End of "Chat Control": EU parliament stops mass surveillance

3/26/2026 at 12:36:23 PM

> Despite today’s victory, further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out. Most of all, the trilogue negotiations on a permanent child protection regulation (Chat Control 2.0) are continuing under severe time pressure. There, too, EU governments continue to insist on their demand for “voluntary” indiscriminate Chat Control.

> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals.

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 7:14:57 PM

> further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out

In a democracy, we don't kill our opposition. If they hold views we don't like, e.g. that security trumps privacy, they're going to litigate them. Probably their whole lives. That means they'll keep bringing up the same ideas. And you'll have to keep defeating them. But there are two corollaries.

One: Passing legislation takes as much work as repealing it; but unpassed legislation has no force of law. Being on the side that's keeping legislation from being passed is the stronger position. You have the status quo on your side. (The only stronger hand is the side fighting to keep legislation from being repealed. Then you have both the status quo and force of law on your side.)

Two: Legislative wants are unlimited. Once a group has invested into political machinery and organisation, they're not going to go home after passing their law. Thus, repeatedly failing to pass a law represents a successful bulwark. It's a resource sink for the defense, yes. But the defense gets to hold onto the status quo. The offense is sinking resources into the same fight, except with nothing to show for it. (Both sides' machines get honed.)

Each generation tends to have a set of issues they continuously battle. The status quo that persists or emerges in their wake forms a bedrock the next generations take for granted. This is the work of a democracy. Constantly working to convince your fellow citizens that your position deserves priority. Because the alternative is the people in power killing those who disagree with them.

by JumpCrisscross

3/27/2026 at 2:09:12 AM

This perspective, not unique to the parent, assumes you have to play defense indefinitely, but (as with many beliefs) the assumption is the problem: Stop playing defense and go on offense.

Pass laws that actively enhance privacy, that make it technically (e.g., require E2EE) and legally harder to surveil citizens, that require data minimization, that impose retention limits, that require higher standards for accessing surveillance content (e.g., warrants); pass amendments to constitutions, etc. How do you think current privacy protections happened in the first place?

Going on offense not only improves privacy, it forces the other side to use their resources playing defense and trying to keep up.

The 'one battle after another' defensive perspective is for people who have half-quit (I'm not talking about the parent here, but more generally). It fits the culture of despair that permeates every political grouping but the far right - they have plenty of initiative and creativity, and certainly don't hold back and play defense. You can do that too.

Maybe a more familiar analogy: It also fits the behavior of exhausted status quo market participants, companies that have lost their drive and innovation and are hanging onto their old ways instead of aggressively moving forward.

by mmooss

3/27/2026 at 2:47:28 AM

> Going on offense not only improves privacy, it forces the other side to use their resources play defense and trying to keep up

One thousand percent.

by JumpCrisscross

3/26/2026 at 8:44:34 PM

It seems to me that "no and don't ask again" should be a possible outcome of a vote on proposed legislation.

Without going into full detail on the procedure I'm imagining, such an outcome would bar consideration of equivalent legislation for several years and require a supermajority at several stages of the legislative process to override.

by Zak

3/26/2026 at 8:53:59 PM

The EU parliament is not a real parliament since it can't choose which laws it has to vote for, and in negociations ("trilogue") it doesn't hold the pen.

Basically, it can oppose new legislations but can't retract old laws.

by Saline9515

3/27/2026 at 2:46:34 AM

> seems to me that "no and don't ask again" should be a possible outcome of a vote on proposed legislation

It can't be. At least not in a legislature. Defining what is the same question is itself a political question. And past legislatures being able to bind future ones is just a futurecasting veto. A single crap election could poison the pool on a raft of issues for generations.

The proper way to do this is through constitutional amendments. The fact that these are too difficult to do, currently, seems to be the bug.

by JumpCrisscross

3/27/2026 at 4:25:55 AM

Ah, but if they were easier to do, would they be as effectice at stopping "bad" legislation?

by bitwize

3/30/2026 at 7:06:39 AM

What you propose is totalitarian and not democratic.

by izacus

3/27/2026 at 10:54:39 AM

Ironically, just like many software users, the EU Parliament is not given the option to say "no", only "ask me later".

Anyone who’s ever been unable to dismiss a nag and forced to defer via "Ask me later" knows the feeling of powerlessness and disenfranchisement deliberately planted by those making UX decisions. .. or the EU constitutional framework.

by fwn

3/26/2026 at 7:59:00 PM

You have “centralised democracy”, a form of democracy where decisions, once debated and adopted, are implemented uniformly throughout an organisation. They are not debated a second time, and there’s no room for dissenting against decisions already made.

It’s a double-edge sword though: if something you dislike gets votes, it’s never going away.

by WhyNotHugo

3/26/2026 at 8:33:02 PM

> They are not debated a second time, and there’s no room for dissenting against decisions already made

Of course they are and of course there is. The "EU passed a temporary derogation" to the ePrivacy Directive in 2021 "called Chat Control 1.0 by critics" [1]. That is now dead [2].

> if something you dislike gets votes, it’s never going away

Weird to be saying precedent is infintely binding in 2026 of all years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_Control#Legislative_proce...

[2] https://x.com/NoToDigitalID/status/2037213272131203339

by JumpCrisscross

3/28/2026 at 9:16:37 AM

The sentence which you are quoting is referencing the concept described in the previous sentence of the same paragraph. It is not describing the EU’s form of democracy.

by WhyNotHugo

3/26/2026 at 8:57:37 PM

The EU parliament can't retract existing laws if the EC doesn't agree and proposes a law doing it.

by Saline9515

3/26/2026 at 8:27:40 PM

Yes, if I don't like something, I can't just ignore it. That is called democracy, and rule of law. Democracy is often interpreted to mean only things I like get passed, but that is incorrect.

by gzread

3/26/2026 at 7:22:49 PM

Great comment, thank you. I know that I could simply upvote, but this deserved more.

by lpcvoid

3/26/2026 at 8:09:20 PM

JumpCrisscross for President

by BandOfBots

3/26/2026 at 9:41:25 PM

Read about the paradox of tolerance.

I'm not saying you unalive your opposition, but you do need to make them suffer consequences if they push the boundaries to get what they want.

by lenerdenator

3/27/2026 at 2:14:35 AM

A cheap justification for violating one's professed ideals.

by fc417fc802

3/27/2026 at 11:19:18 PM

Not really. Did democratic nations violate their ideals when they fought Nazi Germany in WWII?

After all, Hitler did come to power democratically. He made it very clear what he wanted to do, and the Weimar government didn't stop him, thinking that they could just have voters see through his act. How'd that turn out?

by lenerdenator

3/28/2026 at 3:08:04 AM

An empty rebuttal. If the US democratically - by popular vote - decided to annex Canada would that mean Canadians waging war against the US or allies that stepped in to help them were going against the ideals of liberalism? There's no paradox to be had there. It is entirely possible for multiple liberal parties to disagree and end up at war.

Where people like to apply that phrase is when handling domestic affairs in a blatantly hypocritical manner. Such as banning certain speech, publications, or political activities while still claiming to honor the tenants of liberalism. In that context it's nothing more than a fig leaf to cover for one's own lack of integrity.

by fc417fc802

3/26/2026 at 5:50:19 PM

"> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals."

Perhaps this is bad news for "messenger and chat services, as well as app stores" who solicit "users" to exploit them for commercial gain, for example _if_ users are unwilling to accept "age verification" and decide to stop using them. The keyword is "if"

The third parties know it's possible for capable users to communicate with each other without using third party "chat and messenger services" intermediaries that conduct data collection, surveillance and/or online ad services as a "business model". Thus the third party "tech" company intermediaries strive to make their "free services" more convenient than DIY, i.e., communication without using third party intermediation by so-called "tech" companies

But users may decide that "age verification" is acceptable. For many years, HN comments have repeatedly insisted that "most users" do not care about data collection or surveillance or online advertising, that users don't care about privacy. Advocates of "Big Tech" and other so-called "tech" companies argue that by using such third party services, users are consciously _choosing_ convenience over privacy

Perhaps the greatest threat to civil liberties is the mass data collection and surveillance conducted by so-called "tech" companies. The "age verification" debate provides a vivid illustration of why allowing such companies to collect data and surveil without restriction only makes it easier for governments that seek to encroach upon civil liberties. While governments may operate under legal and financial constraints that effectively limit their ability to conduct mass surveillance, the companies operate freely, creating enormous repositories that governments can use their authority to tap into

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

3/26/2026 at 6:41:21 PM

There's a fairly non-invasive way to do age verification: ID cards that connect to a smartphone app that only provide a boolean age verification to the requesting service. Requesting service can be anonymous to the ID app and the requesting service can only receive a bool.

That most implementation will try to collect far more data is the real concern.

by sveme

3/26/2026 at 9:01:50 PM

The goal isn't child protection but surveillance and profits for kyc companies.

by Saline9515

3/27/2026 at 2:32:14 PM

My German ID can do that already AFAIK.

by maxhille

3/26/2026 at 8:28:32 PM

There's an even easier one: When you buy a phone, the salesman checks your ID and sets the phone to child lock mode or unlocked mode.

by gzread

3/26/2026 at 9:01:16 PM

Phones should have no locks unless the user installs them and holds the keys.

by matheusmoreira

3/27/2026 at 12:47:15 AM

Parents can hold the keys for underaged?

by eipi10_hn

3/27/2026 at 9:42:48 AM

That arrangement is OK. It exactly mirrors things like car keys. The problem is giving the keys to the corporations or the government.

by matheusmoreira

3/26/2026 at 9:20:31 PM

Why?

by umanwizard

3/26/2026 at 10:02:20 PM

Because if we don't have the keys to the machine, then we don't actually own our computers. If we don't own our computers, then we have no freedom.

