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

  • @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    I would have considered voting for them, except there was no list with their name where I live

  • @[email protected]
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    301 year 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 :(

  • @[email protected]
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    371 year ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    51 year ago

    What did the pirate party stand for? I heard of them before, but not much what they stand for other than digital privacy.

    I think this election was mainly focused on Migration, economy and green deal. Mainly why the right took over and the green and left lost. People are seeing the negative effect of migration more and more, and diplomats cannot hide it anymore.

    • Mubelotix
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      1 year ago

      Democracy. Real direct democracy, not the representative bullshit. But with the little influence we got, we can’t do much better than trying to protect digital privacy right now

    • Lad
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      71 year ago

      Outside of their obvious platform, pirate parties tend to be social democratic, like centre-centre left AFAIK. With more of an emphasis on direct democracy and anti-authoritarianism than bigger mainstream parties.

    • @[email protected]
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      1181 year ago

      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.

      • Jo Miran
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        611 year ago

        “Cyberpunk was a warning, not an aspiration.” – Mike Pondsmith

      • @[email protected]
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        141 year 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.

  • @[email protected]
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    461 year ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      791 year ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        Better a lousy president than a fascist, hell, boring politicians is what we should aim for!

            • @[email protected]
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              111 year ago

              Prolly their confusion is that Macron called for new elections, but unlike some parliamentary governments Macron isn’t selected by parliament.

              • Mubelotix
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                11 year ago

                I mean yes, Macron was dumb on this one, but he isn’t as dumb as that

                • Kilgore Trout
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                  11 year ago

                  I am not a supporter, I just find very stupid to postpone the inevitable while proposing… nothing better?

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Strategic voting is what you’re stuck doing depending on your local electoral process.

            She’s going to become president in 2024, she could have become president in 2022 instead.

            • @[email protected]
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              21 year ago

              If a party won’t fix the serious issue to let me also vote for who I want, they’re not entitled to my vote.

              • @[email protected]
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                1 year ago

                You can deny the reality of the electoral system you’re stuck with all you want, at the end of the day you’re probably one of the people that will end up suffering the most because of it.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 year ago

                  Voting for a party I don’t want is also suffering, though I doubt you’d believe that. Keeping the main parties in power via a rigged system ain’t ending this catch 22 cycle.

        • @[email protected]
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          41 year ago

          both macron and lepen are two corrupted fascists tricking you like a chicken into choosing a side and voting for them instead of “wasting your vote”

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      I would have voted for the Pirate Party if there was a ballot for them.

      Didn’t print it beforehand so I couldn’t.

      Last time I printed my own ballot they just didn’t count it and my vote was considered invalid. Even though I had the exact size required by regulations…

      • NekuSoul
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        1 year ago

        Wait, am I missing something here? Are there countries where you don’t have all options on the ballot, or at least an empty space?

        Edit: Saw your explanation in another comment. Wouldn’t having to bring your own ballot also invalidate voting secrecy, since bringing your own indicates that you most likely intent to vote for an unlisted party (and, in reverse, anyone using the regular ballot voting for a party that’s listed)?

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Concerning your edit, not sure about other countries, but I can speak about the process in France.

          We get (normally) ballots with the programs in the mail before the elections, so we can also bring ballots from there. Then the way it works when voting is

          • there’s a table with ballots from all lists that provided them (so missing the ones we’re talking about here) and you can take any number of them
          • then you go isolate in a cabin where you put the ballot you want, or nothing, inside an envelope
          • finally your identity is verified, your vote is counted and you put your envelope in a transparent box

          So there’s not really a way to definitely know you’re voting for an unlisted candidate here.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          It affects secrecy a bit but you still have to take at least two different ballots into the voting booth. Obviously you are bringing your own ballot and taking one already printed so it’s not really a secret.

          Also there was taped garbage bags in the voting booth so that people can throw away their discarded ballots but that’s also a great way to show what every else has been voting before me…

          I still think our voting system is quite ok but there are definitely flaws.

    • slst
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      11 year ago

      Same… I hate having to vote useful

    • just another dev
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      351 year ago

      Eh, I’d much rather vote for a party that aligns with my values but might not get a seat, in hopes it will inspire more people to do so next time around.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Vote your conscience while you can. I’m pretty much stuck voting for slightly left of center candidates (in the US) because the opposition is to the right of Kim Jong Un depending on the issue.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        And I was right to; pirate party got less than 1% of votes, also due to the fact they couldn’t afford to have their voting paper in most places.

