The EU has proven itself time and time again to be so openly anti-innovation that it’s difficult to even take legislation like the Digital Services Act seriously. None of my products operate in the EU and for good reason. I have no interest in playing the legal games required to support them.
I wish I more fully understood the cultural differences that make this anti-innovation stance so prevalent in the EU.
I wouldn’t say anti-innovation. The EU just places more value on protecting workers/consumers than businesses. I can understand that to a lot of Americans a government that tries to protect its people from businesses may not make sense. But most of us in this side of the world cheer on when big companies like Apple have to bend to the EU. Yes, even if it makes starting my own business more difficult.
As a European entrepreneur I care a lot more about consumers/workers being treated fairly than I do about innovation. I know the EU does not always get this right. But man, the US treats is workers and consumers like crap.
I wish I more fully understood the cultural differences that makes this business-first stance so prevalent in the United States.
> The EU just places more value on protecting workers/consumers than businesses
This is flagrantly bullshit, unless you're claiming that there's some sort of intellectual and moral difference in European human beings because... reasons...
The EU is as corporatist and protectionist of big business as it's possible to be, it just hides it (poorly) behind a number of veils while throwing moral-sounding legalisms at certain companies and entrepreneurial culture in general. I say this as someone who fully detests some of the rapacious grubbiness of many American tech companies and the silicon valley culture and believes both should be watched carefully. Nonetheless, this placement of the EU on an absurd pédestal because it's "European" needs to burn and die.
>As a European entrepreneur I care a lot more about consumers/workers being treated fairly
These sorts of claims are tediously common here on HN from too many people obviously from Europe. For one thing, as a European the only thing you can establish under that rubric is that you're from that part of the Eurasian continent. Nothing more, certainly not morally or emotionally. Being a European menas being part of dozens of cultures that all have their own details, and of which many are no less greedy, self-serving, dishonest and in further extremes racist as hell, than they are in many other parts of the world.
Does your smugly self-indulgent statement somehow imply that American entrepreneurs only care about squeezing every last dollar while crapping as much as possible on their employees and customers? If so, I invite your to open your eyes wider.
>This is flagrantly bullshit, unless you're claiming that there's some sort of intellectual and moral difference in European human beings because... reasons...
There is most certainly a cultural difference. I’ve lived in the USA for 10+ years. My “self-indulgent and smugly” European opinion is that the average American is a lot more individualistic than the average European. Which could partly explain why they just see things differently. Why is it such a scandalous thought that our morals and priorities are just different?
> The EU is as corporatist and protectionist of big business as it's possible to be…
I disagree. I’m more optimistic. There are a lot of good people and organizations within the EU working very hard to level the playing field. A lot of good work has been done. I can certainly say that I prefer being an employee and consumer in the EU, which is the reason I moved back here. Compared to the States, yes I think the EU deserves the pedestal. No doubt.
>Does your snuggly self-indulgent…
No, I’ve met many hard working honest American Entrepreneurs. But big businesses, yeah, for sure they want to squeeze the American labour force and consumers for every last penny. Just like big EU businesses do. The difference is that our governments are doing something about it.
A Russian billionaire arrested in France after repeatedly ignoring French authorities. I am sure there is a whole lot more to that story than any of us could even possibly imagine. Specially given the state of things today. Maybe France is completely in the wrong here, maybe not. We just don't have enough information to jump to any conclusions.
Look, I'm not saying the EU is perfect. We have our own lot of crazy and corrupt politicians to deal with. I'm sure you can find plenty of examples of why the EU sucks. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise.
I'm saying that in my personal opinion based on my life experience, the EU is doing a lot more than the US when it comes to passing laws that benefit consumers and workers as oppose to businesses. And that's not something I just read in a news headline. It is something I have personally experienced as a person that lived in both places.
i also cheer when apple has to bend over but when i'm honest it's more for primitive reasons and a general hate for their product line which i am somewhat forced to use. but apart from that EU regulation is mostly a negative in the sense of prohibiting and restricting business activities - which some might consider innovation. but EU isn't particularly strong with regard to enabling innovation and business activity.