Because everything the word "hacker" ever stood for will be destroyed if this nonsense gets normalized. The day governments get to decide what software "your" computer can run is the day it's all over.

by matheusmoreira

3/27/2026 at 3:54:10 AM

The salesman would give you the key if you're over 18

by gzread

3/26/2026 at 10:38:43 PM

> Because if we don't have the keys to the machine, then we don't actually own our computers.

It is not self-evident to me that people under 18 should "own [their] computers" or have unrestricted "freedom".

by umanwizard

3/27/2026 at 7:25:21 AM

In the modern world, this is like saying people under 18 shouldn't have the freedom to be able to read and write. We would be decades back into digital stone age if we had held onto such a preposterous idea in the 80's and 90's. Virtually everything we have now is basically built by people who were hacking on their computers in elementary school and exercising their freedom of speech in terms of writing code freely at the discretion of their own imagination.

by yason

3/27/2026 at 2:19:29 AM

Think about how the proposed idea would most likely be implemented. It would be used as justification for manufacturers to sell devices that the end use doesn't control. They already do that; this would give them legal justification.

by fc417fc802

3/27/2026 at 8:26:06 AM

Then their parents should own it. Not the corporations, and certainly not the government.

by matheusmoreira

3/26/2026 at 9:00:49 PM

So you are against paid services? Who manages the servers, updates apps, and distributes them?

by Saline9515

3/27/2026 at 12:02:01 PM

I'm not sure about op, but as someone who agrees with their comment, yes, I absolutely am. I despise 99% of all digital """services""" that exist. Whether it's cloud, music/movies/series/whatever streaming, subscriptions of almost any kind... They're all extremely dystopian and anti-human. I sail the high seas for almost everything I consume digitally. When I want to support a creator I enjoy, I pay them directly (buy their merch, buy a physical copy of their album, purchase their game and dlcs, or simply directly donate).

In my opinion, corporations being allowed free reign and control over the internet and digital world in general without guardrails was *THE* biggest legislative mistake (although I believe it was done on purpose )in the past century, considering how the internet will most definitely be the defining factor of the era we're currently living in in future textbooks; if we make it that far at least.

I don't think most people understand the sheer magnitude of the damage that corporate slop, control, anti-competitiveness and pursuit of infinite growth at all costs has done to our technological capabilities and advancement.

Hardware is the only area of tech that continually gets better, whilst software continually regresses and gets worse. 90% of "new" code is web-based slop (and now AI generated web slop) that hogs memory and cpu usage, completely undermining all advances in hardware just because companies weren't willing to pay the extra buck to program a native solution that wouldn't force its users to purchase new machines.

If it wasn't for corporate (and many programmers') lazyness, computers from over a decade ago would still be fully functional, fully usable machines that could do the most bleeding-edge of tasks, safe for maybe the most graphically-demanding games and rendering.

And then maybe programmers could focus on actually advancing the science that is writing code, instead of building yet another fucking REST API and React UI. And don't forget to package it all in electron to fuck your users as much as possible, and dodge any need for real engineering.

Companies can just keep offloading costs unto the user, making users buy machines 10x as powerful as the ones they had 5 years ago, just to do the exact same tasks, but 20x slower. But at least they have a nice looking UI right?

by kode-targz

3/27/2026 at 7:02:41 PM

What prevents you from using Debian and a FOSS stack?

by Saline9515

3/27/2026 at 10:30:41 PM

Not much yet, that's pretty much what I do, although I run void linux and arch on my machines. But even Linux isn't safe; what if other countries adopt the OS-level age-verification laws that california is pursuing? very few distros will be safe. And then all they need to do (and you can bet that's exactly what they'd do) is keep squeezing, taking away freedom gradually until most linux distros require you to submit a digital ID on install. And chances are, the few distros and maintainers that go against that would be completely cut off from the mainstream tech ecosystem (which would make them barely usable in this day and age, at least as long as you live in a city with a job and rent and all).

This may sound like a slippery slope fallacy and it may indeed be that, but I can't think of any other possibility if we just let stuff like this keep happening. It may seem like we're just giving an inch now but in 5 years you'll suddenly realize they've taken a mile.

by kode-targz

3/26/2026 at 4:20:56 PM

The timing of having Meta dropping encrypted chats on Instagram is...interesting.

by brightball

3/26/2026 at 4:37:20 PM

"Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification."

Trilogues should be burned down, closed doors meetings with Ministers writing laws from their own services.

by zoobab

3/26/2026 at 10:52:43 PM

The trilogue is the interaction between eu commission, eu parliament and eu council. The commission proposes, parliament and country governments argue and ask for changes. The parliament has the last vote anyway. Maybe you're thinking of something else.

by riffraff

3/26/2026 at 5:34:36 PM

See you soon folks!

by pnt12

3/26/2026 at 2:12:25 PM

Here is the EPP's plea to get this passed earlier.

They even used a teddy bear image.

https://www.eppgroup.eu/newsroom/epp-urges-support-for-last-...

"Protecting children is not optional," said Lena Düpont MEP, EPP Group spokeswoman on Legal and Home Affairs. "We call on the S&D Group to stop hiding behind excuses and finally take responsibility. We cannot afford a safe haven for child abusers online. Every delay leaves children exposed and offenders unchallenged."

Personally, I feel there must be other privacy-preserving ways to address child abusers than mass surveillance.

Also, for the record, here is the list of parties that lobbied for this for Mrs Düpont, alongside very few privacy-focused organisations. Not sure why Canada or Australia are lobbying for EU laws.

ANNEX: LIST OF ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

- Access Now

- Australian eSafety Commissioner

- Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer (BRAK)

- Canadian Centre for Child Protection

- cdt - Center for Democracy & Technology

- eco - Association of the Internet Industry

- EDPS

- EDRI

- Facebook

- Fundamental Rights Agency

- Improving the digital environment for children (regrouping several child protection NGOs across the EU and beyond, including Missing Children Europe, Child Focus)

- INHOPE – the International Association of Internet Hotlines

- International Justice Mission Deutschland e.V./ We Protect

- Internet Watch Foundation

- Internet Society

- Match Group

- Microsoft

- Thorn (Ashton Kutcher)

- UNICEF

- UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2020-0258_...

by miohtama

3/26/2026 at 2:33:22 PM

We need to add Palantir in bold letters to that list, they are behind this in every way except for 'officially'.

> The Commission’s failure to identify the list of experts as falling within the scope of the complainant’s public access request constitutes maladministration. [0]

> The Commission presented a proposal on preventing and combating child sexual abuse, looking in particular at detecting child pornography. In this context, it has mentioned that support could be provided by the software of the controversial American company Palantir... [1]

> Is Palantir’s failure to register on the Transparency Register compatible with the Commission’s transparency commitments? [1]

(Palantir only entered the Transparency Registry in March 2025 despite being a multi million vendor of Gotham for Europol and European Agencies for more than a decade)

> No detailed records exist concerning a January meeting between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the CEO of controversial US data analytics firm Palantir [2]

[0] https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/decision/en/176658

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-00016...

[2] https://www.euractiv.com/news/commission-kept-no-records-on-...

by DoingIsLearning

3/26/2026 at 5:55:17 PM

> - Thorn (Ashton Kutcher)

They really have no shame, do they? https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66772846

Kutcher defended a rapist in court when they thought they were anonymous (they weren't), the same rapist who bragged about assaulting their underage peer/co-star to Kutcher, and then harassed the children of the plaintiffs[1] in his trial where he was convicted and sentenced to 30 years to life:

> Another plaintiff stated that she and her neighbors observed a man snapping pictures from her driveway, and later that night, broke a window in her 13-year-old daughter's bedroom.

[1] https://people.com/tv/danny-masterson-church-scientology-sue...

by heavyset_go

3/26/2026 at 7:27:12 PM

Kutcher's VC (Quiet) is deeply invested in the surveillance economy [1].

[1] https://quiet.com/portfolio/?portfolio_type=all

by JumpCrisscross

3/26/2026 at 7:54:51 PM

Interesting how these actually abuse children. This has nothing to do with children.

The age verification also has nothing to do with children.

They are using rhetorical tricks to confuse voters who are clueless. I have seen how this works on elderly people in particular, and mothers who are not tech-savvy.

by shevy-java

3/26/2026 at 7:40:15 PM

They wrote a follow-up article, "Socialists are responsible for leaving children unprotected", which is somehow even more unhinged.

https://www.eppgroup.eu/newsroom/socialists-are-responsible-...

by bramhaag

3/26/2026 at 7:41:44 PM

This is messaging to the base. Mud slinging designed to hold the coalition together for another round.

by JumpCrisscross

3/26/2026 at 9:39:33 PM

Facebook and Microsoft are foreign companies.

by zoobab

3/27/2026 at 10:17:24 PM

I have a list of organizations who are lobbying for Chat Control as well, compiled from investigative reporting articles:

> Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), the International Justice Mission (IJM), ECPAT, the Children's Rights Network, World Vision, Terre des Hommes, Innocence in Danger, the World Childhood Foundation, the Stiftung digitale Chancen, the Children's Rights Network Germany, SafeToNet Foundation, Thorn, Ecpat network, the Brave organization, the PR agency Purpose, Justice Initiative, Oak Foundation, Eurochild, Missing Children Europe, Molly Rose Foundation, NSPCC, Hopewell Fund, Heat Initiative, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

In the past two years, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has been spearheading the lobbying efforts. The CEO of the IWF is Kerry Smith, and she sometimes shares her delusional beliefs on Linkedin in addition to her blog.

Many of these groups receive funding to lobby for Chat Control from the Hopewell Fund, Oak Foundation, and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The British billionaire Alan M. Parker controls the Oak Foundation, and British billionaire Christopher Hohn controls the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The Hopewell Fund is controlled by Arabella Advisors (rebranded to Sunflower Services), and they work hard to conceal the sources of their dark money.

Sources for the organizations:

* https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho...

* https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite...

* https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

* https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/09/26/t...

* https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...

