Sadly, this isn't the case.

I keep bringing it up since people forget about it: in 2006 the EU adopted the Data Retention Directive that forced all ISPs to save the browsing history of everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

It was eventually declared invalid by the European court of human rights, but it was still in effect for many years. Countries that did not implement this (eg Romania because their constitutional court found it illegal) were sued by the EU commission.

The EU's attempts to spy on people go back decades. You'll also note that government gets exemptions from all the privacy stuff the EU pushes.

I hope the EU changes course on this, but as with their handling of other tech... I'm not holding my breath.

Hah! Life would be great if the EU's problems started with von der Leyen

The censorship initiatives in the west largely originate from the US „Blob“, the amalgamation of the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and the soft-power NGOs.

Mike Benz, a former insider, spends his days explaining how this works.

This is not the best introduction that he has done, but it is the latest space he recorded on the Telegram affair:

https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827514567884255430

Update: there will be a part two on the „The Geopolitics of Telegram & who is really after Pavel Durov“ 1am ET tonight.

This is going to be one of the best sources of background info on the subject. This is not some random conspiracy theory hack, I promise.

https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827550903324598354

There are experts working at the commission.

> Unelected officials = experts

What? Not in the commission. It's a 100% politically appointed body made up of politicians, it's just not elected.

Also even on the lower levels being an "expert" EU apparatchik has absolutely nothing to do with dedicated your life to science.

In any case it's a deeply flawed system, minimum oversight and a lot of money to spend/waste can't ever lead anywhere good.

I like a lot of things the EU is doing, but this spread of surveillance is something I'll always protest against. That's my biggest gripe with the EU, and I hate the Big-Brother-like thinking that gives us the GDPR and also mass surveillance.

It's clear the EU's mindset is "nobody can compromise your privacy except me, but it's OK, I'm benevolent", and I'm not a fan of that exceptions.

In the context of this thread, freedom of speech always meant exactly that.