Nothing physical I own was made in the US, at least not visibly. I checked last year due to a bet, everything is from Asia or the EU.
For HN innovation often means digital stuff, but the world remains a physical space.
The EU is a decent place to start non digital high tech companies. Germany was at the cusp of becoming a biotech powerhouse, the war and energy price increases killed that.
But these are external factors, so I think it counts as a counter example.
How many of the things were designed by Americans? The actual place of manufacturing matters less than who owns and is capable of producing the design and manufacturing process. For example chips - I absolutely don't believe you don't have an American CPU. If you have Intel, it was made in USA, but even if not, it's not like the Chinese, Taiwanese or Koreans could just go and produce an AMD or Apple-comparable chip, just having a factory to produce a chip is very far from actually producing a competitive chip. Samsung is trying but Exynos, while a good chip by itself, is definitely not comparable to Qualcomm.
You misunderstood, I never intended to say the US was an irrelevant economy, that would be foolish. I just wanted to point out, that the HN audience tends to see things from a very US centric perspective and therefore likes to point out that their own approaches would not be feasible in the EU.
However, while struggling at many points, the EU is far from becoming economically irrelevant as the top poster sees to believe.
To address your arguments on intellectual property being as important as actual manufacturing, I tend to differ.
3 points:
1. This type of thinking is exactly the reason why china became a super power.
2. Intellectual property is only as good as the power to enforce it,
if Russia had the factories to produce the tech they need for the war, nothing could stop them from just from doing it.
3. In economies build on intellectual property and outsourcing, wealth concentrates in the hand of the patent holders.
Neither of which seems desirable to me. I do not begrudge the Chinese their economic success, but the events in the north Filipin Sea are concerning.
I don't disagree with your points and I'm not actually a big fan of patents or intellectual property.
However, look at China - they don't care much about the intellectual property rights, they are okay with industrial espionage and reverse engineering, and yet their chips are not even close - even though their fabs aren't too bad. The fab is just not the whole story.
The EU really is becoming irrelevant, more and more, and it's accelerating. 10-20 yeaes ago the US and EU economies were comparable - and that was when the US anti-worker and anti-consumer situation was worse than today, they're improving on this metric, in some cases faster than the EU. The EU energy policy based on ideology instead of facts is going to be the last straw. I'm saying this as an EU citizen.
It's not just the European Union, the UK is the same.
There is a heavy bias towards what works for the incumbents.
One of the ways in which this plays out in Britain is that almost everyone is culturally conditioned to consider themselves as being a certain "class" of person e.g. they'll never start a business, they'll never earn above a certain amount, they'll work 50 years for a company (not the same necessarily, just "a company"), if they're lucky they'll get a mortgage on a 2 bedroom house. They look down on others who want more than that, which works very well for those who have it and want to maintain that moat.
Contrast that with the US in which success is celebrated and even the poorest dream of one day "making it".
What we in Spain consider "making it" is to enjoy life, having time to relax, pursuing hobbies, spending time with family. And not having to worry about healthcare bills and pensions. We don't need a lot of money for that. I don't always want more. I just want enough.
In the US the vast majority never "makes it" and they are far worse off than we are here. I think Europe is great the way it is. I would not move to the US even if I was offered a job there. In fact I don't even want to visit and never have though I've lived in many countries around the world.
I don’t understand where this overused rhetoric comes from. I enjoy my life, spend time with my family, have hobbies… and make money. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I'm just pointing out how implausible the claim is that the vast majority of Americans are far worse off than Spaniards. Of course there's more to life than money and GDP/capita is an imperfect measure, but the median American leads a very comfortable life.
The median spaniard will have fewer working hours, more holidays, more paternity leave, lower risk of abruptly loosing their job, have a longer life expectancy, less likely to struggle with extreme medical bills, need to put away less money for children schooling, etc?
> GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living; however, this is inaccurate because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income.