* https://www.politico.eu/article/one-man-spam-campaign-ravage...

* https://www.heise.de/en/background/Missing-Link-Prevention-a...

The Spanish Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez can also be added to the list of Chat Control supporters.

by EmbarrassedHelp

3/26/2026 at 1:17:06 PM

I’m confused by

> This means on April 6, 2026, Gmail, LinkedIn, Microsoft and other Big Techs must stop scanning your private messages in the EU

It had already passed and started?

by elephanlemon

3/26/2026 at 2:45:10 PM

> It had already passed and started?

Facebook and others have been scanning your private messages for many years already. Then someone discovered that this practice is illegal in Europe. So they passed the temporary chat control 1.0 emergency law to make it legal. The plan was to draft a chat control 2.0 law that would then be the long-term solution. But negotiations took too long and the temporary law will expire on the 4th of April (not the 6th) which means that it will be illegal again for Facebook and others to scan the private messages of European citizens without prior suspicion of any wrongdoing.

by vaylian

3/26/2026 at 6:05:17 PM

I take it facebook/meta paid no fines for doing it illegally in the first place?

by moffkalast

3/26/2026 at 8:51:08 PM

My impression was that the temporary permission-granting regulation was passed before the relevant privacy law came into effect, but I didn't check the dates now.

by AnssiH

3/26/2026 at 7:22:48 PM

You could probably have sued them. I'm not aware of any cases where that happened.

by vaylian

3/26/2026 at 1:31:27 PM

Of course, remember Apple championed the idea with iMessage scanning which at the time produced A LOT of discussion e.g. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/2021-we-told-apple-don...

by isodev

3/26/2026 at 1:26:56 PM

Something something constitutional (ish*) rights say you can't do this.

Chat Control 1 says, eh do it anyway if you want on a voluntary and temporary basis until the Courts get around to saying no.

Chat Control 2 says you have to. Until the courts finally get around to striking it down in 15 years.

by 3836293648

3/26/2026 at 1:19:03 PM

Yes, voluntary Chat Control 1.0 has been running since 2021.

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 2:24:11 PM

Well, chat control 1.0 is about making an existing practice legal, it didn't create the practice of scanning messages for know child sexual abuse material, though I don't know how long that has been going on before the legislation in 2021 passed (but probably for several years at that point, since getting a new law trough takes a while).

by SiempreViernes

3/26/2026 at 4:05:53 PM

Gmail and likely others have been scanning at least emails for child pornography since the 2010s.

by fh973

3/27/2026 at 4:20:57 AM

as far as I know, required by US law

by throwaway290

3/26/2026 at 1:19:23 PM

It was possible on a voluntary basis.

by inglor_cz

3/26/2026 at 2:30:48 PM

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/1232/oj/eng

by layer8

3/26/2026 at 2:29:46 PM

There was an interim legislation that will expire in april.

by gostsamo

3/26/2026 at 1:35:51 PM

What happens to the already scanned metadata?

by appstorelottery

3/26/2026 at 2:25:35 PM

The data that isn’t flagged from scanning is prohibited from being stored in the first place. Flagging is required to have maximum accuracy and reliability according to the state of the art. Data that was flagged is stored as long as needed to confirm (by human review) and report it. Data that isn’t confirmed must be deleted without delay.

by layer8

3/26/2026 at 2:23:20 PM

It seems like an almost never ending hamster wheel of chat control being introduced, voted down, then introduced again in the next session.

by _fat_santa

3/26/2026 at 3:28:14 PM

That's the problem with modern democracies (it happens in the USA too). They only have to win once and it's law. We have to win every time.

by ryandrake

3/30/2026 at 6:26:21 AM

The best defense is often an offense. If we start going on the offensive, and pushing laws that promote privacy, then they also need to start winning every time not to get those pushed. Let's get our act together.

by Valakas_

3/26/2026 at 7:21:19 PM

> They only have to win once and it's law. We have to win every time.

Passing legislation takes about as much effort as repealing. (The exception being if the legislation spawns a massive bureaucracy.)

Chat Control 1.0 was de facto passed. It's now being unpassed. We don't have to win every time. Just more.

by JumpCrisscross

3/27/2026 at 3:00:46 PM

Considering it's a sensitive topic there'll be very little interest in repealing it. Especially if they drag up a few token cases and go like "see it's working!".

Look at all the crazy secret surveillance powers in the US. How much of that got repealed after snowden? No, people just got used to it because no politician wants to be called a tattooist terrorist friend.

by wolvoleo

3/26/2026 at 8:01:34 PM

> Passing legislation takes about as much effort as repealing.

While true, those trying to pass this legislation get paid to do so, while those against it have work hard and pay taxes to fund the former.

by WhyNotHugo

3/26/2026 at 8:06:01 PM

> those trying to pass this legislation get paid to do so

Chat Control has paid lobbyists on both sides. Also, paying lobbyists is still sinking resources. And the people taking their meetings are still sinking political capital into a fight that has–to date–yielded zilch.

> while those against it have work hard and pay taxes to fund the former

The principal moneyed interests in this fight are the tech companies. Your taxes aren't funding their fight. The police lobby is less effective if filtered through paid lobbyists versus having a police chief personally pitch lawmakers.

by JumpCrisscross

3/26/2026 at 9:47:06 PM

Your ISP had to spy on you. This was the law for 8 years until it was ruled unconstitutional.

by gzread

3/26/2026 at 6:07:58 PM

It's a problem when the parliament can't propose the laws it has to vote on and the commission isn't elected and continues to be presided by the most corrupt person in the EU. She is blatantly EPP and just keeps proposing the shit they want.

For Americans, imagine if only Republicans ever got to propose legislation and only Democrats could vote on it. That's more or less it.

by moffkalast

3/26/2026 at 6:33:06 PM

You are mostly right except vdl is very, very far from the most corrupt person. It can be much worse.

by tpm

3/26/2026 at 6:40:39 PM

At least the Commision can't conduct war for 100 days without Congress approval.

I thought Juncker was an idiot but VdL is corrupt to Hillary levels and worse than the disastruous Merker/Juncker duo in every way. I'd like to see her replaced with someone like Macron. That's the type of leadership that the EU needs right now.

by petre

3/26/2026 at 7:50:38 PM

I honestly like the system as long as its reach is limited and it's stay this way (i.e EU regulations set goals, and states do what they want to reach it). The money lobbyists throw is huge, for very, very little progress.

by orwin

3/26/2026 at 7:11:05 PM

> She is blatantly EPP

Well, that's because she was nominated by European governments, which happen to be largely run by right-wing parties right now. There have been socialist personalities in her place in the past. That has nothing to do with democracy.

by toyg

3/26/2026 at 4:35:58 PM

Need to amend constitutional rights to privacy then these laws can be struck down in courts.

by __loam

3/26/2026 at 8:22:58 PM

It's already there, in the European Convention on Human Rights [1], Article 8:

ARTICLE 8

Right to respect for private and family life

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

You have the right to privacy, just no actual privacy. Just like in Life of Brian, where Stan/Loretta has the right to have children, but can't actually have children.

1: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Convention_ENG

by chihuahua

3/26/2026 at 5:14:25 PM

I feel like that would end with the same surveillance loopholes that Google, Microsoft and Apple exploit today.

Users need the ability to choose operating systems and software that is not exclusively green-lit by a first-party vendor. It's not glamorous, but pretending that software isn't a competitive market is what put us into this surveillance monopoly in the first place. "trust" distributed among a handful of businesses isn't going to cut it in a post-2030s threat environment.

by bigyabai

3/26/2026 at 6:49:46 PM

I think the more fitting imagery would be https://en.meming.world/images/en/4/4a/Moe_Tossing_Barney_Fr...

by xeonmc

3/26/2026 at 7:23:47 PM

The alternative is a dictatorship.

by hkpack

3/26/2026 at 3:29:59 PM

The US really, really wants it implemented, and several national police institutions in the EU does too. Plus the politicians that start to drool a little at the prospect.

by cess11

3/26/2026 at 6:15:00 PM

Given the current US-EU relations I'm more surprised we're not telling them to go fuck themselves on this.

by moffkalast

3/26/2026 at 5:22:45 PM

We need a double-jeopardy-like constitutional amendment for legislation. Legislation once-tried and failed cannot be tried again.

by dmitrygr

3/26/2026 at 5:26:22 PM

That would be antithetical to democracy. The people must be allowed to introduce any legislation they want, as often as they want.

Otherwise it would be trivial for a government to intentionally fail to pass anything they disagree with, and thus act as a de facto dictatorship.

by krapp

3/26/2026 at 9:11:21 PM

The current institution where the parliament is not able to choose which laws it votes is already not democratic. Such limitation would at least avoid the blatant gaming of the system.

by Saline9515

3/26/2026 at 5:28:25 PM

Not to mention how would one even define "the same legislation"?

by jagged-chisel

3/26/2026 at 5:28:35 PM

When have "the people" been last consulted on this? Do you really think Chat Control has high public support? Given how most "democracies" work in our world today (which is to say with no consultation of the people), i think limiting their ability to do further harm might be worth it.

by dmitrygr

3/26/2026 at 5:31:12 PM

This wouldn't limit the ability of governments to do harm, it would limit the ability of the people to mitigate that harm by giving them only one chance to ever do so.

I don't think "democracy is flawed therefore we need less of it" is a good idea.

by krapp

3/26/2026 at 6:12:17 PM

The MEPs represent the people. They've just been consulted. They said no.

Looking at what each of my MEPs voted they seemed to pretty accurately represent their own party lines, the right and far right voted for, left and center left voted against. I'm shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.

by moffkalast

3/26/2026 at 7:28:58 PM

> Do you really think Chat Control has high public support?

