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Signal strongly opposes the newest #ChatControl proposal in Europe. Let there be no doubt: we will leave the EU market rather than undermine our privacy guarantees. This proposal--if passed and enforced against us--would require us to make this choice. It's surveillance wine in safety bottles. See more: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-possible-users-who-refuse-scanning-to-be-prevented-from-sharing-photos-and-links/ @echo_pbreyer 102 comments
@svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer We would not comply. Then what would happen would happen, which per the law would amount to somehow being prevented from operating in the EU. Likely through app store deplatforming but who knows. @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer I think they think that a MEP somewhere will wave a magic wand and you'll suddenly be unable to operate. I guess, in principle, it'd end up being a little like Iran - access only via side-loading and (potentially) using signal proxies. @ben @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer What is MEP ? What is that secret thing they pull off ? @svitvojimilioni @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer Sorry: MEP = Member of European Parliament There's no secret thing for them to use - it's just that some of the politicians seem to think there is (or, more accurately, that it's a problem for someone else to solve - like backdooring encryption so only they can see...) @ben fwiw, the parliament mostly opposes this. it's the council and individual governments of EU states that are pushing this bullshit under the cheap guise of BuT TeH cHiLdReN. @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer  @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer But the EU already mandated Apple let users sideload from outside the App Store. 😁 🤪 🤡 😈 @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer Apple still control notarization of apps available from alternative app stores. @chrisvest @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer Yes, in violation of EU mandate... @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer I actually consider it a strength of the EU that there are regularly two forces pulling in opposite directions.  @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer But you can only vote for one of them. Peak democracy here. 💀💀💀💀  @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer You vote for the state governments and you vote for the MEPs. The commission is the end result of the state governments and by MEPs. Doesn't differ from US practice of president appointing secretaries of state or of European practice of parliament majority appointing the prime minister (and they in turn the cabinet),stamped by the President. None of this is direct democracy, ofc, but I assume that wasn't your complaint.  @iju @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer You've just pointed out something that ~20million brexiters couldn't grasp. @gsymon @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer I suppose it would look different from English perspective as the winner of English election ends as the British PM, and singular ministers aren't as much in the spotlight. The Scottish or NIrish perspective would be different, which shows how the brexit-mentality rises from the privileged position the English enjoy in the British polity, leading to incorrect assumptions on representative democracy as a whole.  @iju @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer There is some level of state politicians trying to push stuff through the EU they can't get past their own parliament. For example, the Danish representative in the council voted for the patent directive, even though our parliament (and voters) were against. @leeloo @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer Not going to spend my Sunday going through everything's that's wrong in both facts and views of that post. @SrEstegosaurio @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer I didn't know the European heads of state are unelected. @pkraus @brar @dalias @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer Abstracted representative democracy if you wish.  Unfortunately Apple is not complying with this mandate and the EU doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.  @AudraTran And then suddenly and surprisingly they're whacked with a hefty fine... (I hope.)  Would you provide an alternative way for installing Signal in case you will be banned from distributing the app in the EU? I don't think there is any reason to not let users download the .apk directly from web. For example Steam does that. @cuu508  @Mer__edith @svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer I guess, the #EU would do the same to Signal as #CN did to #Monal (the iOS #Jabber client): They asked Apple to remove it from the regional app store and Apple submissively complied. Existing installations continue to work, though. https://monal-im.github.io/monal-im.org/post/00010-ios-banned/ @svitvojimilioni @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer ?? The phone number, which is linked to your Signal account, has a country code prefix, doesn't it?  @khaleesicodes @Mer__edith @edri @echo_pbreyer
