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Posted by amarcheschi 8 hours ago

End of "Chat Control": EU parliament stops mass surveillance(www.patrick-breyer.de)
420 points | 219 commentspage 2
schubidubiduba 7 hours ago|
Nice to see that democracy can work
nickslaughter02 7 hours ago||
> 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...

rsynnott 7 hours ago|||
Note that European parliament parties aren't particularly cohesive; some EPP members voted against it.
nickslaughter02 7 hours ago||
> some EPP members voted against it

20 out of 184

olex 7 hours ago||
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).

rsynnott 7 hours ago||
I think the point of confusion is that there was an amendment before the final vote, which was way closer.
pqtyw 7 hours ago||||
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
nickslaughter02 7 hours ago||
EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.
Sharlin 7 hours ago|||
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)

Noumenon72 7 hours ago|||
Site guidelines: "Please don't fulminate."
modo_mario 5 hours ago|||
> with the help of the far right.

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

baal80spam 7 hours ago|||
See you next month!
Kenji 7 hours ago||
[dead]
Freak_NL 7 hours ago||
Did that vote pass with a difference of one single vote? Tight squeeze there.
rsynnott 7 hours ago||
The screenshot is actually a vote on an amendment. Here's the final vote: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270

Less tight.

pqtyw 7 hours ago|||
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?
rsynnott 7 hours ago|||
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.

cluckindan 4 hours ago||
EPP is the predominant christian nationalist party.
rsynnott 4 hours ago||
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.
whywhywhywhy 7 hours ago||||
There’s often large differences between what politicians tell you they are and how they vote once in power
pqtyw 7 hours ago||
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)?
whywhywhywhy 6 hours ago||
> 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.

SiempreViernes 6 hours ago|||
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.

joering2 6 hours ago|||
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 ?
raverbashing 7 hours ago||
No, that was an ammendment
wewewedxfgdf 7 hours ago||
Just rename it to something something save the children something something. Instant approval no matter what is in the bill.
rsynnott 7 hours ago||
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".
olex 7 hours ago||
It's already called "Extension of the temporary derogation from the ePrivacy Directive to combat online child sexual abuse".
cryptonector 3 hours ago||
> The Hard Facts: Why Chat Control Has Failed Spectacularly

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

the_mitsuhiko 7 hours ago||
This will come back because too many EU countries want it.
embedding-shape 7 hours ago||
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.
jimnotgym 7 hours ago|||
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.
kergonath 6 hours ago||||
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.

the_mitsuhiko 6 hours ago||||
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.

wongarsu 6 hours ago||
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

miohtama 6 hours ago|||
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.

psychoslave 5 hours ago||
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...

0xy 7 hours ago||
Bastion of democracy Germany will be pushing hard given they let slip they want mandatory IDs on social media. They want full control.
olex 7 hours ago|||
German MEPs voted overwhelmingly against the extension: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270 ("Countries" tab).
rsynnott 7 hours ago|||
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.)

fcanesin 5 hours ago||
To get "End of Chat Control" EU should actually pass laws prohibiting it, this whack a mole will eventually lose.
ori_b 4 hours ago||
Who is going to push a counteroffensive, banning specific types of data from being collected?
_the_inflator 4 hours ago||
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.

em-bee 4 hours ago||
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.

adw 3 hours ago||
You’re painting an EPP/ECR initiative as left wing? That’s inconsistent with the facts.
hermanzegerman 2 hours ago||
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.

whywhywhywhy 7 hours ago||
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.

latexr 7 hours ago|
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.

wongarsu 6 hours ago|||
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
whywhywhywhy 6 hours ago|||
Perhaps a system where that can happen is broken
Fargren 23 minutes ago||
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.

dethos 7 hours ago|
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.
fleebee 6 hours ago|
One would think that the same thing getting denied over and over would make future votes about it easier to decide.
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