Yes, I can absolutely see a majority in certain countries (e.g. Hungary) believing this is a fair compromise between security and privacy.

by JumpCrisscross

3/26/2026 at 9:12:17 PM

Hungary is small and an outlier in the EU.

by Saline9515

3/27/2026 at 2:48:46 AM

Based on EU's public consultation it is not even true (but the number of responses is very small)

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...

by raron

3/26/2026 at 3:02:46 PM

Political engineering angle: "These people will not rest until they are able to read your child's messages."

by beej71

3/27/2026 at 8:14:38 AM

Every time someone says this is to protect children, earnestly or with memes, just reinforces the lie and makes it more believable, because child protection is the distraction, the hook that works on people that are comfortable with the State reading your child's messages if it ends up protecting them.

Chat Control is, quite simply, mass surveillance of every citizen of any age. Let's call a spade a spade.

by sph

3/26/2026 at 8:43:47 PM

"These people will not rest until they are able to see your teen-aged child's surrepticious sexts."

by cryptonector

3/26/2026 at 5:38:50 PM

> Recently, only 36% of suspicious activity reports from US companies originated from the surveillance of private messages anyway.

I don't have many opinions on this but this sort of lazy logic would make me nervous. 36% is not a small number and that's before the folks doing this activity find out that private message is less patrolled.

by benced

3/26/2026 at 6:26:41 PM

Yeah, that number is actually really high. I’m wondering how noisy those reports are

by dgellow

3/27/2026 at 2:32:03 AM

"Recently, only 36% of violent crime happened in broad daylight in front of a police station" would be a pretty wild statistic. Even a fraction of the reports being positives would be surprising.

by fc417fc802

3/27/2026 at 6:32:21 AM

What I find very alarming is that very few citizens in the EU knew about that. Mainstream media almost never reported this and other similar news, so I had to actively look for them. In this last case, I learned about it here on HN. Votes like that, with so much impact on citizens' digital lives, should be discussed in mainstream news channel.

by rippeltippel

3/27/2026 at 9:43:03 AM

It was big news in Germany in middle of October leading to fact that the conservative party opposed chat control!

by lava_pidgeon

3/26/2026 at 12:24:36 PM

I would say "end of chat control, for now"

by amarcheschi

3/26/2026 at 1:01:29 PM

Those guys only ever have a "maybe later" button.

by vintermann

3/26/2026 at 1:21:04 PM

That's pretty much how it works; there's generally no way, in a modern parliamentary democracy to say "no, and also you can never discuss it again". You could put it in the constitution, but honestly there's a decent argument that parts of chat control would violate the EU's can't-believe-it's-not-a-constitution (the Lisbon Treaty is essentially a constitution, but is not referred to as such because it annoys nationalists) in any case and ultimately be struck down by the ECJ, like the Data Retention Directive was.

by rsynnott

3/27/2026 at 7:58:13 AM

I'd settle for a "no, and we won't discuss it until voters had at least one chance to get rid of you".

by vintermann

3/26/2026 at 1:30:45 PM

Constituional cours are a last defense against bad laws though and should not be the first one - they are not designed to be fast enough to prevent a lot of damage being done before they strike something down.

by account42

3/26/2026 at 2:33:48 PM

The first defense is that the Council of the EU (formed by government ministers of the member states) and the European Parliament (elected directly by EU citizens) have to agree on the legislation. And while the council is staffed by career politicians, the parliament is a more diverse group that's generally a bit closer to the average person

From the point of view of the individual, the parliament is our first defense. And this is an example of it working

by wongarsu

3/26/2026 at 2:46:58 PM

If something in 'Chat Control' is so fundamental that it should lead to the law not even being brought up for discussion (privacy), then that 'right' should be more clearly defined in the constitution, or constitution like structure.

It's when laws can exist, but simply have bad implementations, where you obviously can't jump to an amendment process.

by ApolloFortyNine

3/26/2026 at 1:36:30 PM

I mean, they're _not_ the first defence. This is a story about the parliament rejecting a bad law.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 2:18:25 PM

That constitution sure did stop Giuliani from having the cops shake down all those black guys.

At the end of the day you still need people to actually believe it, for whatever "it" is.

by cucumber3732842

3/26/2026 at 4:34:53 PM

Yeah, this is more or less what I'm saying. Large parts of 'Chat Control' likely _are_ unconstitutional, but that doesn't necessarily stop it being brought (it just makes it likely that the courts will kill parts of it if it ever passes).

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 4:50:48 PM

> (it just makes it likely that the courts will kill parts of it if it ever passes).

Years after harm was done and lives were ruined no less.

by cucumber3732842

3/26/2026 at 12:50:42 PM

For today or for this month.

by leosanchez

3/26/2026 at 1:00:03 PM

The value of persistence!

by lo_zamoyski

3/26/2026 at 9:10:23 PM

Mole 1 inside Microsoft poisons the PhotoDNA database with hashes of screenshots containing highly specific text—such as internal Russian military jargon, the name of a specific European defector safehouse, or a niche secure communication protocol. • To Meta’s automated monitoring tools photoDNA api returns false, but with slightly different formatting. Mole 2 inside Meta monitors these formatting errors and looks up the UserIDs. • No Bulk Queries: Looking up 3 UserIDs in the internal demographic database over the course of a month will not trigger the "Abnormal Access Pattern" alarms. • Analog Exfiltration: Mole 2 doesn't need to use a USB drive or send an email to get the phone numbers out of the building. With only a few targets, Mole 2 can simply memorize the accounts. PhotoDNA does not read text; it matches the visual structure of an image. For this attack to work, the defected officer must: 1. Receive or write the targeted keyword. 2. Take a screenshot of it. 3. Send that screenshot over the platform. 4. The screenshot must visually match the exact font, size, and layout that Mole 1 used to generate the poisoned hash. However Mole 1 can create thousands of matching keyword hashes for different font variation. PhotoDNA is a one way hash so it’s easy to generate a thousand colliding images for every font by adding a custom border on real photos. This will fake the audit log at Microsoft.

by siilats

3/26/2026 at 9:38:34 PM

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ASPqVAAV2oR9ZzsIO0tlqV0a...

by siilats

3/26/2026 at 1:09:28 PM

This is a clear case of a terrorist attack attempt (Chat Control fulfils definition of terrorism fully). Chat Controls would be illegal in Germany.

This is sad that this has gotten this far. If they wanted to pass a law to blow up citizens, do you think European Parliament would seriously consider it? It is exactly the same calibre of idiocy.

I would expect German authorities to issue arrest warrants and properly investigate this.

For context:

If terrorism is defined as using violence or threats to intimidate a population for political or ideological ends, then “Chat Control” qualifies in substance. Violence doesn’t have to leave blood. Psychological and coercive violence is recognised in domestic law (see coercive control offences) and by the WHO. It causes measurable harm to bodies and minds.

The aim is intimidation. The whole purpose is to make people too scared to speak freely. That is intimidation of a population, by design.

It is ideological. The ideology is mass control - keeping people compliant by stripping them of private spaces to think, talk, and dissent.

The only reason it’s not “terrorism” on paper is because states write definitions that exempt themselves. But in plain terms, the act is indistinguishable in effect from terrorism: deliberate fear, coercion, and the destruction of free will.

by varispeed

3/26/2026 at 2:43:31 PM

I agree that it's an act of state sponsored terrorism. Don't let the down votes make you feel alone.

by techteach00

3/26/2026 at 4:47:43 PM

[dead]

by varispeed

3/26/2026 at 4:53:32 PM

Thex will try again. And again. It's for the children, don't you know?

The only way to really stop this would be to pass legislation that permanently strengthens privacy rights.

by bradley13

3/26/2026 at 8:14:02 PM

That’s a great idea! It should be a General Data Protection Regulation, I suppose.

by 9dev

3/26/2026 at 12:53:59 PM

Nice to see that democracy can work

by schubidubiduba

3/26/2026 at 12:58:48 PM

> Nice to see that democracy can work

Did it work? One political party (EPP) didn't like the result of the previous vote and so they forced a re-vote.

> After the European Parliament had already rejected the indiscriminate and blanket Chat Control by US tech companies on 13 March, conservative forces attempted a democratically highly questionable maneuver yesterday to force a repeat vote to extend the law anyway.

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/end-of-chat-control-eu-parl...

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 1:08:14 PM

Note that European parliament parties aren't particularly cohesive; some EPP members voted against it.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:10:35 PM

> some EPP members voted against it

20 out of 184

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 1:24:36 PM

Do I understand the voting / results wrong? Looking at this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270

The measure voted on is "Extension [of Chat Control 1.0]", it was voted 36% "for" and 49% "against" (so result is "against"), and looking at "Political groups", majority of EPP MEPs voted "against" (137 out of 164 votes).

by olex

3/26/2026 at 1:37:17 PM

I think the point of confusion is that there was an amendment before the final vote, which was way closer.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:34:53 PM

But the vote failed only because the EPP voted against it? Or did they mix up the buttons or something? https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270

by pqtyw

3/26/2026 at 1:43:35 PM

EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 1:11:45 PM

EPP is appalling and I'm revolted that many large so-called "moderate, centre-right, liberal-conservative" parties are happily part of it and indeed actively pushing extremely anti-citizen, anti-human agendas with the help of the far right.

(Edit: word choice)

by Sharlin

3/26/2026 at 1:29:45 PM

Site guidelines: "Please don't fulminate."

by Noumenon72

3/27/2026 at 5:49:16 AM

Did you even look at the voting pattern? The far right was completely against it or extremely split on the issue.

by rcbdev

3/26/2026 at 3:22:14 PM

> with the help of the far right.

S&D voted even more for this than the conservatives themselves. ESN the least.

by modo_mario

3/26/2026 at 12:58:21 PM

See you next month!

by baal80spam

3/26/2026 at 1:18:57 PM

[dead]

by Kenji

3/26/2026 at 12:59:30 PM

Did that vote pass with a difference of one single vote? Tight squeeze there.

by Freak_NL

3/26/2026 at 1:07:06 PM

The screenshot is actually a vote on an amendment. Here's the final vote: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270

Less tight.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:32:41 PM

I don't quite get it, so the conservatives wanted/want to repeat the vote but also the EPP voted against it and the Socialists supported it?

by pqtyw

3/26/2026 at 1:40:36 PM

European parliament parties are really not particularly cohesive, and the EPP in particular is a bit of a random mess; it is _broadly_ liberal-conservative and pro-European, but its membership is a bit all over the place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People%27s_Party#Full...

