Thanks Joachim! Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.
> The campaign has irked some recipients. “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont, a German member of the European People’s Party group and its home affairs spokesperson, of the mass emails.
What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?
Or, or, "normal people" sending emails only for the lawmakers to go "thanks for the feedback, we're doing it anyway"?
> One EU diplomat said some EU member countries are now more hesitant to support Denmark’s proposal, at least in part because of the campaign: “There is a clear link.”
> Ella Jakubowska, head of policy at digital rights group EDRi, said “This campaign seems to have raised the topic high up the agenda in member states where there was previously little to no public debate."
This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.
> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures to get child abuse material off online platforms, said in a statement that his proposal is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.
A metaphor: I once played in a D&D campaign where a player tried to create an extremely overpowered but technically legal character. His justification was that he would only use the extreme powers in moderation, so it would not be unfair or unbalanced. But why would he ask for such unprecedented powers if he didn't intend to use them?
I mean, every person who purchases a car does so, at least implicitly. The very act of obtaining a driving license contains an (often explicit) promise to abide by the rules of the road.
Still going tp need a plan against fascists new hybrid warfare. Brexit and Trump are the long tails of Business+Fascism, with Russia, Israel and China using social media and telecoms to grift and foment antidemocratic forces.
> "[...] A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?"
Why, yes... that's exactly what the types of outfits like the European People's Party [1] expect on many things. But year after year these incompetent grouches get the majority of votes. And that's before one has to deal with the full-blown far right, fascists, and the like (e. g. ESN [2], PfE [3], et cetera).
Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"
Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."
I'd love to see this argument transfered to physical mail. Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?
If that somehow seams reasonable on its face to someone, then I don't know where to begin a reasonable discussion.
Perhaps the EU should consider adding access to secure encrypted communication to the human intrinsic rights to prevent such things in the future. He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for.
He has no good explanations or arguments. He was beaten as a child by his father and now he is reproducing the abuse of power he experienced on all of us. I'm not even trying to be snarky, it's the only framing that can explain his behavior.
It's not even the fact that that belief is unfounded, but that he's actually equating a sense of security with security itself that makes that statement a bold yet easily overlooked lie. That he calls himself a social-democrat!
> Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"
I mean, he's kinda right. It just depends on if you feel you're a target or not. If you're not the target, you feel an increased sense of security from any threat caused by the people who are the target.
A really obvious example is a dictator like Kim Jong Un: there's a huge amount of surveillance in North Korea, but all of it serves him and none of it threatens him.
So, especially someone kind of unthoughtful and ignorant of the complexities might feel "an increased sense of security" from this surveillance, because they know they're not a pedophile so assume surveillance purportedly targeted at pedophiles will do them no harm. You might even feel "more freedom" to the degree you feel pedophiles are a threat to you or your family.
>Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.
MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON witch can be any of the following labels: hate speech, misinformation, fake news, woke left, radical right wing, Putin supporters, etc. Just spin the roulette and pick one.
>What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?
> MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON
What a load of crap! There is still tons of "mainstream media" outlets that don't do this. One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian, there are hundreds like it.
The decision to toe the line, like the WaPo, are purely because of money (Jeff's and his readership's), not because anyone is "shutting them down" for X or Y.
"Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM"
Why wouldn't they? It's a NATO aligned, pro-Israel rag under Axel Springer, of course they're helping to sell surveillance technology that can be abused by militaries and state agencies, one of the main israeli exports and generally appreciated industry by NATO.
Absolute hero, and a slap in the face to many commenters here who seem to believe that individuals can’t have a political impact through the clever application of technology. Fairly simple technology at that. A good comparison is the deflock.me site that seems to be successfully raising awareness of widespread surveillance.
Note that this technology complemented ongoing campaigns rather than standing alone; that’s important. It would be difficult to have an impact by building a tool in isolation.
