchy and the house of lords - but the way the parliment works is deeply democratic). I don't believe any EU member state directly elects their law writers and comissions that propose them - the democratic part is always at the top.

I think it's fairly common that individual members of parliament do directly draft and submit their own bills, certainly it is not uncommon that they have the right to propose their own bills.

But by volume most of these bills are shit and so just quietly die in a vote nobody noticed, and so most law that we actually have was indeed drafted by a special commission and put forward by the executive before it was approved by parliament.

It sounds like it sends unsolicited mass email. For a good cause, but still, why isn't that a spam tool?

Sending correspondence to your legislative representatives about your opinion on a matter is NOT unsolicited email.

You are misinformed on three points.

It doesn't send anything but assists visitors to send on their own.

It is not unsolicited communication.

Politico is not an unbiased publication.

I mean, in the sense that your comment here was unsolicited, and thus spam, I suppose one could make a semantic argument? But generally "unsolicited" means that it's outside normal communication expectations: we expect people to post on a forum even if their opinion hasn't been explicitly solicited, and we equally expect people to communicate with their representatives.

That depends on how many comments you post in a short time and how repetitive they are. If it looks automated then I think it would be considered spam, at least informally.

Politico.eu is owned by Axel Springer, the same Axel Springer SE which received US$ 7m from the CIA back in the early 2000s [0].

It's the closest to a Fox News-esque entity in Western Europe, I believe. They also own BILD, a tabloid, and Die Welt, a newspaper that constantly publishes climate-skeptic articles, and also infamously published an op-ed by Musk supporting the AfD.

[0] https://taz.de/cia-und-presse/!734289/

Oh that’s why Elon was quoted in the article as if anything Elon has to say on this matter is relevant at all.

I agree, I feel like it gives the article a negative bias against the developer. Perhaps the editor wants to generate pressure against them or discourage further opposition?

At least it’s not a complete hit piece, if you ignore the title then it’s mostly balanced.

>trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.

I wouldn’t call that neutral.

Why?

That's what the bill's intentions are.

If you think it won't work or not be effective that doesn't change the stated intention.

If you think one or more of the proponents are lying that doesn't change what the article should state unless there is evidence

They already said "aimed at" which implies that's the goal instead of writing "that will stop child..."

It's not an opinion piece they are simplifying conveying information from both sides. The article even details that there is an opposition to the bill.

> Why? That's what the bill's intentions are.

It's always the stated intention, because it's hard to argue against "think of the children". From commentary on similar legislation in the UK:

https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy2...

> The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”

I have every expectation that Chat Control is either similar or is a blatant cash-grab by people interested in peddling technical "solutions", or both.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508537

They could say "notionally aimed at". The accusation of detractors would certainly include that that isn't the real goal, so to repeat it uncritically is a bit odd.

Because the bill obviously can‘t do that even if they would scan every message.

They are doctoring at the symptoms than the real issue. But that would mean more personnel and more money needed and less side effects like mass surveillance

> Isn't this an egregious headline for such a neutral article? ... And the article itself describes the actual setup accurately in one of the opening paragraphs, so clearly the author knows the facts

I would guess that the author is to involved with writing the headline. An awful lot of journalists have been up in arms the last decade over the editors writing new headlines that imply the opposite stance of the article itself...

> a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.

I really dislike this framing of the bill. It makes it seem like anyone crusading against the bill is against stopping the spread of CSAM, which is presumably the aim of the lawmakers who drafted this bill. But Politico played right into their hands.

Ah, nice. This actually helps me to feel less impotent about the issue. It feels like the umpteenth attempt, the politicians are starting to wear me down.

But now I've taken the time to send mails and at least feel like I have done _something_. See you next time, I guess! @ Politicians

There is a last minute petition from Chatkontrolle stoppen (German) which you can sign here: https://weact.campact.de/petitions/chatkontrolle-stoppen?sou...

318K signatures at the time of this posting, which means it gathered ~90K since yesterday. Please consider signing.