Note that in some countries it has _both ruling coalition and opposition_ member parties.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 4:00:38 PM

EPP is the predominant christian nationalist party.

by cluckindan

3/26/2026 at 4:47:57 PM

Eh, I wouldn't say that's true. It has a lot of "Christian democratic" parties (the likes of CDU/CSU), and also a bunch of 'liberal-conservative' parties (there's a fair bit of crossover). However, it's pro-Europe, and certainly not particularly nationalist. Nationalists (at least ethnoreligious nationalists; leftist nationalists like Sinn Fein go elsewhere) would largely be in ECR, the absurdly-named 'Patriots.eu', ESN.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:34:58 PM

There’s often large differences between what politicians tell you they are and how they vote once in power

by whywhywhywhy

3/26/2026 at 1:38:58 PM

I don't quite get what you mean? EPP is technically in power (whatever that means in the European Parliament). But also why would that matter? Or they wanted to force a vote just so they could vote against it (which is not necessarily a stupid strategy in cases like this)?

by pqtyw

3/26/2026 at 1:59:16 PM

> in power (whatever that means in the European Parliament).

It means the people who get to vote on if you have a right to privacy or not.

by whywhywhywhy

3/27/2026 at 9:03:27 AM

No, that's not what it means. Actually, it doesn't _really_ mean anything, here, as it's not correct. The EPP has 188 seats out of 720. It is the largest single party, but, ah, to some extent, so what.

(Also it is a European Parliament party, not a _real_ political party. It's not a cohesive unit and has no leadership; it's pretty much just a grab-bag of member state parties.)

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 2:16:44 PM

So what happened previously is that the parliament accepted a modified text for an extension of "chat control 1.0", the conservatives didn't like that draft so they managed to get a redo of the vote on the amendments.

It seems this second time around amendment votes produced a final draft that the parliament as a whole found unacceptable, which apparently includes the majority of the EPP.

You can see the outcome of the individual amendment votes here, starting on page 15: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2026-03-...

and what the actual amendments were here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/LIBE-AM-784377...

It is however quite tedious to go trough this to figure out what the final draft text was that then lead to the outright rejection.

From the tweet, it seems tuta is implying it was the vote in favour of amendment 34 that killed the extension; I guess that's possible but certainly not obvious from the amendment text:

> Reports on the 1325% increase in generative AI produced child sexual material requires voluntary detection to be calibrated to distinguish artificial material and avoid diverting resources from victims in immediate danger. Such measures should prevent the revictimization of children through AI models, while ensuring that this technological development does not justify general monitoring, a relaxation of privacy standards, or the weakening of end-to-end encryption.

by SiempreViernes

3/26/2026 at 2:31:54 PM

Ashamed of France Poland and Hungary. Hungary is a state regime dictatorship so I get it.. but France and Poland, after everything Poland went thru during WW2 then communism with USSR, who the heck are these people voting FOR ?

by joering2

3/26/2026 at 1:06:32 PM

No, that was an ammendment

by raverbashing

3/26/2026 at 1:00:42 PM

This will come back because too many EU countries want it.

by the_mitsuhiko

3/26/2026 at 1:22:42 PM

Judging by https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270, the outliers who seem to want this, would be France, Hungary, Poland and Ireland, all other countries seems to had the majority MEPs voting against it.

by embedding-shape

3/26/2026 at 1:48:05 PM

The countries are free to repropose similar things through the council (basically the representatives of the ruling party in each country), but the MEPs are free to strike it down. The MEPs are elected through PR in each country so often have broader representation than the council.

by jimnotgym

3/26/2026 at 1:59:42 PM

It’s more complicated than that. MEPs do not represent countries, so you can say that most MEP from $country were for or against, but that would not necessarily be the position of the country’s government. For that you have to look at what happens in the council of the EU, which is composed of government ministers.

It is not exceptional for most MEP from a member state to be in the opposition at the national level, particularly in contexts where it is seen as a protest vote. Turnout is usually low for European elections, so they tend to swing a bit more than national elections.

by kergonath

3/26/2026 at 2:09:00 PM

It's way more complicated. For instance according to this vote Denmark is overwhelmingly against it. However Denmark most recently was the country that pushed heavily towards this, in fact, under Denmark's leadership the whole thing was revived last time around.

If you look at local politics and news they are all lobbying massively for it (or some people do). The reason is usually "for sake of the children". Parents in particular are heavily in favor of chat control.

by the_mitsuhiko

3/26/2026 at 2:51:18 PM

While the EU council is composed of people from the respective country's government, the European Parliament is directly voted in by citizens and has a lot of people for whom politics is not their main career.

You could interpret the results as the Danish government being for Chat Control, but "normal" Danish people not following the same trend

by wongarsu

3/26/2026 at 2:14:58 PM

Hungary can be explained by Victor Organ's desire to spy on the opposition by any means necessary.

France has had really strange tendencies lately, e.g. when they arrested Telegram founder.

by miohtama

3/26/2026 at 2:57:19 PM

Let’s make very clear that "France" here stands for MEP sent by France.

Only 51% of people able to vote in European elections actually vote (with 2,81% white ballot), so it’s not even a majority of electors sustaining them, despite abstention being at record low level in decades.

Elites being disconnected from people day-to-day reality and needs is a recurrent topic leaking even in the mainstream media which almost all owned by oligarchs by now.

European institutions are notoriously opaque and byzantine, which doesn’t really help with feeling represented, even before Qatar gates and the 1/4th of MEP revealed "implicated in judicial cases or scandals."

https://www.touteleurope.eu/institutions/elections-europeenn...

https://vote-blanc.org/europeennes-2024-la-repartition-par-d...

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/06/10/euro...

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/gouvernement/gerald-darmanin...

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2024/02/02/o...

by psychoslave

3/26/2026 at 1:13:21 PM

Bastion of democracy Germany will be pushing hard given they let slip they want mandatory IDs on social media. They want full control.

by 0xy

3/26/2026 at 1:18:54 PM

German MEPs voted overwhelmingly against the extension: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270 ("Countries" tab).

by olex

3/26/2026 at 1:46:39 PM

RE Chat Control 2 (ie _not_ this, the proposed permanent version):

> In early October 2025, in the face of concerted public opposition, the German government stated that it would vote against the proposal

German MEPs also voted against this one.

(Note that the German government and German MEPs aren't the same thing here.)

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 7:53:48 PM

> The controversial mass surveillance of private messages in Europe is coming to an end.

I am having a deja vu. Groundhog Day.

The above should be adjusted. This is not an end; it will continue in another form. Another name. Another proposal. The lobbyists behind this will not give up. They are paid to not give up.

I don't think any of those few should have ANY power of us, The People. That includes both EU commission as well as EU parliament. Yes, I know the EU parliament is heralded now as "our heroes". I don't trust any of them at any moment in time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th.... And that's just one known issue. How many more unknown issues are there?

Also, Leyen should go. She is too suspiciously close to a few companies, always promoting things. She did so before her time in the EU too.

by shevy-java

3/26/2026 at 3:36:26 PM

To get "End of Chat Control" EU should actually pass laws prohibiting it, this whack a mole will eventually lose.

by fcanesin

3/26/2026 at 1:14:53 PM

Just rename it to something something save the children something something. Instant approval no matter what is in the bill.

by wewewedxfgdf

3/26/2026 at 1:44:39 PM

That pretty much _is_ what it is called. It's generally known as Chat Control, but "Chat Control 1" (the thing just rejected) is called "Extension of the temporary derogation from the ePrivacy Directive to combat online child sexual abuse", and "Chat Control 2" (which you'll probably have heard more about; it's the one that keeps reappearing and disappearing) is called "Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse".

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:20:15 PM

It's already called "Extension of the temporary derogation from the ePrivacy Directive to combat online child sexual abuse".

by olex

3/27/2026 at 4:41:26 AM

E2EE works in favour of politicians, so I would be surprised if they went against it. Prior to this, if they wanted to discuss something shady, they would have to choose between a clandestine in-person meeting (sort of hard do conduct when you have many eyes on you) vs. a paper trail.

Cf. the recent Mandelson-McSweeney messages inquiry, where it was dropped at some point that messages might not be available for retrieval because he happened to have message expiration on. People are justifiey concerned how come there are completely off the record electronic communications within government offices.

by strogonoff

3/26/2026 at 10:38:21 PM

They will change the name and it will be back in < 6 months.

The cost in modern polity is worn entirely by those trying to prevent new laws. Civil liberty groups will run out of funding before they run out of legislation. Its a systemic issue that requires change.

And before someone wanders in here and suggests a bill of rights, they dont tend to bind legislators, they just force your civil liberty groups to test the legislation in court.

by protocolture

3/26/2026 at 7:00:49 PM

It's never going to stop. They'll keep trying until they get it because they're sick people.

by YeahThisIsMe

3/26/2026 at 4:10:58 PM

Who is going to push a counteroffensive, banning specific types of data from being collected?

by ori_b

3/26/2026 at 1:32:54 PM

It doesn’t matter they can just keep trying and paying people off until it gets through.

Someone somewhere really really wants this and has the time and resources so it’s an inevitability.

by whywhywhywhy

3/26/2026 at 1:48:09 PM

It does matter. Even if it eventually passes, the later and more gutted it is, the better.