> Joachim himself declined to provide his last name or workplace because his employer does not want to be associated with the campaign. POLITICO has verified his identity. Joachim said his employer has no commercial interest in the legislation, and he alone paid the costs associated with running the website.
The media loves doing this "let's go doxx people we don't like" shit.
When the kiwifarms do it, it's "harassment" and "morally reprehensible" and "they deserve to get wiped off the face of the internet for this". But when the media does it, it's "journalistic duty" and "our readers deserve to know" and "consequences are things that happen to other people". Funny how that works.
Yeah, a quick search says there's 21000 men aged 25-34 in Aalborg. Let's say an equal spread of 2100 men in each age, how many would be named Joachim? Probably a few dozens...
"spam" is a grave mischaracterization, at that. It's a tool assisting citizens to voice their concerns to their elected representatives.
I also feel uneasy about Politico putting the lights on the creator this way and stopping short of doxxing them when they clearly wish to have their identity unknown and could face threats from having their personals broadcasted.
It's also telling that the two opponents to the bill named in the article are Musk and WhatsApp - hardly the most sympathetic picks for the Politico audience.
My main problem with Fight Chat Control is that it asks people to send messages to the wrong audience. The site asks me to contact members of the European /parliament/, while the proposal is being discussed by the EU /commission/, a completely different body.
The commissioners are not elected by the citizens of their respective countries. Instead, they are selected via a parliamentary vetting process, and approved by the European Parliament.
The commission has no direct responsibility towards the citizens in EU. It is also the European Parliament that scrutinized and votes on the laws created by the commission. The commission job is only to write proposal for laws.
This is a bit like complaining that people have objections about a politician speech and send emails to the politician rather than the employed person who wrote it. Should citizens direct their messages and complaints to speech writes?
Yes you are correct, but technically the parliament passes the laws, so they have the final say. It should be the commission that gets slapped in the face (or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic), but what can you do...
I agree, I feel like it gives the article a negative bias against the developer. Perhaps the editor wants to generate pressure against them or discourage further opposition?
At least it’s not a complete hit piece, if you ignore the title then it’s mostly balanced.
> Isn't this an egregious headline for such a neutral article? ... And the article itself describes the actual setup accurately in one of the opening paragraphs, so clearly the author knows the facts
I would guess that the author is to involved with writing the headline. An awful lot of journalists have been up in arms the last decade over the editors writing new headlines that imply the opposite stance of the article itself...
Politico.eu is owned by Axel Springer, the same Axel Springer SE which received US$ 7m from the CIA back in the early 2000s [0].
It's the closest to a Fox News-esque entity in Western Europe, I believe. They also own BILD, a tabloid, and Die Welt, a newspaper that constantly publishes climate-skeptic articles, and also infamously published an op-ed by Musk supporting the AfD.
> Chat controls, government controls - are coming.
Not if the people continue to fight off each attempt. Looks like we may be winning this round. Each time we win this battle, the opposition becomes better organized/funded and citizens become more aware of what is going on. Each subsequent push will have less chance of success once we pass a key threshold; it seems to me that this may be the last big push, if we win here then the public won’t back future attempts. Then your only option to pass this will be removing democracy altogether.
the article is more-or-less fine, but the headline is ridiculous
> one-man ... campaign
it's a website that drafts an email for you, and then you send it yourself. it's an organizational tool, yes, but broad involvement is sorta the point
> spam campaign
gross mischaracterization, citizens sending emails to their govt representative for legitimate purposes - making their political opinion known to the politician - is not spam under any sane definition
> a massive headache to those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
No, what the actual fuck: it's a bill rolling out a CSAM scanner of unproven efficacy, but with severe side effects for privacy! See, one sentence, and immediately a reader sees that this is a nuanced, contested issue.
What kind of reporting is this, extremely one-sided. Politico, many such cases. Sad.
I'm fascinated by ultra high impact, nonviolent interventions by individuals, such as this.