It also doesn’t take into account cost of living. You might as well make 300% more but if everything is 500% more expensive I don’t see why that’s an indication of things being better.
GDP per capita is not a useful measure of living standards. Or most other things, really; it’s a very crude metric.
To take an over-simplistic example, imagine that the cost of healthcare in Mississippi just rose 5k per capita. Mississippi’s GDP just rose 5k per capita (simplified almost to the point of being nonsensical, but increased healthcare cost will raise gdp), but Mississippians got worse off!
For a glaring example, take Ireland; gdp per capita is over 3x Spain. Is the standard of living in Ireland 3x that of Spain? Definitely not; I think you could actually make a case for it being lower, especially for the more economically disadvantaged (wages are much higher, but so is cost of living).
I think where all this comes from is that gdp/capita _used_ to work a bit better as a proxy for standard of living (though still not well) when economies were more manufacturing-oriented.
Nice example. I actually moved from Ireland to Spain a few years ago.
Indeed my wage went down but my standard of living went up. The exception being if I want to pay goods that cost the same everywhere (e.g. computers, cars). But it's not a big deal.
Also, my quality of life increased considerably. In Ireland public transport is horrible and almost nonexistent. A car is always necessary for those living outside of Dublin or Cork. Now I can do without a car and spend 20 euro monthly on all my travel needs, and not having the hassle and costs of a car. Driving is very stressful to me (especially in Ireland where until recently people could just buy their license at the post office so driver skills are very low).
And the weather is way better which affected me greatly in Ireland (during winter it was raining almost every day where I lived, and the days were super short leading to depression). Here in Spain life is much more outdoors. And healthcare here is free and much better (in Ireland even though I had expensive private insurance I still had to pay 70 euro just to see the family doctor. Here I pay nothing).
GDP-per-capita is a meaningless comparison tool (especially for the US because it neglects healthcare costs in retirement), look at PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and quality-of-life metrics.
Also, for stats on the US, there's so much variation; beware the tyranny of averages (statewide/nationwide); you want to avoid being in the bottom quartile/50% but the top quartile is probably quite nice. Many US indicators (education, violent or property crime, health outcomes, economy) are very heavily linked to zipcode(/county/metro), more so than in Europe.
[0] says if you excluded the MS Delta from those metrics, MS is solidly in the middle of the pack in many of those metrics
Both systems think they are right, both are coping. One is slave to hustling and greed with no time/chance to enjoy basic things in life. The other will always be under the boots of the employees/managers and complain while enjoying basic things. Both are slaves to their masters, just enjoying a comfort enough to keep going at it.
> The other will always be under the boots of the employees/managers and complain while enjoying basic things.
No, not really.
Employees have actual rights here in Europe :) Most of my (ex-)managers are also my friends. There is no boot. We get lots of holidays, we get a good lump sum when we are laid off because there is no "at will" employment and grievances can be discussed fairly.
There's always reason to complain of course but we're not bad off.
That's why Canada also is one of the worst countries in G8 and maybe the most mediocre countries when it comes to actual startup investment and building something new for the world and growing the share of the pie. On top of that, they have a horrible system where nobody can get a doctor. Everybody has to pay double to get a block of butter and housing is so high that you get a whole neighborhood in the US for that price.
That is why the countries like uk canada and also Europe are incredibly poor.
Trust me I spent a huge portion of my life there. The reason why I speak so much against Canada these days is because the country is delusional. Nobody wants to take any risks and yet they think things will always fall into place for them.
>why the countries like uk canada and also Europe are incredibly poor
They are not that poor if you adjust for cost of living and hours worked. If you look at the Wikipedia thing "GDP per working hour (2019 US$ PPP)" some results are:
Denmark 76
USA 74
Canada 57
Spain 56
UK 54
So the pay isn't that much worse per hour. People probably work a little less over here, maybe because we don't have the whole if you don't work you won't get health cover and will be doomed thing.
Also life expectancy is 76 years in the US vs 84 years in Spain. There's more to life than working all hours then croaking.