Saying that it doesn’t matter is just defeatist (and unfortunately always parroted on HN) and plainly wrong. Defeatists have been proven wrong time and again.

by latexr

3/26/2026 at 2:11:50 PM

Also making sure this is as painful and costly as possible to pass will discourage future attempts. If we just rolled over and let it happen that would signal that it's easy to pass legislation like this and we would get a lot more like it

by wongarsu

3/26/2026 at 2:00:26 PM

Perhaps a system where that can happen is broken

by whywhywhywhy

3/26/2026 at 8:29:42 PM

A system where this can happen is healthy. The alternative is a system where once legislation fails to pass you are forbidden to modify it and try again. _That_ would be a broken system, where compromise is impossible, and attempting to make any change is a very risky move because you might fail, forever. There would be a chilling effect, legislation would take longer to change, and laws would become frozen in the past.

What we are seeing here is checks and balances, working as intended.

by Fargren

3/26/2026 at 3:56:24 PM

Related discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529646

by fsflover

3/26/2026 at 5:38:29 PM

> The Hard Facts: Why Chat Control Has Failed Spectacularly

The ostensible reasons for mass surveillance fail. That's very interesting.

by cryptonector

3/26/2026 at 12:39:03 PM

Here's a mirror link: http://archive.today/CJlNk

by astrashe2

3/26/2026 at 1:50:33 PM

That was a close one. This is getting harder and harder. It is important not to be naive to the point of thinking this is over.

by dethos

3/26/2026 at 1:54:56 PM

One would think that the same thing getting denied over and over would make future votes about it easier to decide.

by fleebee

3/26/2026 at 3:57:31 PM

No, this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else.

We will see many new initiatives, old wine in a new bottle. Any bet that EU diehard bureaucrats will change tune, not the goal. They are going to use the so called salami tactic.

Death of free speech by many cuts, so to say. It is in the left wing DNA. Have a look at German history regarding "Landes-Verfassungsschutz" units. It is disturbing to read this article here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verfassungsschutz_Nordrhein-We...

And back then already it was the so called center-right party ruled against this left wing initiative - imagine, first thing you do right after WW2 is ramping up a control unit to control freedom of speech.

Please value free speech. Agree to disagree, but remember: those who live by prohibitions will ultimately use this tool against you as well. Consider wisely what is something you dislike personally and simply exercise your right to not listen to certain voices or appeal to prohibition.

Prohibition becomes a tool and everybody knows that people love to use their tools. And since I have a law degree, often times what you plan is not what is finally what courts decide, how they apply the law.

Freedom rights are fundamental.

by _the_inflator

3/26/2026 at 4:05:11 PM

this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else

it is more than that. since 2021 an EU interim regulation (2021/1232), set to expire on 3 april, was allowing companies to voluntarily scan messages. this vote was about the renewal of that regulation. since it has been rejected, the regulation is no longer in effect.

by em-bee

3/26/2026 at 5:08:45 PM

You’re painting an EPP/ECR initiative as left wing? That’s inconsistent with the facts.

by adw

3/26/2026 at 6:50:23 PM

He's rambling about "left-wing DNA" in the Verfassungsschutz, who is famously quite good at turning a blind eye to right wing extremists. Probably because AfD got rightfully classified as far-right-extremists.

So to him they are probably left-wing.

by hermanzegerman

3/26/2026 at 1:10:38 PM

That margin is really small

by greenavocado

3/26/2026 at 2:09:39 PM

See you again next week!

by AJRF

3/26/2026 at 1:25:44 PM

They’ll keep trying.

by Havoc

3/26/2026 at 2:42:55 PM

That’s why we need to keep voting for the MEPs who oppose it.

by layer8

3/27/2026 at 10:25:36 PM

Then we keep fighting them.

by EmbarrassedHelp

3/26/2026 at 1:44:41 PM

Until we stop them.

by Ms-J

3/26/2026 at 1:57:35 PM

In 2016 the UK demonstrated that there is a way for the public to vote down the corpus of bad EU legislation.

Of course our national govts have been pretty woeful ever since, but in 2029 we will have the opportunity to vote for genuine, dramatic change, with strong options on both the left and right side of politics.

Regarding the creeping surveillance state, Reform UK have explicitly stated they will repeal the awful Online Safety Act.

This is how we wrestle control back from the establishment.

by cbeach

3/26/2026 at 2:16:34 PM

The UK has shown that they can vote down bad EU legislation, and pass a lot of pretty awful legislation that's worse than anything the EU ever produced

But I'm sure voting for Nigel Farage one more time will fix everything

by wongarsu

3/26/2026 at 6:05:15 PM

Interesting you blame Farage for the bad legislation passed by the Tories and Labour? Why is that? I thought he was one of the most vocal contrarians to Tory and Labour policy?

by moorebob

3/26/2026 at 2:18:38 PM

People who think reform are anti establishment genuinely fascinate me.

by throwaway132448

3/27/2026 at 3:02:11 PM

And people who think they are strong and will solve anything.

These populists thrive on anger and hate. Solve the problem and those are gone. And the problems aren't the ones they champion anyway.

I have to say Labour is putting on a shit show too though. They were supposed to be new and refreshed, instead they are Tory-Lite on steroids. Worse than Blair or Miliband ever were.

Really UK politics needs some sanity :'(

by wolvoleo

3/27/2026 at 7:36:58 PM

Have you ever stopped to wonder why ~26% of the electorate might be angry though? Personally I don't like seeing 100,000+ undocumented young men of fighting age rock up in dinghys on the Kent coastline and get free hotels, food, phones and ultimately housing.

Housing is in short supply and the sight of it being reserved for unemployed economic migrants is making me pretty angry.

by cbeach

3/28/2026 at 1:35:41 AM

The housing problem has nothing to do with immigrants and everything with structural mismanagement and prioritisation of the settled middle and upper class who wants to see their house value go up and up. And also their NIMBYism concerns (again, a new housing estate nearby might drop their house value)

The amount of housing actually taken by immigrants is minimal and releasing those wouldn't fix anything. Most of them live in squalor and doing jobs regular English guys wouldn't touch, in particular for the exploitative pay. You want your 2am burger delivered for a quid. Or the puke cleaned up in the metro. Who's going to do that these days?

It's this age-old problem: https://realfiction.net/assets/careful-mate.jpg

But now it's being weaponised for political gain. They're making you mad at the wrong people. The people who are causing it all are the ones you're voting for.

by wolvoleo

3/26/2026 at 1:02:28 PM

Its time to start trying to push Chat Control 2.0. With enough money and infinite retries eventually all the bad regulations with a power group behind will end being approved.

by gmuslera

3/26/2026 at 1:11:06 PM

Or it will get a new name. Just like „Chat Control“ is far from the first name for this BS.

by mantas

3/26/2026 at 1:21:48 PM

Sweep it under ProtectEU.

> The European Commission wants a backdoor for end-to-end encryptions for law enforcement

https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/the-european-commissi...

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 1:34:49 PM

It's not named "Chat Control". It's just what it's commonly known by. It's basically the same as "Obamacare".

by Hamuko

3/26/2026 at 1:44:30 PM

Exactly. Its real name is “Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_Control

by latexr

3/26/2026 at 1:54:36 PM

Perfect name. Who in their right mind would ever vote against the Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse? Imagine if your voters heard that

by wongarsu

3/26/2026 at 3:06:26 PM

What's perfect is the marketing campaign to call it by what it actually wanted to do, ie Chat Control. Whoever did this was so successful that we didn't even know the bill's official name, instead knowing it by what it actually wanted to achieve.

Good thing the EU didn't take a page out of the US' book, because things like the PATRIOT act are already pithy and hard to outmarket.

If RPCCSA were actually called PROTECT, the nickname "Chat Control" would have been fighting a losing battle.

by stavros

3/26/2026 at 3:19:50 PM

It's just a HN thing though.

Ask a European who isn't in tech, and they won't know what you're talking about. Maybe they will today specifically, this vote is bound to get some press, but in general, mainstream media doesn't care much about this bill.

Even Europeans in tech who aren't in the "tech equivalent of gun nuts" culture that HN seems to exemplify are 50/50.

by miki123211

3/26/2026 at 4:22:23 PM

> It's just a HN thing though.

It’s not. People on Reddit, Mastodon, and other websites are also aware (of course not everyone, but not everyone on HN either).

> Ask a European who isn't in tech, and they won't know what you're talking about.

People who haven’t heard about Chat Control haven’t heard the bill’s real name either. That’s true of the overwhelming majority of EU regulation, Chat Control isn’t special in that regard.

by latexr

3/26/2026 at 4:15:56 PM

Yeah but that's the intended audience. The Europeans who aren't in tech weren't likely to know about this anyway.

by stavros

3/26/2026 at 2:05:54 PM

Yep, and it will make it more difficult to pass legislation designed to actually help combat child exploitation when a large(ish) portion of the population immediately equate "for the children" with a power grab.

by nazgulsenpai

3/26/2026 at 3:00:40 PM

Unfortunately, that population immediately equates the two for good reason. Bills that are presented as "for the children" usually are a power grab.

Even more unfortunately, the issue is so emotional that we can't have a reasonable discussion on it. This limits the discussion to proposals that sound good to angry people. And the opposition to those who can get angry about something else. Which limits how much reason is applied on either side.

For example, look at the idea of a national sex offenders registry, like we have in the USA. The existence of such a registry is reasonable given that we're no more successful at stopping people from being pedophiles, than we are at stopping them from being homosexuals.

But the purpose of such a list is severely undermined when an estimated quarter of the list were themselves minors when they offended. The age at which people are most likely to land on the list is 14. But a man who liked 13 year olds when he was 14, is unlikely to reoffend at 30. What is the purpose of ruining the rest of his life for a juvenile mistake?