I'm struggling to find information on who supports and who opposes this, especially in relation to local parties... Could you please point me to a few resources about that? @khaleesicodes @Mer__edith @edri I would love to be banned if I do not consent with their policy. Since 2020 I've been banned from most services owned by big tech. The remaining services of big tech who haven't banned me, I banned them myself. Since then, I have been using only trustable services with open source structure from organisations with good reputation on privacy and human rights. Outcome: my life has never been so simple, easy, quiet, productive, better. The people who do bad things will just find another way and then innocent users will be left with this. This proposal is a clear message: The government's right to know is more important than your right to privacy. @HikerGeek You’re right. As if those sharing child pornography aren’t already using other platforms. IF they’d ever catch anyone through this legislation, they would only be a scapegoat and a minuscule fraction of the overall pedophile population. @apollon @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer I want to know how does AI know the difference between two legitimate 14 yr olds flirting online and a predator posing as a 14 yr old trying to groom? Again it has little to do with preventing child abuse and all to do with the right of the government to watch you. @HikerGeek Simple: it wouldn’t lol. It’s all about control and power - a tale as old as time. @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer "... the chats of employees of security authorities and the military are also to be exempted from chat control." Well, isn't *that* interesting. "the chats of employees of security authorities and the military are also to be exempted from chat control" .. this means clients would need to identify who those people are, which is yet another potential privacy and security nightmare. does this actually make me glad the UK isn't in the EU any more so i get to continue using Signal? @dma @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer I'm sorry to burst the bubble, but the same thing could well happen here too, depending on how #Ofcom interprets the #OnlineSafetyAct. Despite amendments being raised, no explicit statement was put in the act explicitly protecting end-to-end encryption. So, I fear we are likely to end up with #ClientSideScanning here too. IIRC, there were similar carve outs for MPs etc. here too, although I could be wrong, my memory is hazy! @matthew @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer I'm slightly optimistic about the requirement that client scanning be feasible (not in the written legislation but in the guidance to Ofcom) before it's enforced. however that optimism is somewhat tempered by the rise in on device AI, and the possibility that it's seen as a feasible approach.  @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer that would mean i'd loose my contacts because I'm not going WhatsApp @Shadedlady @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer Me neither. Let' s see how it develops and hownit affects the other private messenger #threema .  @kainisenni @Mer__edith Absolutely this. To anyone who is tech savvy there are ways of sharing data that are secure. This policy is quite simply surveillance of the masses. I wanna add that this is not necessarily at criticism of the concept of European integration. And this is also not a European problem. People who don't know what they are doing are everywhere.  @kainisenni@vocalounge.cafe @Mer__edith@mastodon.world not understandI'd prefer "deliberately ignores" :) @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer It seems like chat control proposal is the wrong approach regardless of the noble intention of protecting minors. I wonder if any of the Spanish candidates in the EU elections have taken a clear stance about this. Any idea, @albertcuesta ?  @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer My Signal account is on my UK mobile number, but since Brexshit my mobile operator has screwed us in that we can not call without an EU bundle, and then the EU bundle isn't seen as a paid event. So, basically the only thing we can do is top-up within the 180 days.  @AngelaScholder @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer Couldn't you do like European car makers? One version with filter for the authorities, one without for users? @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer I am not too surprised that the EU is threatening its constituency. I hope you will not do the same. 💪👊 @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer I think you've clarified this before, but "leave the EU market" means "treat the EU as a hostile regime whose people we need to provide circumvention tools from outside the jurisdiction" rather than "leave EU users behind", right? @dalias @echo_pbreyer Yes. TLDR we would not comply. Then they'd take whichever action they'd take in response to remove us from the market.  @Mer__edith @dalias @echo_pbreyer hopefully Switzerland will never comply with such stupid ideologies... @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer If/when the EU bans Signal, some years will pass and this will become normalized. Then gov't apparatchiks will suggest adding some "reasonable" classes of forbidden content...  @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer This article said one proposal would prevent people who opted out of scanning from sharing links, which seems like a great illustration of the futility of this project (even aside from its harmfulness). If you can’t write “example.com”, you can surely write “example dot com”, let alone any fancier sort of encoding. Look at all the ways people get around Instagram’s lack of links!  @Mer__edith @signalapp @echo_pbreyer You're a free chat app why do you keep using the word "market" like you're a for-profit company? What goods and services are you selling to the European market?
@Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer if this passes, it'd set a prescedent that this kind of shit is okay, leading to more and more democracy-threatening proposals like this coming up. For a bloc that's one of the last bastions of democracy in the world, this getting as far as it has is incredibly disheartening. Sliding down the slippery slope into authoritarianism would hurt everyone within the EU and definitely wouldn't help The Children. Please hold those in charge accountable while you still can.  Happy to read that, even if that's not really a new song from Signal. https://signal.org/blog/uk-online-safety-bill/  @Meredith Whittaker -> @EDRi has a good read on this, too: https://edri.org/our-work/be-scanned-or-get-banned/
Dear lord, where will I ever continue to receive updates for this internationally-developed open source application? 😱 (Regional app store blocks would still suck, but if officials think that anything short of a Great Firewall equivalent would accomplish what they're after ... yeah, not happening.) @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer As some politicians do use Signal, it will be interesting if they saw off a branch from under themselves.   Can we do this to surveil you? Think of the children! No. Ok, how about this? Um, no. This? Goddamnit! It's the same damn pig you just switched shades of lipstick!!! Ok, how about this. Oh FFS. @Mer__edith this is why I love signal. Thank you for fighting the good fight 🫡  @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer or you could just make signal federated to get rid of this nonsense. Which I think is totally viable as long as the server protocol doesn't have to change. @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer EU citizens, a timely reminder that you will be able to vote for your member of Parliament in about a week This problematic law is coming from the Council (the upper house of the EU legislative branch representing the member governments) It can be stopped by either the Parliament (the lower house of the EU legislative branch, representing the people) or the Commission (the EU executive branch, over whose composition the Parliament has some influence) MEPs have power @eob@social.coop @Mer__edith@mastodon.world @echo_pbreyer@digitalcourage.social is there any information available on what the stance of the various European parliament groups is on the issue?  @eob @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer There are #EuropeanElections next week. It would be very helpful if somebody could provide a list of positions of each candidate on the proposed legislation. @mcepl @eob @Mer__edith We managed to convince all groups to support a European Parliament position that excludes #ChatControl and protects encryption. But when it comes to allowing industry to snoop voluntarily (#ChatControl 1.0), Parliament is divided. Check out this vote on it: https://mepwatch.eu/9/vote.html?v=167712 @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer as a European, I can support that choice, but I wish for Signal to reconsider being packaged on f-droid if that happens, so that truely privacy aware people can still circumvent the EU-directive @gsymon @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer by no way with loosing privacy for everyone. Saying it's for children protection is just a lie to get supported by uninformed folks. Including politicians without knowledge or decency. You could answer this yourself so it is not helpful to ask such a silly question, but to give you the obvious answer - sure there is child abuse. So just to be clear... you think that in this situation, making no effort to prevent child abuse is OK? You prefer that, to having your data visible to law enforcement? The one thing I do know, is that humanity includes horrible, narcissistic people and that if you give them the opportunity, they will take it. You might consider the looong history of the Catholic church, as an example. @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer @Piratenpartij Ze blijven het maar proberen. Stem aankomende #EP2024 donderdag 6 juni voor #privacy vriendelijke partijen. Laten we er in de EU ajb geen surveillance staat van maken. @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer When will your privacy guarantees include not tying Signal accounts to phone numbers and not scanning users' contacts? @cholling @echo_pbreyer We don't scan your contacts. You can use a username to keep your phone number private from those you communicate w/on Signal.  @Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer not only is this privacy invasive af, it prevents the #Fediverse from supporting any form of image upload in the EU - fedi servers are small and cannot support running any form of UEC including AI, and will never rely on centralized corporate or government services to do so. |
Gregory's Server
@Mer__edith @echo_pbreyer
How would you exactly leave EU market ? Ban all ips from eu?