FRESH

Hacker News

European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

123 points by aa_is_op

by throwa356262

8 subcomments

Governments want to move away from “platforms over which we have no control,” says Dutch minister.
Sure, that is fair enough. But why is EU not setting up their own servers for whisper or activity pub or whatever OSS protocols and just make that their only official and approved communication channel?

by dotcoma

2 subcomments

by Yaa101

0 subcomment

I understand the move but I also see bears on the road. When the politicians control their communication apps then it is sooner or later also very convenient for politicians to ask the operators to disappear conversations that shouldn't have taken place or conversations that somehow are political liabilities.

by hackerbeat

3 subcomments

by spwa4

5 subcomments

The problem with these efforts is always the same: organizations make their own messenger, and the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it. And that's ignoring that you can bet your firstborn they cut corners developing these messengers, so they're not pleasant to use to boot. In 2026 you still hear complaints of government employees that they only have 200 mb of mailbox space ... sigh
People "don't trust" in the very abstract sense, Mark Zuckerberg. But in a very real sense they don't trust their manager at all, and they know their own manager can see their messages on the "sovereign" messenger. Zuckerberg wants to sell them stuff they don't want on occasion. Their manager ... well they're cheating their manager.
Oh and it doesn't even buy extra security: the platform owners can spy directly through hardware backdoors, they can "update" any app on the phone, and they have the root keys to the secure element, and so it isn't secure to them. And if you look under the covers ... the backend is on AWS? No? Must be on Azure then.
So annoying lots of people, reducing functionality, for no actual security.
Sure sounds like EU governments are behind this ...

by themafia

0 subcomment

> “Everyone in Europe is getting more and more awake on sovereignty ... For us it’s data sovereignty.”
If Julian Assange wasn't the wakeup call necessary to put this into action then I don't think the whims of a few government ministers amount to a hill of beans.
Good luck.

by jccx70

0 subcomment

by p1anecrazy

0 subcomment

by 440bx

1 subcomments

by 948382828528

2 subcomments

by dr_dshiv

6 subcomments

European civil servants are also usually banned from using AI — perhaps with the exception of Microsoft copilot. They live in a bubble where they just don’t know. This goes for most academics as well.

by casey2

3 subcomments

Europe has been irrelevant since 2008. Basically 0 growth and pensions larger than paychecks. Even if young Europeans had the skills or the desire, which they don't, they wouldn't have the capital.
The US is preparing to siphon most of the EUs wealth with this AI bubble. This title is just one in a long line of smoke and mirrors meant to distract Europeans from the fact that trillions are being spent to build datacenters in the US.