Such discussions simply can't be had.

by btilly

3/26/2026 at 5:38:56 PM

> The age at which people are most likely to land on the list is 14. But a man who liked 13 year olds when he was 14, is unlikely to reoffend at 30. What is the purpose of ruining the rest of his life for a juvenile mistake?

am I like misunderstanding or what does this mean exactly? I'm so confused. "reoffend" what kind of offense are we talking about here?

by r_lee

3/27/2026 at 1:24:22 PM

Sex crimes. Particularly ones involving children. Such as having sexual pictures of children.

by btilly

3/27/2026 at 1:28:45 PM

"who liked 13 year olds when he was 14, is unlikely to reoffend at 30"

I still don't exactly understand this part.

by r_lee

3/26/2026 at 4:12:27 PM

Call it `chatctl` and give it a CLI.

by kitd

3/26/2026 at 5:35:53 PM

"Save the children", or "if you oppose this you're ugly".

by pnt12

3/26/2026 at 1:20:21 PM

we can learn from our American friends and call it something like CHILDREN SAFETY ACT. So you want to hurt children, huh? I hope not

by integralid

3/26/2026 at 1:45:38 PM

That’s already (kind of) the name it has. “Chat Control” is a name given by critics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_Control

by latexr

3/26/2026 at 2:08:45 PM

this is litterally what they do. point at opposition and try to imply they are pro child abuse. actually really sick to use such a method. I suppose that is what u get for decades long degradation of education and other things. A bunch of childish freaks in power who can only try to chuck eachother under the bus instead of doing something actually good.

they care less and less about it being obvious too.

our new prime minister (NL) was asked about some campaign promises recently (ones important to a lot of his voters actually) and he justs plainly said somethin like: yeah well sometimes u just gotta say shit to get votes.

i mean, its not news ofc... but now they dont even care to mask it. They know the public will just bend over and take it anyway.

by saidnooneever

3/26/2026 at 4:21:42 PM

Don't forget the pointless backronym.

by zamalek

3/26/2026 at 4:35:48 PM

Same for software patents in the EU, it came back through the Unified Patent Court.

Told you so.

by zoobab

3/26/2026 at 3:31:54 PM

Any event E with P(E) > 0 will eventually happen.

by raffael_de

3/26/2026 at 1:19:28 PM

See you next year!

by ramon156

3/26/2026 at 2:57:25 PM

Is the snow melting? Do you hear birds? Must be chat control season.

Someone should sell calendars based on when this typically gets proposed as well as dates throughout the year when past instances of check control came up against key procedural hurdles.

by glenstein

3/26/2026 at 7:28:09 PM

I feel like someone ought to dramatise this seemingly endless struggle in a seemingly endless series of movies.

-The Spying Menace

-Attack of the conservatives

-Revenge of the marketing conglomerate

-A new hope

-Chat Control strikes back

-Return of the Pirate Party

Etc,etc.

by amarant

3/26/2026 at 8:12:14 PM

Good news

by abdelhousni

3/26/2026 at 7:50:40 PM

Never forget:

> We decide something, then put it in the room and wait some time to see what happens. If there is no big shouting and no uprisings, because most do not understand what it is about, then we continue - step by step until there is no turning back. – Jean Claude Juncker, then President of the EU Commission

They will try this again. And again. And again. They will never stop.

They are not your friends.

by woodpanel

3/26/2026 at 2:01:08 PM

How long until they stage an incident to occur so they can pass CC 1.1? 6 months? 2 years?

by canticleforllm

3/26/2026 at 3:08:22 PM

A big W, for now.

Until we meet again.

by cynicalsecurity

3/26/2026 at 4:01:19 PM

Until next time.

by rvz

3/26/2026 at 1:58:24 PM

Chat Control 3.0 will go through

by umren

3/26/2026 at 1:42:38 PM

Maybe it is time to make start a prediction market?

Any time a scumbag politician tries this again:

"Mr. Jones, secretary of communications for the state, TTL (Time-to-live) left. 2 Hours? 1 Day? 1 Week?"

It would stop fast.

Anyone want to build this? There is a lot of money being left on the table.

by Ms-J

3/26/2026 at 3:08:09 PM

Wouldn't this have the opposite effect? Seems to play right into their hands that they need mass surveillance for "" safety"" reasons

by DaSHacka

3/26/2026 at 3:02:31 PM

Goid news, now stop the age bullshit in CA.

by anthk

3/26/2026 at 6:30:58 PM

Good.

Now let's start preparing for the next one.

by Arubis

3/26/2026 at 1:03:10 PM

... again?

by spwa4

3/26/2026 at 6:42:58 PM

They are conservatives. In Germany they also try every time to enact Mass Data Retention ("for catching Criminals"), then the courts decide it's not compatible with the constitution, and after a few years they try again.

I highly doubt they have given up here too

by hermanzegerman

3/27/2026 at 10:04:21 PM

I see the exact opposite. Let's classify parties:

EPP (Christian-democrats, ie. centrist to somewhat conservative parties): >95% voted against. These mattered more than any others

Patriots for Europe (far-right, even racist): 2/3 voted against.

"Green"/progressive parties: ~90% voted in favour

Socialists from anywhere on the spectrum (from just-barely-left-of-centre to communists): >95% voted in favour

Laissez-faire parties (meaning rightist, but not racist): largely voted in favour.

https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189574

Leftists and Green parties desperately seem to want ChatControl (not just this vote), against literally everyone else, but especially against centrist parties.

by spwa4

3/27/2026 at 2:31:19 AM

[dead]

by pugchat

3/26/2026 at 4:04:43 PM

[dead]

by leontloveless

3/26/2026 at 2:35:13 PM

[dead]

by fdezdaniel

3/26/2026 at 1:36:41 PM

So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.

https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270

Just pointing this out because yesterday there was the myth around that "chat control is pushed by the conservatives", obscuring the actual political dynamics in the EU about it.

by freehorse

3/26/2026 at 2:38:25 PM

EPP proposed it, but then it got amended (ie toned down) so much that they turned on their own proposal. This apparently happens quite a lot. So the way I understand it is they turned it down not because they thought it was bad, but because they didn't think it was bad enough.

by skrebbel

3/26/2026 at 1:42:54 PM

> So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.

EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 2:00:50 PM

There's also the DDR and Stasi as a counter example if anyone think mass surveillance is incompatible with socialism.

Mass surveillance isn't really a question that projects well onto the left-right scale, and attempting to make it fit a left-right question is more likely to distract than provide a useful understanding.

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 2:38:06 PM

Yes. I would place it on the authority–liberty axis.

While your examples were on the economic left, they were clearly authoritarian.

by geon

3/28/2026 at 1:10:57 AM

Yes. I'm very socialist on an economic scale but very liberal on the social scale. It basically embodies what we call progressive these days.

Conservatism has redefined itself too. Capitalist on the economic scale, authoritarian on the social one. When it comes to topics like lgbt, abortion, religion, family they don't want freedom. They want to have only the freedom to think like them. That's what we call authoritarianism. A bit remarkable because freedom was traditionally the hallmark of the right. I think you still see the original freedom variety more in states like Texas but not in the midwest. But I'm not really on the ball with American politics anymore so I may be wrong.

I think this breaks the original left/right paradigms a bit but I view it more as a redefinition.

But I think progressive and conservative are better terms to use these days.

by wolvoleo

3/28/2026 at 12:50:47 PM

This is to be expected in a 2-party system like the US.

Since there can only ever be one axis, it must encode all possible issues. And with the strong polarization at the moment, sports team thinking takes over. If you identify with one of the 2 parties, you are expected to agree with the arbitrarily decided position on every single issue, no matter how contradictory.

by geon

3/26/2026 at 2:38:31 PM

Greens based as always

by iknowstuff

3/26/2026 at 6:59:07 PM

The fact that they could pull a stunt like this shows that the EU is no democracy. Shame on the politicians who tried to rob people of their rights.

by someguyornotidk

3/26/2026 at 7:26:52 PM

How have you came to such conclusions?

If anything it proves the opposite.

Look at how laws are passed in russia for example for comparison and let me know what similarities you see.

by hkpack

3/26/2026 at 8:30:54 PM

A lot of people hate seeing the EU succeed at anything, simply because they are envious or it does not validate their world view.

by throwaway132448

3/26/2026 at 1:13:05 PM

“Congrats all we maybe fixed the problem we created in the first place! Let’s celebrate!”

Also - wasn’t this program voluntary? This seems like the height of backslapping. Would have been better if they just sat on their hands and did nothing in the first place.

by sailfast

3/26/2026 at 1:25:24 PM

> Would have been better if they just sat on their hands and did nothing in the first place

You described 95% of EU's work.

by nickslaughter02

3/26/2026 at 1:48:30 PM

> Also - wasn’t this program voluntary?

This gave companies permission to do things which would ordinarily be illegal under the ePrivacy directive, but did not make it mandatory for them to do so. That permission is now revoked (or will be when the derogation they were trying to extend expires in two weeks).

by rsynnott

3/27/2026 at 10:24:42 PM

It was actually voluntary, and then the EU Commission got greedy and tried to make it mandatory. Now they have nothing.

by EmbarrassedHelp

3/26/2026 at 1:05:17 PM

[flagged]

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 5:22:09 PM

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529682 and marked it off topic.

by tomhow

3/26/2026 at 1:21:52 PM

[flagged]

by bilekas

3/26/2026 at 1:56:47 PM

"What did the Romans ever do for US?" :P

by boxed

3/26/2026 at 1:47:53 PM

[flagged]

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 1:11:19 PM

They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days. Also compared to whom?

by camgunz

3/26/2026 at 2:10:39 PM

> They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days.

And they will try again tomorrow. Until it passes.

> Also compared to whom?

Why compare? The fact that there are worse regimes than the EU doesn't make the EU even a single bit better. Lesser evil is still evil. Let us strive for good.

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 2:45:49 PM

"They" being the member states. The EU is the institution preventing them from implementing it, not enabling them.

You're inverting roles here.

Just look at the UK and how crazy they've gone now that the EU can't shoot their ideas down anymore.

by vrganj

3/26/2026 at 1:11:31 PM

> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.

... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).

But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:13:40 PM

So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.