My favorite example was when a few people made Twitter accounts masquerading as large companies, bought a verified stamp, and then issued a couple tweets that single handedly wiped billions off the companies' stock prices.
If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.
> If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.
One that comes to mind is Keith Gill [1] of GameStop fame [2].
> Joachim's campaign is blocking more traditional lobbyists and campaigners, too, they said. Mieke Schuurman, director at child rights group Eurochild, said the group’s messages are no longer reaching policymakers, who “increasingly respond with automated replies.”
So, previously they could blow off people like Mieke personally, and now they're getting too many messages to be able to do that. That seems like a pretty clear win.
> a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance
Why not call it: "a proposal to break encryption and enact mass surveillance, claimed to be used to fight CSAM"?
How did the author decide which part to present as plain fact, and which as mere activist opinion? The choice isn't arbitrary - the proposal definitely will break encryption and enact mass surveillance - that's what the text of the proposal directly commands governments to do!
I guess such subtleties fade compared to the two bald lies in the title alone - it is not "spam" to simplify EU citizens contacting their representatives, and since that "spam" was sent by those citizens themselves, it is not a "one-man" campaign either, but a mass movement.
> trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
Nice try on framing. No, you don’t stop the spread of the material that way. It will just change distribution channel for the price of creating a tool for mass surveillance.
How are the EU legislators complaining about this like its a novel idea or somehow undemocratic? This sort of email templating website has been a fixture of contact your reps movements on the state and federal level for years in the states.
I also get a kick out of lobbyists complaining about it.
Thanks Joachim! Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.
> The campaign has irked some recipients. “In terms of dialog within a democracy, this is not a dialog,” said Lena Düpont, a German member of the European People’s Party group and its home affairs spokesperson, of the mass emails.
What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?
Or, or, "normal people" sending emails only for the lawmakers to go "thanks for the feedback, we're doing it anyway"?
> One EU diplomat said some EU member countries are now more hesitant to support Denmark’s proposal, at least in part because of the campaign: “There is a clear link.”
> Ella Jakubowska, head of policy at digital rights group EDRi, said “This campaign seems to have raised the topic high up the agenda in member states where there was previously little to no public debate."
This is amazing, and makes me regain a bit of (much destroyed) faith in democracy.
> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures to get child abuse material off online platforms, said in a statement that his proposal is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version and would mean that scanning would only happen as a last resort.
If the option is there, it will be abused.
A metaphor: I once played in a D&D campaign where a player tried to create an extremely overpowered but technically legal character. His justification was that he would only use the extreme powers in moderation, so it would not be unfair or unbalanced. But why would he ask for such unprecedented powers if he didn't intend to use them?
Another one: someone buys a sports car and promises to drive within legal speed limits at all times.
A better one: the large number of individuals who drive super-duty pickup trucks only for commuting to their office jobs.
Nobody does that.
I mean, every person who purchases a car does so, at least implicitly. The very act of obtaining a driving license contains an (often explicit) promise to abide by the rules of the road.
Still going tp need a plan against fascists new hybrid warfare. Brexit and Trump are the long tails of Business+Fascism, with Russia, Israel and China using social media and telecoms to grift and foment antidemocratic forces.
> "[...] A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?"
Why, yes... that's exactly what the types of outfits like the European People's Party [1] expect on many things. But year after year these incompetent grouches get the majority of votes. And that's before one has to deal with the full-blown far right, fascists, and the like (e. g. ESN [2], PfE [3], et cetera).
1. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People's_Party]
2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Sovereign_Nations_Gr...]
3. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots_for_Europe]
Given the dealings with Pfizer and the blocking of an ethics committee, why, yes, the EPP prefers lobbying to remain opaque.
> is far more balanced than the Commission’s original version
It doesn't require analyzing of all text and sound. Everything else is still fair game.
> But Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard, one of the loudest proponents of tough measures
Good, this is the person that should be blamed loud and clear
Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45473136
I'm sure the Stasi would very much agree with him.
