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Denmark reportedly withdraws Chat Control proposal following controversy

(therecord.media)
568 points layer8 | 2 comments | 30 Oct 25 21:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.446s | source
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ineedasername ◴[31 Oct 25 03:35 UTC] No.45768131[source]▶
I’m continually astounded that so many people, faced with a societal problem, reflexively turn to “Hmmm, perhaps if we monitored and read and listened to every single thing that every person does, all of the time…”

As though it would 1) be a practical possibility and 2) be effective.

Compounding the issue is that the more technology can solve #1, the more these people fixate on it as the solution without regards to the lack of #2.

I wish there were a way, once and for all, to prevent this ridiculous idea from taking hold over and over again. If I could get a hold of such people when these ideas were in their infancy… perhaps I should monitor everything everyone does and watch for people considering the same as a solution to their problem… ah well, no, still don’t see how that follows logically as a reasonable solution.

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usernomdeguerre ◴[31 Oct 25 04:05 UTC] No.45768311[source]▶
The issue is that there is a place where this model ~is working. It's in China and Russia. The GFW, its Russian equivalent, and the national security laws binding all of their tech companies and public discussion do exactly these things in a way that has allowed their leadership to go unchallenged for decades now.

The rest of the world isn't stupid or silly for suggesting these policies. They're following a proven effective model for the outcomes they are looking for.

We do ourselves a disservice by acting like there is some inherent flaw in it.

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1. pessimizer ◴[31 Oct 25 12:12 UTC] No.45771169[source]▶
This is simply not true, this is Western paranoid fantasy. It's also the kind of fantasy that allows escalation of surveillance and censorship. You should look up the "missile gap."

Also, Russian and especially Chinese leadership doesn't go unchallenged. Chinese leadership has had many transitions. While Putin has squatted on the leadership of Russia for a very long time now, it isn't because he's not popular, and he's forced to do a lot of things he'd rather not do because of pressure on his leadership.

How do the neoliberal rulers in the West stay on top with extreme minorities of popular support, like in France or the UK? Why does popular opinion have no effect on the politics of the US*, and why are its politics completely run by two private clubs with the same billionaire financial supporters (that also finance politics all over the rest of the West)? How do they do it without massive surveillance, censorship and information control? Or a better question: how can we be given the evidence of massive surveillance efforts and huge operations dedicated to censorship and information control, over and over again, and still point to the East when we talk about the subject? Isn't that "whataboutism"?

* "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595

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2. nradov ◴[31 Oct 25 17:35 UTC] No.45774560[source]▶
Chinese Communist Party leadership had many transitions before Xi Jinping purged all rivals and alternative power centers, and personally took control of all key decision making. It will be "interesting" to see what happens when he finally dies.