Patrick Breyer, a staunch defender of digital rights, laments the Pirate Party’s exit from the EU Parliament as a blow to online privacy.

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[+] 209 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 116 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I always expected us to never address our ecological destruction or climate change in any meaningful way, and instead devolve into some techno-feudalist, fascist dystopia before the civilisation collapses into a death spiral... But man... I've never wanted to be wrong more in my entire life.

    Watching the EU regress in unison, back down the auth path, is not how I expected it would go down.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Kinda alarmist tone.

    I always expected for the irrational opinion of people in many Western countries that they can get anything by voting for it to meet the hard cold reality, but it never was anything like "end of the world".

    I'm hopeful. A certain kind of evil people have felt their power and are slowly becoming complacent, which means that the European societies will get a shot at getting rid of them, for the time being. And then there will be a dawn after this sunset.

    Though that "allowing the snake to raise its head" thing should be done carefully, so that you'd still be alive when the opportunity to crush that head arises.

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  • [–] 109 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I managed to convince my brother and a friend of mine to vote for them. This is really disappointing. Over half the votes in Germany were for right-wing parties this time, over 16% were for the right-wing-extremist party AFD. Germany really wants history to repeat itself ig.

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  • [–] 94 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    I voted for him. Sad to see him leave. It doesn't seem like we have many advocates for digital privacy in the parliament.

    e: typo

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    [–] 91 points 2 years ago (49 children)

    I had somewhat hoped that my fellow countrymen in Germany would not fall for the obtuse populism of the right, but that is exactly what has happened.

    I'm afraid there's nothing left to counter this, because voters obviously no longer care about rational arguments and don't even want to acknowledge the real problems of our time. They make it easy for themselves and just blame everything on illegal migration or whatever - just as the right-wingers tell them to do.

    In this reality characterized by stupidity and false attributions of blame, it is hardly surprising that important but somewhat abstract topics such as data protection are no longer of interest to the masses. It's enough to make you cry.

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    As an American, it's really sad to see the EU fall into this trap.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    The saddest thing about this is that the Europeans and especially the Germans should really know better. But no, all the lessons from our dark history seem to have been forgotten - or they are simply ignored so that one can once again live in the comfortable world of simple explanations where there is always some minority to blame.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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    [–] 83 points 2 years ago (18 children)

    Quick reminder that in a liberal democracy, social movements are more important for progressive change than electoralism.

    Join a union. Be it trade union, housing union, or whatever (or even any affinity group). And get active.

    Complaining about election results achieves nothing, but sow despair.

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    [–] 64 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    There are more parties who defend internet privacy then just the pirate party. Won't matter much tho with the current rightwing majority.

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    [–] 55 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Does the average voter just not care at all about anything actually important? What is even going on here?

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    [–] 50 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

    These results are just a drop in the bucket in relation to the grim state of German election results and overall societal discourse.

    There's not much room for optimism right now. Very dark skies ahead and things may get much worse before they will become better.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    I have voted PP since their conception, and I think we have them to thank for a lot. Will continue to do so, probably forever. I don't understand how these issues don't get more attention these days. Tech related privacy, anti monopoly, ai safety etc is just a part but they have excellent values in other areas as well.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (38 children)

    I was considering voting for the pirate party, but they polled at less than 5% in France and it was not a useful vote, which was evidently needed.

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  • [–] 74 points 2 years ago (18 children)

    I still voted for them, because I could.

    And I'm sick of the useful vote thing, I did it last time in 2022 against Le Pen and all I got was a lousy President.

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    [–] 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I wish I could actually vote for the pirate party. But I can't here. Didn't show up in the election list. They were 2 or elections ago

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    [–] 28 points 2 years ago

    I was thinking the whole week if I should vote the greens or the pirates but due to the recurring campaigns to establish a surveillance state I did end up voting pirates. Incredibly disheartened they didn't get a seat :(

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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    and unfortunately czech pirate representatives dropped from three to one :(

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  • [+] 20 points 2 years ago
    [+] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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