We should have an European Citizens Initiative petition to have this bill shutdown once and for all, so that the EP actually gets to discuss and act on it.

I agree but couldn't find information on how to do this on the EU websites; they are such a confusing mess. That said, if you can point me to a how-to I'll gladly initiate it.

I don't have time right now but I assume you found this already?

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/how-it-works_en

I signed an EU citizens initiative to keep EU citizenship for British citizens after brexit. I knew it was doomed to fail, as it made no real sense, but it wasn't a bother so I signed it anyway.

Thank you for that link - I actually didn't find it. In my defense, I was at the dentist's and in a lot of pain, so no Google-fu left.

The preconditions are:

1. find at least 7 people who sign up for running this campaign with me 2. Plan and document how I want to run this campaign.

This will require some planning. I can get to it by the end of next week.

I used the service and got 3 emails back, they were probably as ready-made as the one I sent, but still nice. The reply's were all from politicians from my country why are against ChatControl.

> EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules

This right here is the problem, a good leader leads by example, not exemption.

>But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures to get child abuse material off online platforms, said in a statement that his proposal is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.

That is the whole problem isn't it?

Should government be able to scan your personal data without your permission to fight crime?

If people want to get child abuse material off online platforms, then there are other things that needs to be dealt with than installing back doors for government to scan your personal files. This comment is just seems like some kind of hand weaving of excuse on the politician side to create infrastructure of massive surveillance state.

Politicians love pretending there's no public opposition until the emails flood in and make it impossible to ignore

In my country then they say it was "massive hate speech"…

Germany by any chance?

The EU hero of 2025.

Joachim is the one-man in right place. Thanks.

> a massive headache to those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.

No, what the actual fuck: it's a bill rolling out a CSAM scanner of unproven efficacy, but with severe side effects for privacy! See, one sentence, and immediately a reader sees that this is a nuanced, contested issue.

What kind of reporting is this, extremely one-sided. Politico, many such cases. Sad.

Is it possible to do this in the US or do I have to go through each politicians web form?

It's funny reading Americans being opposed to it, specially when their NSA can already do it

But that's not the point, if you want a society that's empowered by digital services, you need it to be safe and secure, 'chat control' (what a stupid name) is required

I just hate how even in that article, they can put the phrase "those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online." and to most regular people, it makes this dude sound like a bad guy. I mean why would he want to stop that?!?!

It's sad how complex us humans think we are when our behaviours boil down to fairly predictable animal and tribal responses.

And what I love about the general suffix above is that you can pop it on anything to make someone oppose to it sound bad: "those trying to implement mandatory home camera systems aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from happening."

Encryption, being abstract and technical, doesn't trigger the same gut reaction, so lawmakers get away with eroding it bit by bit

How are the EU legislators complaining about this like its a novel idea or somehow undemocratic? This sort of email templating website has been a fixture of contact your reps movements on the state and federal level for years in the states.

I also get a kick out of lobbyists complaining about it.

Sorry, but this is what democracy looks like.

I wrote a personal message.

But huge thanks to Joachim for making it easy!

Archive of FightChatControl [1] and Politico article [2]

[1] - https://archive.is/jchny

[2] - https://archive.is/0Dqys

I love tech and don’t want chat controls. It’s what I just get.

The current situation does not work.

Chat controls, government controls - are coming.

The underbelly of social and chat tech is filled with logic gremlins and impossible objects. They’re just constant metastasizing into monster.

And it’s absolutely natural that legal entities get legislated into existence to oppose them.

Go sit in a T&S Que. See the absurdity that has to be wrestled into workflows. See how individual voices and requests are reduced to KPIs.

Knowledge is power and so on - but knowledge must also be earned.

See what reality is for T&S or Ai safety or risk and compliance or what have you.

See the rift in reality as ideas, people and tech are mangled together.

At the very least you can know the absurdity of the reality we live with.

> Chat controls, government controls - are coming.

