"Unexpected"
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Privacy
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Chat control only needs to be successful once. The efforts against it need to be successful every time.
Lawmakers have decided that chat control is going to happen so they'll keep pushing until it does.
It's getting harder and harder to not just give up. I did contact my representatives when the stop chat control campaign was rolling along. I did spread the word to family, friends, colleges and my students. All for what? This bs.
My boss mentioned that someone had mailed her from a protonmail email, and when I explained what internet privacy means she immediately started talking about pedophiles and how they also used "those things". It's difficult to make people understand.
nah, pedos use .gov
By what medium did you contact your representatives? Was there perhaps a van and a dark pillowcase involved? Your message engraved on a brick? Whispered in pillow talk? Why should they give a fuck what you think if you just send an email?
Email. Even got answers, but only from representatives that were already against chat control. What else would you have me do? I won't start throwing bricks
Why should your rulers care if you're not a threat to their regime interests or health, or willing to give them something in return gir the consideration?
What leverage did you apply? Do you expect them to do the right thing just because its good and right? Were you literally born yesterday? Do you lack theory of mind?
Dude... Not going down that path with you. Whatever I will reply it won't be enough before I agree to do something extreme or admit that it's all for nothing blah blah something. You just ask random cynical questions and call me stupid for trying to make a little tiny difference. What is your point actually? To let me know that we cannot do anything as people because politicians==bad and corrupt?
You elect a ruler. A person to exercise power over you. Seems fucking stupid, IMO its easier to coordinate people without that shit and it generates barriers to any kind of coordination society-wide, but it's sort of the done thing and I'll accept that its where both your location and mine are at right now.
Sorry you don't live in a fantasy world where assholes who run vicious popularity gauntlets to do shitty things and exercise/conspire coercive power others are generally good considerate people.
You want to make a difference, a 'tiny' difference; do it your fucking self. Find others who want the sameish thing and work it out if you're being hyperbolic about it being 'tiny'.
Or find some way to make the tyrant you chose care. Suck his dick. Threaten his kids. Give him a pile of money in whatever way bribes are accepted where you are. Make him give a shit that you care. Or give more of a shit than the people paying/threatening him to do whatever bullshit he's doing.
Or you can keep throwing a fucking temper tantrum about prayer not working and people not listening to you on street corners.
It's chat control. I only expect it to keep returning like a bad rash
It will keep returning as long as there is no counter movement. Instead of only trying to stop chat control, we should push in the opposite direction. Propose legislation that enforces stricter privacy rules, forbid commercialization of private data (e.g. criminalize and penalize data brokers) and so on. We need to shift the balance in favor of the people instead of trying to maintain a status quo. A Newtonian approach, every action requires an (equal and) opposite reaction.
Some US states allow citizen initiative so we could ban something similar in our state constitution. For some reason we haven't done this. Does the EU have a citizen referendum, a way to update the charter, or any law that would prevent a defeated piece of legislation from being attempted over and over? Perhaps we should introduce a law to publish every politicians text messages publicly. When it fails, we'll just submit it over and over again.