Not the person you replied to, but this isn't constructive. Correctly pointing out hypocrisy/double standards is very pertinent to the discussion, and shouldn't be dismissed as "whataboutism". Making assumptions about someone who disagrees with you -- in this case, the assumption that he/she is a Kremlin sympathiser -- is irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
> The first thing that comes to mind when I think of the South Korean government is the storied tradition of physical confrontation in their parliament along with more than a few viral videos of brawls and such over the years
I understand your skepticism, but here is an interview from April 2025 with the founder of VYRIY, a Ukrainian drone company: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accura... According to him, Russian drones are far superior. "In terms of [Ukrainian drone vs Russian drone] quality, well, like 10% vs. 80%. It’s not even comparable,” Oleksii Babenko sums up.
Again, I don’t trust sources that are random quotes on the interwebs during a conflict where people are dying (or corporate PR speak) but maybe that’s a me problem?
> It would lower the cost of acquiring the data for China and Russia
Yes, it would lower such barriers for countries that are commonly seen today as Europe's adversaries. But in this case, the U.S. (or rather, U.S. organisations and corporations) might be the primary bad actor pushing for ChatControl. See e.g.:
"Thorn works with a group of technology partners who serve the organization as members of the Technology Task Force. The goal of the program includes developing technological barriers and initiatives to ensure the safety of children online and deter sexual predators on the Internet. Various corporate members of the task force include Facebook, Google, Irdeto, Microsoft, Mozilla, Palantir, Salesforce Foundation, Symantec, and Twitter.[7] ... Netzpolitik.org and the investigative platform Follow the Money criticize that "Thorn has blurred the line between advocacy for children’s rights and its own interest as a vendor of scanning software."[11][12] The possible conflict of interest has also been picked up by Balkan Insight,[13] Le Monde,[14] and El Diario.[15] A documentary by the German public-service television broadcaster ZDF criticizes Thorn’s influence on the legislative process of the European Union for a law from which Thorn would profit financially.[16][17] A move of a former member of Europol to Thorn has been found to be maladministration by the European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly.[18][19]"
Additionally, it would not surprise me at all if Palantir is lobbying for this either. Many EU countries, like Germany and Denmark, have already integrated Palantir's software into the intelligence, defence, and policing arms of their governments.
But at the end of the day, while it is convenient to blame external actors like U.S. corporations, ultimately the blame lies solely on the shoulders of European politicians. People in positions of power will tend to seek more, and I'm sure European politicians are more than happy to wield these tools for their own gain regardless of whether Palantir or Thorn is lobbying them.
> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise
And the willingness and ability to enforce it. The current iteration of ChatControl is pushed by Denmark, which is at present the President of the Council of the European Union. The Danish Constitution itself enshrines the right to privacy of communication [0], but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway.
In the Netherlands we have the “Eerste kamer” (first chamber, also called Senate) that is responsible for verifying that the proposed laws are in accordance with our “constitution”. They are elected of band with the normal government which should ensure that no single party is able to steamroll laws through both chambers.
In theory the "Bundespräsident" in Germany is supposed to only ratify laws that are in accordance with the constitution, but I don't think it happens that he refuses to do this.
> but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway.
What the TLDR of the motivation behind this? Is it just politicians playing to their base (think of the children) or corporate lobbying. or religion, etc?
Seems to me that the negatives of passing something like this are super obvious and dystopian.
I suspect it's a mix of many Danish politicians' own authoritarian tendencies/ambitions and corporate lobbying, though I have no proof of the latter when it comes to ChatControl specifically.
Generally speaking, the Danish government also tends to behave in authoritarian ways. E.g., Denmark has wilfully violated EU regulations on data retention for many, many years. In 2021, a Danish court ruled that the Danish Ministry of Justice could continue its mass surveillance practices even though they were (and still are) illegal under EU law: https://www.information.dk/indland/2021/06/justitsministerie...
Currently Denmark is also trying to leverage its position as the President of the Council of the EU to legalise, on a EU-wide level, the form of data retention that Denmark has been illegally practising: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...
Interesting. I am not expert on politics of Denmark, so my question is: is this push universal across political parties or it’s a feature of a specific political block that rules for the past X years and consistently worked in this direction?
Generalized, this looks to me like a question about why humans sometimes get hell-bent about some idea and become blind to the side effects and ignorant when it comes to risk management.
Sometimes it could be malice or personal gains. Sometimes, I think, it could be just a strong bias towards some idea that causes a mental blindness. Such blindness can happen to anyone, at any level of power (or lack thereof), politicians are not unique in this - the only difference is the scope of impact due to the power they have. And we aren't particularly filtering them against such behavior - on the contrary, I feel that many people want politicians to have an agenda and even cheer when they put their agenda above the actual reality, any consequences be damned.
Nearly impossible for anyone who isn't proficient in Mandarin to do this. Western journalists tend to be extremely biased in favour of the DPP, because DPP's anti-PRC rhetoric aligns with the West's own anti-PRC biases.
Thanks for this insightful rebuttal. I've briefly fact-checked what you wrote (don't take this personally; it's just something I do), and your timeline is overall correct.
I've noticed that alephnerd's comments are often tinted with pro-U.S. propaganda. Note that I'm not accusing him of being disingenuous or malicious. I think he shares his thoughts and viewpoints in good faith. But his bias is very obvious when he writes about topics I'm familiar with, which makes me a bit skeptical when he writes about topics I'm not familiar with.
Not the person you replied to, but this isn't constructive. Correctly pointing out hypocrisy/double standards is very pertinent to the discussion, and shouldn't be dismissed as "whataboutism". Making assumptions about someone who disagrees with you -- in this case, the assumption that he/she is a Kremlin sympathiser -- is irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
reply