this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Not really a question, more of a statement. The U.S., China, even UK, and probably more have incredibly poor privacy laws, and keep aiming to strip even more privacy away. I'm just curious whats different about the EU that makes them do something actually good for people.
Sometimes things are done out of the goodness of people's hearts, which makes sense when policies are brought up by some individuals, but also opposed by others. Ultimately they usually land, maybe for the lesser power the big tech corporations hold over the EU, but also for an egoistical desire to safeguard one's own privacy that everyone has to some extent, especially people in power
As no seems to have answered this, the EU's political structure is more resistant to the anti-consumer desires of large corporates, particularly as the ones impacted aren't European.
Culturally the EU is diverse but broadly there is a lot more interest in / support for nurturing the common good (as opposed to beggar thy neighbour policies of the GOP). In particular pro-consumer policies are popular and get politicians re-elected, which segues to the next difference
The EU is less influenced (not zero, less) by political donations from large corporates than the US. Very little of the priorities of the average person makes it into law in the US, a slightly larger sliver gets through in the EU.
@NocturnalMorning @war it's likely that the EU have enough power, acting for in excess of 500m ppl, to stand up to big tech. The UK also have subscribed to data privacy and rights as part of their adoption of GDPR principles, though prob with some caveats. Creating territorial legislation will shake up how big tech works in the globally. I think this is why Meta have stated their intention of being decentralised. They have to, if they want to continue to operate within EU/UK territories.