Libb

Nicholas: Once the system is in place you cannot go back

100%.

Same goes with Digital Euro btw, no matter what the EU says about making it optional. It will be, sure, to begin with but they will also start pushing even more laws to help get rid of cash (in France, we’re already forbidden to carry more than a thousand euros in cash, I think it’s 500 in Greece (not sure about this one). And when cash will be gone so will be our ability to not be tracked when buying stuff. They will monitor every single of our transactions—and penalize whatever they decide is not good for us/the country/the planet/their businesses, be it too purchasing much gas, too much food (because one needs to be fit, unless they agree to not benefit health assurance maybe), too much clothes, or whatever (to just list a few legal things one can buy nowadays). They will also quickly use their (monopolistic) control over that digital euro (and over all our bank accounts) to punish any serious opposing their rules/laws by making said opponents unable to access or, say, to just use their money to buy stuff that would help them organize and contest them. “Sorry, Libb your purchase of Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ can’t be finalized. Instead, you can always scroll some more on social media. Have a nice day.”

What a bright future.

Not talking about what we have (I’m French, thx I know GDPR) but what I think will be the next target of the US. And, to me, it will be those regulations making it so hard for US businesses to do whatever they want with our data.

100% agree. This should be as easy as creating a new account.

Alas, this :

Maybe the EU will pass some legislation that will carry over to the US . . .

Is highly unlikely.

The EU just knelt once more to the USA (and to Trump) and that won’t end here. I have little doubt USA next target in the EU will be most if not all regulations regarding data handling/protection. US businesses need data more than ever (at the very least because of AI), including EU citizens data.

CDs + locally saved files. Like with movies, we have quit using all streaming services and we own the media we watch… or we don’t watch them.

You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.

That’s not true. I just need to click the ‘x’ next to the tab. Why should I be bothered with waiting for some JS to be able to read text?

P.S.: The notion I’d put there - Russia is a good, useful example of how privacy and the rule of the law (and logic) can be eradicated, the one europeans should be aware of when their own lawmakers try to pass e2ee ban or something similar.

Naaah, could not happen with us. Not ever. We’re the good guys. We only track down assholes, you know that. /s

More seriously, reading your comment I could not but wonder what are the differences with what our own legislators are trying to devise around here? I’m French and it has been a few years already since I’ve kinda expected VPN to be declared illegal for the average user, as I’m pretty sure legislators, NGO, and journalists would get an exemption.

I mean, your freedom to record in public ends where my freedom to not be recorded in public starts.

Prior to our wonderful times, and even more so in the UK, public space meant that were no right to privacy to be expected at all while using said public space because, you know, it was public. But the moronic age we live in have managed to change that. So be it.

So, worry not my dear friend: as a law abiding citizen myself, I dutifully respect your so-called freedom to use what is supposed to a public space as your very own private space, and I 100% gave up on photography the second time I was confronted to the consequences of people considering their freedom implied they were to decide what ‘public’ meant.

Instead, I switched to sketching the very same people in the very same public space.

They may be as annoyed by me doing that but good luck forbidding me to sketch in a public space or even proving it was them I specifically I sketched… as, even though I do enjoy it, I suck at sketching ;)

Using a camera on public property in the EU is broadly very legal.

Less and less so; at least here in France and in Germany and also in the UK, which was quite surprising to me. In the EU, the GDRP being another nail in the coffin of the right of photographing on public space and photographing random people in that public space. Most of the cases I’ve heard of in the last few years ended up with the plaintiff winning against the photographer, even if the picture was not exploited professionally.

Smart glasses will raise a new flag and push all rules to the next level of paranoia (rightfully so, I’m afraid) and will then be used as an excuse to remove even more of our liberty to use public space (which is supposed to be ours).

Edit: clarifications.

Anyone have any advice?

• Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say ‘no’, end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don’t have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
• Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
• Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my ‘real’ phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I’m required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It’s a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
• Accept that you’re doomed to use IG because it’s with those ‘IG people’ and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it’s kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.