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The EU is using genocide censorship as an excuse to abort all "freedom" laws. A hillarious twist.
US big tech is influencing europe to do the same as the us, and opening them up for absolute power.
the only way out is to stop being US vassals.
No. This is a very naive & dated way of thinking about the world of today. We don’t really have distinct borders distinguishing politicians at that level.
It’s more accurate to say the Davos group is ruling all western nations. What looks like separate world leaders and parties is actually one world-spanning organization of those with power. And what’s worse, they’re all Nazis and technocrats.
The Nazis learned from WW2. If you invade a country, the people fight back. If you groom and install/bribe your own people into leadership positions, the people just let it happen.
big US capitalists are the ones ruling western nations (and the third world, through neocolonialism). other western oligarchs might play a role.
in this case, europe doesn't have its own big tech that compares to the US's, and i don't think they are allowed to.
i don't think they are relying on a formal, yearly summit to do so either. the real politics are made behind close doors, and i doubt there's a public list anywhere of the people coming to agreements on how to direct their power.
i will agree they are fascists who learned their lesson from nazi mistakes.
They don’t need their own tech companies. Europe has its own oligarchs. They’re the problem.
being independent is better, but oligarchs are a real problem aren't they. we really gotta figure this shit out.
I'm not going to defend the US and it's tech oligarchs, they are all shit, but the way things are going, the EU and the UK are currently in way worse shape than the US in terms of all this 1984 bullshit.
No country is safe from this anymore, and we may very well be looking at the worse time to be alive when it comes to privacy, regardless of where you live.
As a US citizen, pray for us 🙏
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The UK ain't part of the EU mate
It's worse in Germany.
Not officially, but the same powerful monied interests control both.
France is doing the exact same shit as the UK with age verification...
the EU is eyeing similar rules
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Almost the entire western world is going authoritarian. Very worrying trend. It has to be stopped.
the only thing that can really stop it IMO is mainstreaming decentralized social media and messaging services.
You'd need to effectively replace Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Whatsapp etc.. The only thing that totally keeps us from 1984 is that all these platforms for now have decided to be relatively free and impartial (compared to how bad it could be). But that could change at any time if the powers that be decide to on a whim. They could completely ban all privacy, pacificsm or any kind of political opposition tomorrow.
From the fact Britain produced Orwell, Huxley's Brave New World, and Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, I figure the UK has always been some shade of "Orwellian".
Historically, the UK has always been very self assured in their goals and never looked for outside input while disregarding the people that they were upending. Anyone who wasn't helping them was viewed as an enemy to be controlled, oppressed , or destroyed. If that isn't a non-political explanation of rightwing authoritarianism, I'm not sure what is.
Old enough to remember how Europeans smugly thought that they lived in some sort of an enlightened and free society.
We are living in Orwellian society, it's just the news catching up with reality.
The news has been trying to obfuscate this awareness for as long as possible.
Is this thread about the rising fascist movements? Oh...
Is it about the refugees from their colonies they drown in the Mediterranean? Oh...
Well is it about the pivot from renewables and nuclear to oil and gas? Wh... well what is...
Oh. This is a thread about your online treats.
#1 on lemmy 'top in last 12 hours'
you are saying that as if all (or any) of those would have started to be a problem just in the last 12 hours...
and this is not about "online treats", but online threats. It's not just netflix, amazon and other silly unnecessary things, it's everything, including every forum where people can organize and discuss things, fucking youtube with their tons of knowledge based content, ...
but sure! we have 4 other problems, count climate change too, that's 5, we really should just ignore this one because it's literally meaningless!
You're right! I forgot about the genocide your governments are enabling!
As an American it's nice to see were not the only ones in a complete downward spiral.
EDIT: wild that there are users pretending to be butthurt by this obviously joke comment so they can farm upvotes from the tens of users on Lemmy
It's nice to see that the rest of the world is just as bad as U.S.
As an American, no it's not nice. Why would I want more of this shit elsewhere?
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Nice? I wish it was just the US so getting to another country would make it safe for us. This is awful.
Not even close to the horrors of an Orwellian society and saying it is is an insult to the characters in those books. It isn't great though, and it's heading in a troubling direction
Oh no! Wouldn't want to insult those fictional characters
I think the characters in the book will forgive as that's a work of fiction and they are not real. That's like saying I insulted Bugs Bunny for having big teeth. We'll get through this calamity. ✌🏻
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and it’s heading in a troubling direction
I'd say it's heading in an orwellian direction...
I’m quite curious to see how it will end in the UK with the porn filters because the people don’t seem to be inclined to use their IDs online, the system is brittle, and non-porn websites are being blocked too.
As a Brit who has seen the UK government's ill thought through and unworkable attempts at police state bullshit go through the process a few times now, I'm going to predict: VPN use goes up massively, the government starts talking about banning VPNs without considering that this would break half the internet, then some wealthy business donor has a quiet word to them because businesses need VPNs to function, but they can't publicly back down because they already called everyone who opposed it a pedo. So they pick one or two VPN companies (whichever ones have the most foreign-sounding names), have the tabloids run a propaganda campaign about how evil they are, then ban them even though they aren't based in the UK and it makes no difference to anything, then they'll claim they won and the laws will stay on the books forever but nobody will bother to enforce them and everything will carry on as before.
then some wealthy business donor has a quiet word to them because businesses need VPNs to function
A little credit here. They'd rephrase the law to only target VPNs whose purpose is offering as a service to the general public (as opposed to exclusively employees and contractors) the ability to connect to a private network with exit points / the ability to appear as if their traffic originates from outside of the UK.
On a related matter they could also require know your customer for all VPNs, require all VPNs keep logs available on request for police inspection and those who don't are banned. All companies keep extensive logs for corporate VPNs so this wouldn't present any additional burden to private enterprise but would be the end of anonymous VPN services.
I really don't think this is more of the spectacle and move on. Not this time. I think Palestine has them spooked because they lost control of the narrative and the best way to seize control of the internet and clamp down on people conveying information they don't like is starting with things like this.
Sign ups for Swiss VPN providers from the UK are up massively, nobody will use their ID for porn.
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For the age verification is it possible to sign a petition? I think is not too late to join forces… or anything but not letting them go further.. as of the chat control probably only contacting the representatives. I really hope lawyers and businessmen try to fight it…
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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Privacy
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