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[return to "Fight Chat Control"]
1. phendr+211[view] [source] 2025-08-11 02:39:41
>>tokai+(OP)
The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform.

That might be fine in a world where every country is on-board, but now that the internet exists, countries with anonymous free speech will come out ahead.

Here's a darker thought: The pre-internet US and UK had a crime problem. Crime was spiking through the 1980s and 1990s. People were disaffected, jaded, they felt that the halls of power were captured by corruption and their voice didn't matter. This is the environment that gave us the original Robocop movie, a hyper-violent celebration of the commoner over both criminals and corrupt government institutions.

The internet economy revitalized the western world and helped us pull out of the crime doom spiral. Without that miracle, we were probably on track for ruthless Duterte-style governments, if not something worse like fascism.

Anyway, I predict that the EU will stop short of actually passing this into law. They're not stupid, and they just want "good boy points" for trying (not from the voters, of course, but people with real political power).

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2. thranc+TT1[view] [source] 2025-08-11 13:16:58
>>phendr+211
Not a defense of chat control, which I am very much against, but can you really claim that the internet gave "dissident voices" a platform?

Media is arguably even more tightly controlled than in the 1980s, legacy media is owned by a few billionairew, right-wing influencers are all paid hacks, with a lot of them relaying pro-Russia propaganda. Meanwhile, genuine independent journalists are buried under algorithmic nonsense promoting ragebait and hate.

The internet very much failed to deliver a new era of feee speech. Instead, our conversations are now hosted on a few platforms and controlled by the oligarchs that own them, who are able to editorialize out dissenting voices and promote their own disgusting viewpoints.

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