Johan Wassberg 🦭Feb 26
Mullvad VPN

Today, the final negotiations on Chat Control 2.0 begin.

We hope the European Parliament stands firm against any wording that paves the way for mass surveillance and censorship. Cyprus, currently holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU, aims to conclude the negotiations by June.

A reminder of the corrupt backstory behind the Chat Control proposal and the involvement of Ashton Kutcher and his company Thorn: https://mullvad.net/why-privacy-matters/going-dark

Chat Control & Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise. Through a shady collaboration between the US and the EU.

After Snowden’s whistleblowing in 2013, large parts of the internet became encrypted, enabling private and secure communication. Not everyone has welcomed this change. Most notably, the FBI and other U.S. government agencies have fought what is often called the “crypto wars”, the war on encryption. In recent years, they have been joined by the European Commission. Under the slogan “what about the children,” they try to introduce total mass surveillance of all EU citizens — first through the proposed Chat Control legislation, and later via the Going Dark and ProtectEU initiatives. The goal is to legally mandate spy tools on every European smartphone and computer. The forces behind these efforts have turned out to be American tech companies and intelligence agencies.

Mullvad VPN
Feb 26 at 3:47pmWeb
Show threadpzmyers 🕷Feb 26
@mullvadnet Wait, wait, wait. Ashton Kutcher, the airhead who defended rapist Danny Masterson, is now a Big Man behind internet sex abuse policies? We are so screwed in so many ways.
Show threadJo - pièce de rÊsistanceFeb 26

@pzmyers @mullvadnet who was also major part of Diddy’s ‘rat pack’.
Melanie Hamlett’s has some great videos about how problematic he is.
https://youtu.be/-tQpJkAuFYg

He is a terrible human and should not even consider himself the right person for the job.

Ashton Kutcher is the perfect example of why men can’t be trusted

YouTube
Show threadhnapelFeb 26

@mullvadnet

If Mila wants it, there's no escape 🤣

Show threadBogdan BuduroiuFeb 26
@mullvadnet Europe needs a post-EU future
Show threadSamuelJohnsonFeb 26
@budududuroiu @mullvadnet 100% wrong. The EU is governed democratically and it can make course corrections as needed as long as it remains democratic. There is no need to replace the EU.
Show threadBogdan BuduroiuFeb 26

@samueljohnson @mullvadnet Von Der Leyen was literally plucked out of a relatively obscure (at the time) defense minister job directly to arguably the most important job in Europe. How? Basically a backroom deal between Merkel and Macron.

The European Parliament (who is the only elected body lmao) doesn't even have the power to legislate.

Democratic my ass

Show threadSamuelJohnsonFeb 26

@budududuroiu @mullvadnet Oh. Europeans don't have direct democracy because their democratically elected governments choose not to have one and you think it's a bad idea, got it.

You're wrong about the European Parliament. You'd know this if you understood how the Trilogue Process works in practice. And vDL's nomination required parliamentary approval. And parliament can fire her and the entire Commission.

Try being realistic.

Show threadBogdan BuduroiuFeb 26

@samueljohnson @mullvadnet
Please, enlighten me about how The Trilogue works lmaooo. Even the most pro-EU policy nuts and outlets critique it as an abomination, a closed, informal negotiation that produces pre-agreed texts presented to the full Parliament for rubber-stamping.

My critique isn't about direct democracy, it's that Parliament is a rubber stamp. In normal parliamentary democracy, the legislature's primary function is to scrutinise executive power. What you get is a system where the formally democratic body (Parliament) has been procedurally marginalized by an informal workaround (Trilogue) that gives the most consequential institutional power (agenda setting) to a body unaccountable to it's constituents (the Commission).

Parliament can't fire HER, Parliament can force the whole Commission to resign by a vote of no confidence, which never happened btw because it triggers a political crisis with no clear resolution path.

Show threadprometheuspetrosssFeb 26
@mullvadnet #reticulum ....
Show threadSTPFeb 26
@prometheuspetrosss @mullvadnet Reticulum is great, but let's not think we can technology our way out of policy failings every time or for everyone.. for a start, it's very easy to imagine a dystopian future where using any un-backdoored communication is either treated as presumptively suspicious or outright illegal.
Show threadprometheuspetrosssFeb 26
@SciPolTech @mullvadnet True
Show threadToni AittoniemiFeb 26

@mullvadnet ChatControl 2.0 is another attempt at selling a magical mystery device that doesn’t and can’t exist.

It reads everything but doesn’t read anything, it stores everything but cannot be hacked. It doesn’t make mistakes, it knows everything.

In other circles things like these are called scams, but in tech politics they seem to be a dime a dozen.

Show threadDekOfTheYautjaFeb 26
Narrator: *they didn't*