The fact that he's actually saying this is incredible, and not in a good way.
I'd love to hear him explain the government exemptions in the bill with this in mind.
Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/danish-justice-min...
I'd love to see this argument transfered to physical mail. Should it be illegal to send physical letters that are encrypted without also somehow providing the government with an unencrypted copy?
If that somehow seams reasonable on its face to someone, then I don't know where to begin a reasonable discussion.
Perhaps the EU should consider adding access to secure encrypted communication to the human intrinsic rights to prevent such things in the future. He seems to be motivated by increases in gang crime that he will get blamed for.
He has no good explanations or arguments. He was beaten as a child by his father and now he is reproducing the abuse of power he experienced on all of us. I'm not even trying to be snarky, it's the only framing that can explain his behavior.
It's not even the fact that that belief is unfounded, but that he's actually equating a sense of security with security itself that makes that statement a bold yet easily overlooked lie. That he calls himself a social-democrat!
Wouldn't that party lean more towards early identification and rehabilitation of potential predators with therapy etc.?
> Peter Hummelgaard, Danish Minister of Justice: "I indisputably believe that surveillance creates an increased sense of security ... and given that the prerequisite for freedom is security, yes, I believe that more surveillance equates to more freedom"
I mean, he's kinda right. It just depends on if you feel you're a target or not. If you're not the target, you feel an increased sense of security from any threat caused by the people who are the target.
A really obvious example is a dictator like Kim Jong Un: there's a huge amount of surveillance in North Korea, but all of it serves him and none of it threatens him.
So, especially someone kind of unthoughtful and ignorant of the complexities might feel "an increased sense of security" from this surveillance, because they know they're not a pedophile so assume surveillance purportedly targeted at pedophiles will do them no harm. You might even feel "more freedom" to the degree you feel pedophiles are a threat to you or your family.
This guy is insane
If I didn't know any better, I would think you are describing Congress.
>Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM, given that everyone who wants to trade it will obviously just use another layer of encryption.
MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON witch can be any of the following labels: hate speech, misinformation, fake news, woke left, radical right wing, Putin supporters, etc. Just spin the roulette and pick one.
>What is a dialog, then? A dialogue between well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, and everyone else should just shut up and take it?
Yes, that's precisely how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtdbF-nRJqs
> MSM today has no choice but to parrot or echo the opinions of those in power if they want to stay in business otherwise they get shut down for $REASON
What a load of crap! There is still tons of "mainstream media" outlets that don't do this. One of the biggest in the UK would be The Guardian, there are hundreds like it.
The decision to toe the line, like the WaPo, are purely because of money (Jeff's and his readership's), not because anyone is "shutting them down" for X or Y.
"Still frustrating that Politico still implies that the bill has any power to stop CSAM"
Why wouldn't they? It's a NATO aligned, pro-Israel rag under Axel Springer, of course they're helping to sell surveillance technology that can be abused by militaries and state agencies, one of the main israeli exports and generally appreciated industry by NATO.
Absolute hero, and a slap in the face to many commenters here who seem to believe that individuals can’t have a political impact through the clever application of technology. Fairly simple technology at that. A good comparison is the deflock.me site that seems to be successfully raising awareness of widespread surveillance.
Note that this technology complemented ongoing campaigns rather than standing alone; that’s important. It would be difficult to have an impact by building a tool in isolation.
> A website set up by an unknown Dane
> The website, called Fight Chat Control, was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark.
That's a lot of knowledge about an unknown person.
Further down the article explains:
> Joachim himself declined to provide his last name or workplace because his employer does not want to be associated with the campaign. POLITICO has verified his identity. Joachim said his employer has no commercial interest in the legislation, and he alone paid the costs associated with running the website.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was still targeted by the people and companies lobbying for the law.
You can't fire people in Denmark for having the wrong opinions.
The media loves doing this "let's go doxx people we don't like" shit.
