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• @Disillusionist@piefed.world 2026-04-30 00:54

  >We're not talking about removing e2e encryption, https, VPNs and making selfhosting illegal. While it might not be happening in your neck of the woods, there are efforts to crack down on encryption as well, [in France](https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/23/france-keeps-breaking-the-internet-to-stop-piracy-even-though-its-not-working/) for instance. The EU is not immune to encroachment and abuse of the individual's rights, no place is. >It's baffling that people confuse anonymity with privacy. My Signal account is tied to my phone number yet my conversation are private. While you're correct that anonymity is not the same as privacy, encryption alone is not a viable answer. As "Signalgate" in the US demonstrated, encryption is merely an attempt to secure a channel of communication. It isn't sufficient on its own to protect anything, it isn't even guaranteed to be secure a surprising amount of the time. Overall, you seem to have a strong sense of faith that your country and the EU as a whole will be this unshakable pillar in the face of all of everything happening all around. Even if you trust **your** government or the EU, you would also have to trust the numerous platforms, service providers, data brokers, and digital security apparatus to all work honestly and in conjunction toward your (and everyone else's) best interests. That's quite a lot of trust and faith to spread around. As far as all the various fascists and other bad actors you're (rightly) concerned about, that is a good point to talk about. One thing to emphasize is that the major platforms hosting them have historically had a legal obligation to **moderate their content**, which they have been grossly negligent at. There is a whole discussion there, but the point is that there is a reasonable expectation that platforms do their utmost to handle these situations responsibly. Due to things like engagement metrics, this obligation often contradicts with the bottom line of the business (as brought out in the "Facebook Papers" leak) since controversial content typically elicits high engagement. I (and others) don't believe the answer lies in individuals forfeiting rights simply because the platforms won't do what they are rightly obligated to do. Shifting the responsibility away from the platforms themselves not only makes it less likely they will improve their practices, but it makes any measures any individual or government may take to sanitize that caustic digital environment that much harder and less effective.

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