I don't think that social mobility can be measured statistically, because it depends on people actually trying. I actually think that the UK does have fairly high social mobility _but_ the vast majority of people get stuck in local maxima, and the laws are influenced by that (e.g. stuff like obsession with the mediocre outcome).
Having said that, the index you've pasted is complete bollocks. I don't know what they are measuring but it has nothing to do with what I would consider social mobility (e.g. ability to move into a different social class or perhaps earn a significantly different amount to your parents). The factors they use seem super focused on socialist policies which I don't think have anything to do with mobility.
Interesting that you consider it socialist, because the World Economic Forum has often been considered as the embodiment of neoliberalism. Around 2000, when there were huge anti-globalization protests by left / green / anarchist activists around the world, WEF was one of the primary targets.
I think that the main issue is that it tries to come up with a metric that works across every country which is basically pointless because a lot of them are failed states where income information isn't reliable or meaningful.
So they come up with stuff like "how high is teenage pregnancy" and "what is the male female work balance" which they define as being proxies for social mobility I assume because if you have five kids at age 20 and you're forced to stay at home then you have none.
The problem is that it just introduces a billion ways to influence the actual rankings, they are value judgements.
If you look at well functioning countries only, then you can pretty much look at how many people in the bottom decile of parental household income end up in the top decile of household income.
You still have the issue though that this only tells you how the distribution actually ends up, not how it _could_ look in a specific country if everyone actually tried their hardest to climb the social/financial ladder.
The US has lower social mobility than most developed countries; in particular if you’re in the bottom quintile in the US, your chances of making it out are particularly low relative to other countries.
This is no different than a tor server getting raid because it's hosting CSAM. Telegram CEO was arrested bc he did nothing to control the amount of CSAM in the public channels he was hosting. People on HN are sadly very misinformed on this issue.
Please educate us. The article you linked only has these two bits, as far as I can see:
> Ofmin, a French police agency set up last year focused on preventing violence against minors, said on Monday that Durov is alleged to have failed to adequately moderate criminal activity.
> “At the heart of this issue is the lack of moderation and co-operation by the platform (which has nearly 1 billion users), particularly in the fight against child sex crimes,” Jean-Michel Bernigaud, the secretary-general of Ofmin, wrote on LinkedIn on Monday.
And:
> Durov has taken a hands-off approach to moderation and cast the app as unassailable by governments. However, some researchers have warned that it has become a hub for illicit activity and extremism as a result.
It’s the difference between legislation for the benefit of people and legislation for the benefit of businesses. Both can be good or bad, it’s just a different mindset.
innovation like selling drugs and ordering hitmen? Which US social media platforms can be used to quickly, effortlessly and openly sell drugs? I know of one that tried, owner is in US prison right now.
Funny that you say that because to a European the US worker and consumer rights seem very archaic. There just might be more to life than tech innovation and startups.
At some point, the adults in the room (and specifically, a few brave and seasoned elder statesmen/women) need to stand up and state the obvious:
On sufficiently long time scales, the internet will not tolerate states, and states will not be able to withstand the influence of the internet.
The ability to copy and send bytes around the world, to capture and disseminate media in such a way that forces transparency, but also to facilitate and democratize private conversation, to route around censorship... these are qualities that make what are today fundamental aspects of statecraft, such as state secrets, intellectual property, control over money supply and trade, surveillance, and censorship, impossible.
It's time to acknowledge that we need to transition our methods for ensuring each other's safety, well-being, freedom, justice, and prosperity via stateless channels and stop regarding states as having any jurisdiction over the internet.
> On sufficiently long time scales, the internet will not tolerate states, and states will not be able to withstand the influence of the internet
To the extent that this is correct, it means states cannot tolerate the internet, and will transition to not using or allowing it.
> these are qualities that make what are today fundamental aspects of statecraft, such as state secrets, intellectual property, control over money supply and trade, surveillance, and censorship, impossible.
State secrets are primarily voided by cheap surveillance, e.g. that a laser microphone is now a high school project.