When the kiwifarms do it, it's "harassment" and "morally reprehensible" and "they deserve to get wiped off the face of the internet for this". But when the media does it, it's "journalistic duty" and "our readers deserve to know" and "consequences are things that happen to other people". Funny how that works.
Yeah, a quick search says there's 21000 men aged 25-34 in Aalborg. Let's say an equal spread of 2100 men in each age, how many would be named Joachim? Probably a few dozens...
Isn't this an egregious headline for such a neutral article? I guess it's just clickbait, but I haven't previously found Politico to be this extreme.
And the article itself describes the actual setup accurately in one of the opening paragraphs, so clearly the author knows the facts:
> The site lets visitors compile a mass email warning about the bill and send it...
And most of the other headlines on their current front page are quite boring and descriptive.
"spam" is a grave mischaracterization, at that. It's a tool assisting citizens to voice their concerns to their elected representatives.
I also feel uneasy about Politico putting the lights on the creator this way and stopping short of doxxing them when they clearly wish to have their identity unknown and could face threats from having their personals broadcasted.
It's also telling that the two opponents to the bill named in the article are Musk and WhatsApp - hardly the most sympathetic picks for the Politico audience.
My main problem with Fight Chat Control is that it asks people to send messages to the wrong audience. The site asks me to contact members of the European /parliament/, while the proposal is being discussed by the EU /commission/, a completely different body.
The commissioners are not elected by the citizens of their respective countries. Instead, they are selected via a parliamentary vetting process, and approved by the European Parliament.
The commission has no direct responsibility towards the citizens in EU. It is also the European Parliament that scrutinized and votes on the laws created by the commission. The commission job is only to write proposal for laws.
This is a bit like complaining that people have objections about a politician speech and send emails to the politician rather than the employed person who wrote it. Should citizens direct their messages and complaints to speech writes?
Yes you are correct, but technically the parliament passes the laws, so they have the final say. It should be the commission that gets slapped in the face (or even better dissolved as it's quite undemocratic), but what can you do...
I agree, I feel like it gives the article a negative bias against the developer. Perhaps the editor wants to generate pressure against them or discourage further opposition?
At least it’s not a complete hit piece, if you ignore the title then it’s mostly balanced.
> Isn't this an egregious headline for such a neutral article? ... And the article itself describes the actual setup accurately in one of the opening paragraphs, so clearly the author knows the facts
I would guess that the author is to involved with writing the headline. An awful lot of journalists have been up in arms the last decade over the editors writing new headlines that imply the opposite stance of the article itself...
Politico.eu is owned by Axel Springer, the same Axel Springer SE which received US$ 7m from the CIA back in the early 2000s [0].
It's the closest to a Fox News-esque entity in Western Europe, I believe. They also own BILD, a tabloid, and Die Welt, a newspaper that constantly publishes climate-skeptic articles, and also infamously published an op-ed by Musk supporting the AfD.
[0] https://taz.de/cia-und-presse/!734289/
>trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
I wouldn’t call that neutral.
The site is linked in the article but adding it here: https://fightchatcontrol.eu
FYI: Politico is owned by Axel Springer SE, a hateful, aggressive and undemocratic German media and news company.
I love tech and don’t want chat controls. It’s what I just get.
The current situation does not work.
Chat controls, government controls - are coming.
The underbelly of social and chat tech is filled with logic gremlins and impossible objects. They’re just constant metastasizing into monster.
And it’s absolutely natural that legal entities get legislated into existence to oppose them.
Go sit in a T&S Que. See the absurdity that has to be wrestled into workflows. See how individual voices and requests are reduced to KPIs.
Knowledge is power and so on - but knowledge must also be earned.
See what reality is for T&S or Ai safety or risk and compliance or what have you.
See the rift in reality as ideas, people and tech are mangled together.
At the very least you can know the absurdity of the reality we live with.
> Chat controls, government controls - are coming.
