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And all of this starts with the data itself.
Code is data. Data is code.

#GDPR lack of enforcement against US #BigTech shows that while you are right at a theoretical level, in practice we need to be extremely careful to not be fooled by lobbyists that work to replace law with "paper compliance".

It would be easy for a US company to argue they produce open source, with open formats and open API defined by "open standards" that they control.

Then, to keep everything unchanged, they might just take competitor out of the market with overwhelming complexity, unfair competition based on free tiers and by buying the few survivors (if any).

Forced interoperability might be a step further, but it's not enough anyway: both #Meta and #BlueSky interoperate with the #fediverse over #ActivityPub, but in fact they jusr harmed the fediverse without any user moving over here preserving their contacts.

In brief, to get Digital Sovereignty we need to get rid of US tech.

There is no alternative, only procrastination.
They key point is that source code must be open and available for all.  That takes away the chances of someone talking full control of the software and restricting the freedom otherwise possible.
I'd love if it was that simple!
Unfortunately, it's not.

Again, #Chromium is open source and its code is available for all.
Yet it's tightly controlled by #Google that shape it (and the #WHATWG "open standards") into one of the worse and most powerful surveillance and manipulation tools out there.

I agree that some #opensource projects might be useful to gain #DigitalSovereignty (think of #NextCloud for example), but only if when their development is not controlled by any corporation tied with external governments.

This cut out all biggest open source projects, mostly leaded by US corporations or their employees.
data in an open standard is another piece in the same puzzle.
Again, it's not so simple: for example both #OpenDocument and #OOXML (#OfficeOpenXML) are open standards, but in fact when you save in ooxml (docx, xlsx..) by #Microsoft tools, they include undocumented proprietary extensions that #LibreOffice cannot handle properly.

So again while proprietary formats always harm individual freedom and #DigitalSovereignty of nations, openness is not, by itself, enough to get them.

And yet, a proprietary format developed by a fully European company would harm individual freedom just like any proprietary format but, given the company would be only and fully subject to European law (no #FISA702, no #CLOUD Act, no #Trump...), it would still enhance the digital sovereignty of the Union over an open standard totally controlled by US corporations.

So things are more complex and you can't get any real freedom or sovereignty from buzzwords like "open", "free" or #foss.

So again, to get #digital sovereignty, first of all we need to be laser focused on getting rid of #US control over #UE computing, citizens and lawmakers.

Some Free Software and Open Standards may help achieving such goal, but just being open is not enough. And we can't wait for all european software to be free to achieve Digital Sovereignty.

@[email protected]

@[email protected]

You are missing the points:

1. USA do not just spy on their own citizens, but also on every one else.

2. While, at least theoretically, #FISA702 and #CLOUDAct recognize certain rights to US citizens, they don't recognize any right or redress to non-US people.

3. It's not just matter of spying: the USA use social platform to manipulate foreign people (through individual, targetted, psyops) to influence votes, elections, "revolutions", even genocide (see #Facebook role in #Myanmar, but also #Twitter role in "Arab Springs") to destabilyze nations and whole areas and pursuit their own national interests.

Compare all this with #GDPR that, despite its poor enforcement against US #BigTech, protects not only EU citizens but also every foreign person that is, temporarily or not, in any EU state.

Sure, I know about Five Eyes, Echelon and all.

But the fact is that no country but the USA have corporations like US BigTech, deeply bound to military contracts.

Like it or not, USA are a threat to every other democracy, even bigger (because way more powerful) than Russia or China.

Maybe that doesn't imply a moral resposibility of all of their citizens, obviously, but in fact most of them do not care about the rest of the world, if #Trump won the elections 2 times.