IP is covered by international agreements, though may be voided by AI.
Control over money is done by requiring residents pay taxes in whichever currency, nothing about the internet changes that.
Supply and trade correspond to people with guns on the borders, that's only going to change with personal nanoscale 3D printing and delivery by orbital bombardment, not the internet.
Surveillance is likely to get much more prevalent rather than become impossible, e.g. aforementioned laser microphones.
Censorship might become impossible. Or perhaps we'll find new ways to do it. Jamming works by increasing the noise so you can't get a signal, GenAI may do that easily.
If anything states are much more involved in policing internet than 20 years ago. As more and more stuff goes online, I don't see governments reversing this trend, quite the oposite.
I'm starting to feel like the eu is an embodiment of the comic book guy from The Simpsons. He's just there and takes up space, complain about everything, and not do anything themselves.
The printing press also existed in meat space and yet it broke the power of the medieval Catholic Church and toppled monarchies.
The Internet seems like a similar invention but the effect on the nature of states is harder to fathom. I don't know if anyone living in the 1500s would have predicted a world where the top 10 militaries are all in a single alliance and the church would be a shadow of its former self.
I think there are interesting times to be had. Democracies certainly seem to be feeling the effects for good and ill of the collapse of traditional gatekeepers in the face of free distribution of information.
Despite claiming 24/7 it's a democratic country ruled by the rule of law, there's a lot ideological abuse of the laws used against ideological opponents going on in France. Somehow non-ideologically threatening criminals get a free pass to do whatever they want.
New messaging apps from inside the EU neither make it easier nor harder to imprison visiting billionaires from outside the bloc who violated local law with the messaging apps they wrote abroad.
In much the same way that the mere existence of Dropbox doesn't preclude the USA from prosecuting Kim Dotcom.
> Messaging apps from EU make it easier to imprison the EU-based owners and employees, and thus easier to control the platform.
Not when "the platform" is from outside the EU, as Telegram is.
For any question along the lines of "is Telegram in breach of legal obligations?" there's zero connection to what any other messaging app does.
If I set up a local company for a local messaging app and local government leans on me about it, that government doing so makes zero difference to an outside company such as Telegram.
> If Dotcom was in the US he would be in prison for a decade. It's a huge difference.
His home was raided in 2012 and he's lost his last battle against extradition despite some intermediate wins about the raid itself.
You seem to think that a new local platform excludes existing platforms, this is now how anything works and would be a fantastic money making strategy if it did.
>The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications.
This is probably more about keeping their communications from the public's prying eyes. In the U.S. this sort of thing is illegal: all intra-government communications must be a matter of record except for oral communications.
Now if only the conversations in which US politicians get bribed (I guess calling it "lobbied" sounds nicer. Especially as a prerequisite to a "donation") would be a matter of public record
>> @amelius: Can't the EU make their own messaging app?
> @tptackek: Wasn't Matrix in the running for this?
Three points:
1) From https://matrix.org/foundation/about/: The evolution of Matrix is managed through an open governance process, looked after by The Matrix.org Foundation - a non-profit UK Community Interest Company, incorporated to act as the neutral guardian of the standard on behalf of the whole Matrix community.
2) Matrix is a protocol, not a messaging app.
3) UK is no longer EU.
Read it however you like, I'm simply pointing out that private efforts in non-EU member states are difficult to roll under "EU effort to create their own messaging app".
Telegram does not refuse take down content. I have reported scams, phishing, selling stolen credit cards and such to Telegram and they have all taken down. Maybe not in 24h, but still taken down.
Also from your study: “Our investigation finds that large networks of accounts, purportedly operated by minors, are openly advertising SG-CSAM for sale on social media. Instagram has emerged as the primary platform for such networks, providing features that facilitate connections between buyers and sellers. Instagram's popularity and user-friendly interface make it a preferred option for these activities.”
Yes, it does. The Dutch government literally held a meeting on the topic of Telegram hosting reams of CP and revenge porn and not acting on any of their complaints for 2 years now.