Not if the people continue to fight off each attempt. Looks like we may be winning this round. Each time we win this battle, the opposition becomes better organized/funded and citizens become more aware of what is going on. Each subsequent push will have less chance of success once we pass a key threshold; it seems to me that this may be the last big push, if we win here then the public won’t back future attempts. Then your only option to pass this will be removing democracy altogether.
For any Danes out there, you can sign here: https://www.borgerforslag.dk/se-og-stoet-forslag/?Id=FT-2115...
The EU hero of 2025.
the article is more-or-less fine, but the headline is ridiculous
> one-man ... campaign it's a website that drafts an email for you, and then you send it yourself. it's an organizational tool, yes, but broad involvement is sorta the point
> spam campaign gross mischaracterization, citizens sending emails to their govt representative for legitimate purposes - making their political opinion known to the politician - is not spam under any sane definition
Joachim is the one-man in right place. Thanks.
> A website set up by an unknown Dane
Next sentence,
> The website was set up by Joachim, a 30-year-old software engineer living in Aalborg, Denmark
? Is this what journalism has come to? On top of calling this a spam campaign?
What service is there that will allow this quantity of outbound email traffic? Asking for a friend.
Joachim - we need more of you.
I wrote a personal message.
But huge thanks to Joachim for making it easy!
> a massive headache to those trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
No, what the actual fuck: it's a bill rolling out a CSAM scanner of unproven efficacy, but with severe side effects for privacy! See, one sentence, and immediately a reader sees that this is a nuanced, contested issue.
What kind of reporting is this, extremely one-sided. Politico, many such cases. Sad.
I'm fascinated by ultra high impact, nonviolent interventions by individuals, such as this.
My favorite example was when a few people made Twitter accounts masquerading as large companies, bought a verified stamp, and then issued a couple tweets that single handedly wiped billions off the companies' stock prices.
If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.
> If anyone else knows of similar interventions, I would love to learn of them. It makes me think about how individuals can force multiply their impact, and whether there's methods for personal empowerment to be learned from these examples.
One that comes to mind is Keith Gill [1] of GameStop fame [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Gill
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze
He isn't alone, lots of people sent the emails from their personal account.
You can have outsized impact by participating in democracy.
> Joachim's campaign is blocking more traditional lobbyists and campaigners, too, they said. Mieke Schuurman, director at child rights group Eurochild, said the group’s messages are no longer reaching policymakers, who “increasingly respond with automated replies.”
So, previously they could blow off people like Mieke personally, and now they're getting too many messages to be able to do that. That seems like a pretty clear win.
> a European Union proposal to fight child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — a bill seen by privacy activists as breaking encryption and leading to mass surveillance
Why not call it: "a proposal to break encryption and enact mass surveillance, claimed to be used to fight CSAM"?
How did the author decide which part to present as plain fact, and which as mere activist opinion? The choice isn't arbitrary - the proposal definitely will break encryption and enact mass surveillance - that's what the text of the proposal directly commands governments to do!
I guess such subtleties fade compared to the two bald lies in the title alone - it is not "spam" to simplify EU citizens contacting their representatives, and since that "spam" was sent by those citizens themselves, it is not a "one-man" campaign either, but a mass movement.
> Why not call it: "a proposal to break encryption and enact mass surveillance, claimed to be used to fight CSAM"?
That doesn't have the same ring to it to persuade clueless and weak politicians to support anything with the word "child" in it.
Where is that spam?
> trying to pass a European bill aimed at stopping child sexual abuse material from spreading online.
Nice try on framing. No, you don’t stop the spread of the material that way. It will just change distribution channel for the price of creating a tool for mass surveillance.
How are the EU legislators complaining about this like its a novel idea or somehow undemocratic? This sort of email templating website has been a fixture of contact your reps movements on the state and federal level for years in the states.
I also get a kick out of lobbyists complaining about it.
Sorry, but this is what democracy looks like.