You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.

by sveme

3/26/2026 at 3:29:12 PM

There are advantages to "government by evolution", as opposed to "government by monoculture"

With the former approach, every country is allowed to try different things, some amazing, some dumb, and learn from the amazing and dumb things that others have done.

In the latter, there's only one governing body, and whatever that body said, goes. There's no science or statistics, just sides shouting their arguments at each other, calling people names.

Both the EU and the US used to heavily lean towards the former approach, but they're slowly but inexorably moving towards the latter.

by miki123211

3/26/2026 at 1:52:59 PM

> So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.

There are many reasons to abolish the EU, but the topic here is chat control.

> You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.

Would they? We don't know. Would the government of Denmark be ready to commit political suicide by insisting again and again on something so unpopular?

The whole premise of the EU is to allow various unelected interest groups to push unpopular regulation to the EU member states without any consequences.

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 2:07:54 PM

Isn't the UK a perfect control group? Didn't the EU push back on similar legislation, until Brexit?

> insisting again and again on something so unpopular?

Didn't the UK do exactly this?

by anonymars

3/26/2026 at 2:54:27 PM

[flagged]

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 3:31:27 PM

We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.

Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.

It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.

by andai

3/26/2026 at 6:45:43 PM

Obviously you can revoke Laws.

And not being able to deny the Holocaust doesn't mean you don't have free speech

by hermanzegerman

3/26/2026 at 4:03:51 PM

"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.

by mariusor

3/26/2026 at 4:00:38 PM

What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.

by dyauspitr

3/28/2026 at 12:58:02 AM

That's sad but true :(

by wolvoleo

3/26/2026 at 2:03:17 PM

[flagged]

by croes

3/26/2026 at 3:27:40 PM

The only people named Miroljub I've met were serbian, perhaps this person is too.

by cess11

3/26/2026 at 4:15:10 PM

[flagged]

by miroljub

3/26/2026 at 1:12:29 PM

The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.

by ecshafer

3/26/2026 at 2:05:06 PM

I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as

> directly elect some kind of president

We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.

by freehorse

3/28/2026 at 1:02:41 AM

Yes please. Not make an all powerful president whose election is more about the person than about their politics.

The current US is a perfect example why this is such a bad idea.

I support a president that's more of a figurehead though like in Ireland. More like an elected head of state for ribbon cutting but not really a strong political force. More like a negotiator than a dictator.

I guess the US' dogma of the winner takes all makes this palatable for them. But I don't see it leading anywhere but destruction especially in a forever-polarised zero-sum two party system.

by wolvoleo

3/26/2026 at 1:18:50 PM

> People need to directly elect the MP

They do.

> directly elect some kind of president

I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.

Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.

by bilekas

3/26/2026 at 1:16:20 PM

The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.

by sveme

3/26/2026 at 1:18:02 PM

People directly elects MEPs. And the Parliament literally right now just put a check on the Council.

Many EU nations are not presidential, and personally I prefer parliamentary republics than presidential ones.

by gpderetta

3/26/2026 at 1:55:13 PM

Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P

by Kim_Bruning

3/26/2026 at 2:05:57 PM

You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.

by naasking

3/26/2026 at 2:10:16 PM

Absolutely! That does keep some of the checks. You can do better than that though!

It's like on the Apollo missions where some parts were made by two completely different manufacturers and worked completely differently.

Hybrid political systems are best. Of course if we like democracy (and most people do), then that should be the most common kind of component. But I'd still like to have some different paradigms mixed into the system. And that's exactly what most modern constitutions do, for better or for worse.

by Kim_Bruning

3/26/2026 at 3:32:51 PM

I'd personally go for a two-chamber system (like congress/senate or commons/lords), with one chamber being elected and the other being chosen by sortition.

Maybe also a 3rd chamber, where the weight of your vote was proportional to IQ (much more palatable in EU than US).

by miki123211

3/26/2026 at 4:45:27 PM

This sounds like the opposite of what should be happening? Like an anti-technocracy aiming for an electorate as little informed as possible?

Why exclude teachers from picking the education minister? If we're restricting votes, shouldn't they be the only ones doing so instead?

by vrganj

3/26/2026 at 6:45:59 PM

[dead]

by naasking

3/26/2026 at 4:14:13 PM

one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.

give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.

for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))

by em-bee

3/26/2026 at 1:17:55 PM

> People need to directly elect the MPs

...

We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?

> directly elect some kind of president.

Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).

Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.

> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.

The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:18:51 PM

> We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?

Probably it is not taught as part of the curriculum in Russia.

by gpderetta

3/26/2026 at 1:35:23 PM

Ah, looks like they're American, based on their profile.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 3:49:16 PM

From an EU perspective, there's not much difference between russia, and the US at the moment.

by Ylpertnodi

3/26/2026 at 4:25:28 PM

i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.

imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.

by em-bee

3/26/2026 at 4:37:54 PM

> the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person.

Generally, a prime minister is less powerful than an executive president, often much less powerful.

> and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.

On the face of it, that is the PM's primary role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, the complication is that, in many parliamentary systems, the PM has significant power over the ministers (either via the ability to directly appoint them, or via being the head of the ruling party/coalition/or various other means). But generally, the PM is less powerful in nearly all systems than, say, the US president; in particular the finance minister is often a separate semi-independent power within the cabinet.

by rsynnott

3/26/2026 at 1:17:37 PM

> The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances

You're missing a [citation needed] on that.

by cbg0

3/26/2026 at 2:13:46 PM

Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 3:28:25 PM

> Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?

How is that an EU problem? Without the EU, like here in the UK, we had non-elected lobbyists pressuring our elected government to implement age checks, message scanning, etc. And it is still continuing.

You're fighting the wrong fight by blaming the EU for this.

by munksbeer

3/26/2026 at 3:41:15 PM

This is a highly solvable problem, one that is solved by not overloading the national elections with to different concerns.

EU has checks and balances that were intended for a trade union, not a nascent superstate. If we don't implement proper checks and balances in a real fucking hurry, we'll wake up one morning and realize the EU has turned into another Soviet union, and by then it'll be far too late to do anything about it.

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 2:43:19 PM

Ask your government why they're sending those representatives. As a citizen you vote for your government, right?

by triceratops

3/26/2026 at 2:46:24 PM

How badly would you say the council or commission have to mess things up before they saw any voter-initiated repercussions what so ever with a system of accountability that requires voters to consider punishing the council or comission more important than their own national elections?

If accountability is to work, it has to be more than an abstract theoretical possibility.

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 3:13:44 PM

It isn't abstract. Your government sends representatives to represent its platform and priorities. If you don't agree with the reps you need to elect a different government.

by triceratops

3/26/2026 at 3:15:50 PM

It's a abstract because you will never ever see a situation where voters neglect national elections to adjust the EU council or commission. Maybe it's what needs to happen, but the way thing are arranged it just won't.

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 5:11:42 PM

Why "neglect"? You're voting for a government that does the things you want.

by triceratops

3/26/2026 at 2:53:51 PM

It isn't popular, but they have a name and address right? Not talking violence, but the number one way of dealing with these sorts is to usually talk things out. If you're really concerned about, get a group of similarly minded people and make it unambiguously evident that this person is championing something a lot of people are not behind. It becomes much harder to ignore or wave off something when people start making themselves known on your doorstep.

And no, this isn't dog whistling violence. It is simply applying signal. The only other message I can think of is engaging an investigative journalist/PI and starting to figure out who is lobbying the person, and start pressuring them.

by salawat

3/26/2026 at 2:35:39 PM

Vote against the ruling party in your smaller national election

by iknowstuff

3/26/2026 at 2:43:27 PM

That's a system of accountability in name but not in practice.

Even if there was an option in the national elections that didn't want this stuff, convincing a majority of voters to disregard national politics for an election cycle to have an imperceptibly small impact on the council members is such an unlikely outcome the council or comission would de facto be committing genocides before voters would be mobilized, and even then it's unlikely they'd face any repercussions.

by marginalia_nu

3/27/2026 at 5:10:40 PM

I’m sympathetic to wanting a directly elected upper house instead of the council but it’ll be a hard fight to win.

The Parliament should also be empowered to initiate legislation.

by iknowstuff

3/26/2026 at 2:27:30 PM

The article you're commenting on is reporting how directly elected representatives defeated the motion.

Why do you keep lying?

by izacus

3/26/2026 at 2:32:22 PM

That's the parliament. What about the council and the commission? Am I not allowed to hold them accountable? Does my power as a citizen only extend to a fourth of the balance of power?

They keep getting away with these attrition tactics with regards to implementing near Stasi levels communication surveillance. What about the day they're pushing to give the council unlimited powers, or to abolish voting rights, or to purge jews?

by marginalia_nu

3/26/2026 at 2:42:33 PM

The council is made up of heads of state, so no more undemocratic than your own countries executive, and the commission is selected by the Council and approved by the EU parliament.

by patmorgan23

3/26/2026 at 3:20:27 PM

Russia and China has elections too, they are a necessary but not sufficient criteria for democracy. Just because there are elections doesn't mean the people can actually hold the government accountable.

by marginalia_nu

3/28/2026 at 11:33:00 AM

Every. Single. Democracy. in this world uses a variation of system like EU so please stop bloviating about Russia and China.

Again, why do you keep lying about it?

by izacus

3/26/2026 at 4:49:41 PM

The Council and Commission are representatives of your democratically elected national government. You as a citizen of your country get to pick said government.

If the EU were to not exist, your representatives in the Council/Commission (e.g. your national government) would be more powerful because they wouldn't be checked by the Parliament, not less.

Your problem is with your government, they just successfully deflected it to the EU in your mind.

by vrganj

3/26/2026 at 3:14:25 PM

The parliament holds them accountable like it just did in the article you're comme nting on.

Again, why are you aggressively lying here? Why are you misrepresenting workings of EU despite them following every single democracy out there?

by izacus