Not if the people continue to fight off each attempt. Looks like we may be winning this round. Each time we win this battle, the opposition becomes better organized/funded and citizens become more aware of what is going on. Each subsequent push will have less chance of success once we pass a key threshold; it seems to me that this may be the last big push, if we win here then the public won’t back future attempts. Then your only option to pass this will be removing democracy altogether.

I think you are underestimating how paranoid people are about "pedophiles. It's been used by politicians more and more to create a climate of fear so they can justify a more authoritian set up.

Because I promise you there are people who would give up a great of deal to solve child sex abuse crimes.

They just don't understand the actual risks due to manipulation

From where you speak about "T&S Que" I have no idea what you're talking about. You might have a point but I honestly don't follow (I don't even know what T&S is)

I take this to mean "trust and safety queue", i.e. the list of content that has been flagged for moderation review.

Ah ok. Trust and safety, another corporate euphemism.

But yeah moderators deal with shit. Not really a problem because they're already being replaced by AI.

In my town there was a meta moderation centre with thousands of people. They just fired them from one day to the next.

Worth looking at the website even if you're not in the EU or especially interested in privacy matters. It's well-designed and has a decent user flow for picking who to contact or omit.

If CSAM through social/communication platforms were the actual problem society wanted to address, it could simply make illegal for kids to use those platforms but put the onus of enforcement on parents and schools, and impose fines on any parents/school who allow their kids to participate on anything online--chat, games, social media, forums, and even SMS and phone calls. Of course, that's super-draconian, but way less so than installing mass surveillance.

If they can put Twitter links into their article, one would think they can also add links to the website they're writing about.

Thanks OP for adding it here!

Joachim - we need more of you.

Chat Control seems unabashedly evil.

What service is there that will allow this quantity of outbound email traffic? Asking for a friend.

He triggers the individual's own email in each case so it's distributed. Smart way, otherwise it's easily blocked

I used it ! and what a hero!! thank you thank you thank you!

I love the idea of making tools to make it easy for people to email their representatives, from their own mailboxes. Here's one I vibe coded for a specific purpose:

https://crocker.vercel.app/

After I made it, I came across something similar on another web site, but with some cool additional features:

- support for multiple 'campaigns'

- per-campaign questions (with drop down responses)

- AI to customize the email and subject, instead of just filling in a template

Can we do something similar in the US?

>> this is not a dialog

"I do not think that word means what [she] thinks it means"

it is like the article was written by the one who thought about chat control, the site is not against banning predators online! it's against massive surveillance.

I just want to say thanks to him!

And very poor article by Politico

On a side note, am I the only to find the CSAM acronym to be very unfortunate choice?

I love how we’re wringing our hands about the technological side of this fight.

If every time we found someone with CSAM on their hard drive, we swung them from a tree—folks would think twice before engaging in the production and distribution of CSAM.

We don’t need to break encryption. We need real, permanent, consequences that fit the crime.

> Elon Musk's X said Monday that the bill could enable "government instituted mass surveillance"

Do they have to mention that Elon Musk owns X every time they mention a post? I don't see how Elon owning X has anything to do with the content of a random X post.

Its not a random X post, its a corporate statement by X (which also happens to be in the form of a post on X, but that’s not the focus.)

Where is that spam?

> trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.

Nice try on framing. No, you don’t stop the spread of the material that way. It will just change distribution channel for the price of creating a tool for mass surveillance.

> A website set up by an unknown Dane

Next sentence,

> The website was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark

? Is this what journalism has come to? On top of calling this a spam campaign?

Presumably 'unknown' here means 'not famous or well-known', as in "she is a relative unknown".

Joachim is a male name at least where I'm from :)

as in "..."

describes an example sentence. I wasn't referring to Joachim :)

Oh sorry!

> Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ...

Yeah I feel so safe with hundreds of unknown people constantly looking over my shoulder /s

Politicians often derive a real sense of security from surveilance (of others) and quite possibly it may improve their actual security just look at Putin and Co.. If one looks at a broader picture and uses a longer term perspective chilling speech is not helping security at all but is extremely destructive.

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That's the UK

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