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Comment by EmbarrassedHelp | Hacker News Reader

The EU Commission was caught breaking the law in order to lobby for Chat Control: https://noyb.eu/en/gdpr-complaint-against-x-twitter-over-ill...

The EU Commission also gave a foreign tech company called Thorn (they pretend to be a charity), special access to government officials: https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho...

I think both of those cases would be examples of lobbying and corruption.

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The thing is that "The EU commission" is an entity composed os politicians, appointed by member states.

It's little coincidence that national governments want Chat Control (laundering that through EU), and the EU parliament is the entity that shots it down (coincidentally the entity that is most beholden to the public).

It would be nice to learn which comissioners are lobbying for it.

Neither examples are evidence of corruption. That doesn't mean they're not problematic, but there's no evidence here of a politician receiving a kickback for any of these actions.

Corruption does not necessarily mean a politician receiving a kickback. It can be a lot more indirect and subversive.

https://fortune.com/europe/2023/09/26/thorn-ashton-kutcher-y...

$600K+ went to kickbacks, er… “lobbying”, and thorn was hit with some pretty nasty scandals involving sex crimes.

That's my point though, conflating lobbying and corruption doesn't help. Both are indeed problematic, but unlike actual corruption lobbying can be countered with activism.

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