        • @[email protected]
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          101 year ago

          Polls are problematic in that they reinforce their own predictions. It’s especially frustrating in recent years when you’re bombarded with them even when there’s no election in sight. Problem is, governing parties are usually busy governing while populists are campaigning 24/7. Media has made a huge effort to reinforce the trend and get people used to living in a far right era. Polls are unhelpful and destort democracy to a dangerous degree.

        • Manucode
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          41 year ago

          Where do you live that you can print your own ballot?

          • @[email protected]
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            31 year ago

            France. The parties have to pay the government if they want their ballot already present at the election place. As a citizen, you may also bring any ballot you want (within some very reasonable rules), so the smaller parties instruct you to print your own to save on costs.

            • Manucode
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              41 year ago

              OMG. Here in Germany you sometimes get an entire booklet of ballot papers, if necessary. You wouldn’t even be allowed to bring your own ballot. Otherwise, one could secretly mark their own ballot in some way, thereby undermining the secrecy of the vote.

              • @[email protected]
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                21 year ago

                Yeah, this is one of the seasons the Pirate party is pushing for a unique ballot, because the current format is really unfavorable towards small parties that don’t have the means to print the ballots among other things

    • @[email protected]
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      61 year ago

      Yeah, the greens had a risk of not getting 5% so it was much more worthwhile to vote for them.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          There may be even better voting systems but 3-2-1 would be a nice change. This way strategic voting gets at least somewhat mitigated and might force people to actually invest some time and look at the agenda of some other parties too because they have to vote for 3 parties.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            There are voting systems that completely prevent the need for tactical voting (e.g. instant-runoff voting, aka alternative vote) but if the system still trends towards having two main parties then not much has really changed.

            A bigger issue is that a single candidate/party is not very good at representing an area in comparison to having more (3, 5, ideally more). If people vote 80% A and 20% B and A gets the single candidate then 20% are misrepresented. With 5 candidates then that could be split 4 to A and 1 to B, a perfect representation.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    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

    • Kilgore Trout
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      1 year ago

      Die Linke voted similarly on many issues to the Pirate Party.

  • @[email protected]
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    681 year ago

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

    • @[email protected]
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      131 year ago

      Is the incoming majority particularly anti-piracy? I thought they were more fixated on leaving the EU, gutting the “woke” public sector, and rounding up all the immigrants for deportation.

      • Mubelotix
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        441 year ago

        Just to make things clear, the pirate party isn’t directly related to piracy. There are ongoing efforts to render end-to-end encryption illegal in Europe as we speak. Dark times are coming

        • @[email protected]
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          31 year ago

          There are ongoing efforts to render end-to-end encryption illegal in Europe as we speak.

          I can’t imagine how you stop all end to end encryption across a continent while you’re exiting the continent-wide governing body.

          • Mubelotix
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            121 year ago

            Who’s exiting? They will just ban any non-compliant messaging app

            • @[email protected]
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              51 year ago

              They whom? Is every country going to have it’s own national firewall, complete with highly sophisticated SMS-only encryption detecting service?

              • @[email protected]
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                61 year ago

                The EU plans to do so and as such every member must follow it.

                And once encryption is criminalized, it can be trivially detected - or at least assumed to be encrypted if your message is sufficiently random.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Technically… maybe. Here’s a calculator, EPP+ECR+ID+a chunk of the non-attached and non-assigned might make it over the 50% mark, and then there’s renew which has neoliberals in it.

        But that’s not coalition material as the EPP is not eurosceptic, also, that coalition would reach so far right that a good chunk of the EPP would definitely not be on board with it. The populists might also be opposed on reasons of preferring stoking anti-Brussels sentiment over surveillance, and there’s plenty of opportunity for rifts, like the RN saying “The AfD is in favour so we’re opposed”.

        Do note than in the EP factions have fuck all when it comes to faction discipline. There’s no whip, all there is is plenty of negotiating.

    • @[email protected]
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      311 year ago

      They have been very active fighting the chat control proposals that keep coming, haven’t really seen others being so active about it besides them. This is really bad.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Pretty much the same propaganda “package” is being used all over the world.

        Governments work hard and spend billions of public money to try to stay in power, they spend these in modern and technological warfare too.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        The parties in power are failing to address the problems ordinary people are facing. Problems like the excessive immigration of people from Asian countries, the insane housing prices, rising cost of living etc. People are looking for alternatives.

        These extremists know exactly what the problems are and how to talk about them. They also know better to meet people where they are, like on social media. To most people who are ignorant of politics, these parties seem to solve all their problems.

        And let’s be real, half the population is below average intelligence. Way too many people don’t realize or even worse, don’t care, about what these parties are really about.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    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.