The 90s were a utopian time. I am happy I got to see them, and the early internet. But as a grown-up millennial, I look at my less-connected friends, an I can't help but think id have been better off that way.
But do you think it's something to be dictated to people? I lived more years than anyone in my circle without a smartphone, without any messengers or social networks, and that was solely my own decision, because I was fed up with people glued to their screens. I joined the bandwagon in order to be able to pay my bills, because freelance became unviable, and interaction with coworkers was via Telegram and our github org required 2FA. But doing so was also my own conscious decision.
But you people are trying to use this argument about how dependent the world became on the Internet - which it did of course - to excuse the FORCED withdrawal from the Internet, by the very same entities that pandered its delopment and raked stupid money off it.
Fuck all this nannying the adults about what they should or must do!
P.S. And it's not even that government wants to detox anyone from the Internet dependency or something. They absolutely want people dependent on the Approved Internet, on the government portals, on official news, official messengers, official propaganda - as opposed to one where they can freely communicate, collaborate and think outside of the box of allowed narratives.
Once again, if you didn't read carefuly the comment which you're replying to - do you sincerely believe the goal of this crackdown on the Internet is sparing you of this horrible addiction you, an ostensibly grown up person, can't overcome yourself, and make you free from this rectangle in your pocket? So that you are not required to use it to produce your digital ID, to be able to access civil services, to buy things, to board airplanes via apps?
It's also ridiculous to reduce Internet to a particular class of devices. I'm perfectly able to access the Internet from my laptop, and I don't bring my smartphone around as 99% of people do, it doesn't even has a SIM card in it. For me it's merely a 2FA appliance, and obsolete even at that, because I've been using Yubikey instead.
So there's no need to save me from this addictive rectangle which is not even in my pocket as you falsely suggest.
We don't need a "crackdown..." which I never supported in any comment? You seem to be lumping me in with some "people," that you have a problem with, I suggest you take up your problem with them. We need education, and checks on the gigantic corps that have 0 interest in anything but profit. That includes creating addictions which is not debatable, it's been admitted by many engineers who worked for smartphone companies.
My entire comment was about simply spending LESS time on the internet (while growing up in the 90s). If you never had a problem with it, good for you. Lots of people do. Digital Id's are a huge leap from my comment and have nothing to do with anything im talking about. Or do you usually jump down the throats of people who say things which in some possible, tangental way could offend you?
And in any case, I already know parents my age who aren't giving their kids computers and phones till they're adults, and I think this will eventually become, roughly, the new normal. They didn't need to be "forced," by "people like me," they just drew from their own experience and made a decision.
"Falsely suggest," well I was clearly meaning "your" in the general sense, not in your specific case, but thanks for being specific! I too have no smartphone...but I'd guess that 95% of people do! And they keep it in their pocket, all the time, because they "need it!"
Finally...I never said anything about what adults should do. I mentioned my own experience as a kid. We protect kids from lots of stuff.
Attitudes like yours are ones that "they" want us to adopt. Chat Control just got defeated by people power TWICE. Never ever think that you have no power. Why else would they try to control you?
Chat Control getting voted against had nothing to do with people power. It was always going to be the outcome, as long as we're lucky enough to have MEPs who are wiser than MECs. Social media outage had nothing to do with it - it was entirely up to who sits in the European Parliament.
Well they specifically called out the website set up for the mass emailing campaign as the (a) reason why they couldn't ignore the outrage. Never mentioned anything about social media, but the idea that parliamentary officials are immune to people power is just naive. They do not exist in a vacuum.
Interesting. I know in the USA each congressperson has a small team of people to filter emails, including deleting repetitive ones. I thought this was universal.
> Joachim's mass email campaign is unconventional as a lobbying tool, differing from the more wonky approach usually taken in Brussels. But the website's impact has been undeniable.
Ah, so this is completely new to them - for some reason. Possibly due to constituents having a fear of retaliation on other issues, as Europe has only weak free speech. Well, don't worry, soon the European Parliament will have filters in place to ignore its constituents just as efficiently as every other Western democracy.
Lol. They won't. A small team to delete repetitive emails has nothing to do with getting hundreds of emails a day from different people in your constituency. Also "weak free speech" is pretty much just a US-centred meme.
People get arrested in Germany for saying bombing little kids is bad, and I think it's the same in different countries. Each one has a few issues the leaders really want to get done, and you're punished for opposing those, but you're allowed to protest the ones they don't really care about.
In every country where I'm aware of it, emailing your MP does not email your MP, but emails a member of their staff who read most emails and delete them, unless they're actually something the MP actually cares about, like a bribe offer or something.
You "think"...well you're wrong...you're talking about the 15 year old arrested at the Palestine protest? hardly a EU phenomenon...again, go ahead and actually read the timeline of CC and the website which headed up the mass emailing campaign against it. There's no reason to be MORE jaded than we need to be.