Seriously though, I was trying to figure out what kind of reports get ignored vs acted upon (since THEY IGNORE ALL REPORTS is an obvious exaggeration). I’m sorry if it’s about winning internet arguments for you.
What is important when it comes to regulators is not whether you fail to comply or not. It is whether you take your responsibility to comply seriously e.g. timely responses to information requests, continuous process improvement etc.
I reported it (like others in this thread), but facebook said it didn't break any rules. I requested another review, and they said the same thing, with no way for me to make any comments or replies.
Perhaps they will remove certain ads if it's instantly obvious that it is illegal, but overall they're pretty terrible at moderation.
Meta being bad at following their policies is a different problem than a platform whose policies say they won’t stop abuse. You can argue which problem is worse, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that the world should treat the two problems the same.
For the VIA thing, I have legitimately earned VIA Preference Points for surveys [0] and have heard of them being offered as survey rewards at my alma mater of Queen’s University (where VIA use is pretty heavy).
Why are you changing the focus to regulators and not meta moderation which is what you claimed that is done? (and many proved in this thread that no they don't remove content that breaks local laws).
I regularly report scam ads as well as obvious catfishing friend requests from obviously fake accounts whose only post is a sketchy URL to some "sex chat". Almost all of the reports are rejected.
It seems obvious to me that Meta's moderation is mostly about pretending just enough for regulators to go away, and no more. Hell, Meta probably indirectly makes money from these scams by targeting more scams at the people who fall for them, at a premium. Meta makes money, scammers make money, regulators are content. It's a win-win-win.
It shows what the EU action is about. It's not about telegram's supposed crimes, whatever you think they are, because other platforms are full of the same crimes.
The difference is that other platforms give EU states access to people's private messages. If you go into the technicalities of what EXACTLY this means, it started with a list of 27 organizations that got blanket access, without judicial oversight (because all of the different rules from the member states apply. Some do not require judicial oversight). Organized long ago by Interpol. It grew from there, exactly as people expected.
Oh and in case you're wondering. This already exists. It is NOT about the new EU directive ("directive 92"). This is about delivering specific individual's messages, when specifically asked to, and maybe blocking them.
Which EU action? France which arrested Durov is not the EU. The EU can't arrest anyone, only the member states can. Durov was not arrested because of the EU DSA.
What exactly is wrong with drug shops? Providing certain goods to consenting adults is not immoral. Let alone should not be a reason for them to be banned. In half of the U.S. states and European countries, cannabis is either legal or decriminalized in small amounts. In 2024, it's not a big deal, and without these means of communication, potential consumers would have to go back to the streets to purchase something, risking many dangerous situations.
I'm not a 'consumer,' but I consider it a huge advantage of such platforms in terms of increasing safety and clarity.
The more the French authorities delay in releasing official information about Durov's arrest, the worse it looks for them.
I mean the West has always accused the East of employing similar tactics wrt arresting journalists/freedom fighters etc, how do we not see the irony here...
He definitely claims to be, "social media focused on freedom of speech and privacy". That's likely wishful thinking, but the way they went after him reinforces that image.
> It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform
As the law places certain responsibilities onto platforms, if you (any platform not just Telegram) say this kind of thing, are you sure you're following the law right, or are you just saying the law is wrong and bad?
There is a war going on in Europe right now. Real war with tanks, bombs and rockets, often hitting hospitals in Kyiv for some weird reason. This arrest put russians in a panic mode. Did you know russian army is actually using Telegram for coordinating strikes, and Discord for FPVs? https://youchu.be/watch?v=mwtbTuLZXWw
You know something is up when russians, and Snowden (or his handler), are calling the arrest of French citizen in France "taking hostages".
The Russian army is trying to restrict phones amongst their troops right now, from what I can tell. The soldiers who need telegram the most to handle their own logistics and strategy, because that is horrificly a thing, need telegram.
I wish I more fully understood the cultural differences that make this anti-innovation stance so prevalent in the EU.