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Comment by olivermuty | Hacker News Reader

Short reply: lol

Longer reply: I love the EU so much. One of the few institutions taking big tech to task. I can roam cell operators at no extra cost, ensure that companies cant data mine me without my express permission and other wonderful tech oriented regulation.

It is extremely narrow minded to believe that throwing all principle out the window is the only way to «not stifle innovation».

«The lords decree», where does one even begin. The biggest fight against bigtech involving amongst others the cloud act that lets the us govt spy on anyone in complete secrecy is literally spearheaded by a common man [0].

This entire post is either satire, and if so I ate it hook line and sinker… or it is some kind of privacy exploitation stockholm syndrome.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems

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> Longer reply: I love the EU so much.

As a EU citizen: You really shouldn't.

They do occasionally pass decent legislature, but i fear GreedClarifies is likely correct that it's probably more about them wanting the power big tech is currently centralizing for themselves.

For examples check the recent news from Belgium as they've uncovered recent corruption issues in the European Parliament. There is even an organization funded by the EU which is unapologetically treating political refugees as prisoners (putting them behind bars with literal cameras in their "living" space.

There was a pretty good report on German state media about that topic, should have English subtitles though if you can't understand it https://youtu.be/tJMLNMlJkPw

I am glad they're currently pushing back against big tech though, as FAANG is already speedrunning our society into a total dumbsterfire, but love to that organization is just misplaced. (Or should we call it MAMAA now? Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet Amazon)

Even these monopolies are bound to be disrupted by competition (as we‘re likely about to see in the case of google)

You mix up privacy wrt to the state (which has the monopoly on violence) vs private organisations. Two very different cans of worms. The EU is determined to fight the latter while embracing the former (as its incentives would suggest)

You don’t fight “big tech” by giving “big brother” all your liberty…

Nuance - a subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound.

The NSA is the biggest of Brothers in the world and supposedly the country keeps on innovating and big tech power is strongest here. How do you square that circle?

You clearly have no idea about how the european union works. It is a much lighter touch on society in general than the us is. We might not have as much gun freedom, but on pretty much every other scale I’d rate the EU higher than the US on «liberty».

No one is banning books about gay people in my kids school for example.

Either way curtailing big tech with regulation has nothing to do with big brother. They are regularing companies, not individuals.

> "No one is banning books about gay people in my kids school for example."

Check out some of the schools in Poland, or Hungary.

This conversation is clearly talking about the good or bad that the EU does. Are those books banned because of the EU? Would they stop being banned if Poland or Hungary was not part of the EU?

If anything, what would unban those books is pressure by the EU.

The US government similarly has nothing to do with states like Florida going off the deep end.

I think this is saying that all the good things in EU countries are the result of being in the EU, while none of the bad is?

If you, personally, end up restricted from doing things you used to (pay for my software, for example) — you gave up liberty for security, and now have neither.

I’m Canadian, by the way. We now can go to prison for wanting to call our children the name we gave them at birth.

You've liberty to be poor, die without healthcare, or get rekt in court by a megacorp with infinite lawyer money

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