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

  • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months 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.

  • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I had somewhat hoped that my fellow countrymen in Germany would not fall for the obtuse populism of the right, but that is exactly what has happened.

    I’m afraid there’s nothing left to counter this, because voters obviously no longer care about rational arguments and don’t even want to acknowledge the real problems of our time. They make it easy for themselves and just blame everything on illegal migration or whatever - just as the right-wingers tell them to do.

    In this reality characterized by stupidity and false attributions of blame, it is hardly surprising that important but somewhat abstract topics such as data protection are no longer of interest to the masses. It’s enough to make you cry.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The saddest thing about this is that the Europeans and especially the Germans should really know better. But no, all the lessons from our dark history seem to have been forgotten - or they are simply ignored so that one can once again live in the comfortable world of simple explanations where there is always some minority to blame.

          • Imperor@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Tagesschau has a graph showing AFD being the highest % voted party all over eastern Germany and second highest voted nearly everywhere else, following CDU/CSU. You really only see green or red in the larger cities.

            • LwL@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              The second highest voted thing is mildly misleading because left parties are a lot more fractured, especially in EU elections. The afd could have 11% while 9 left wing partirs have 9.8% and be the most voted party, but that would be a better result than we have now with it being the second most voted.

              The results are bad, but 16% is at least nowhere nesr a majority. I’m honestly more concerned about the CDU moving closer to the afd and still ending up with 30%, seems almost like many people don’t like the afd because they’ve been told afd bad, but still agree with much of their ideology.

      • 0x0@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        It’s not surprising though, the EU has been wanting to become the United States of Europe for a long time…

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      In the whole bad times lead to strong people, which leads to good times, which leads to weak people, which leads to bad times, we’re in the weak people leading to bad times stage. Now things need to get bad enough to start making strong people.

      Only problem is the fascists are smarter this time and are pushing everywhere, so this time might not have nation states on the good side.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      obtuse populism of the right

      Don’t fall for propaganda either. Left and right are two buzzword used by rulers to manipulate public opinion and always stay in power.

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      I would gladly vote left, I like social democracy, I don’t mind paying taxes for government services, what makes it impossible for me to vote left is that I completely and utterly disagree with the migration policies that have been in place.

      They are insane, completely insane.

      We need to enforce the EU borders and fundamentally change the asylum process, the current system encourage refugees to take extreme risks by crossing the sea in shit boats, the current system also encourage braindrain from poor countries preventing them from gettng the skilled workers they need to develop their economies.

      Restricting the right of asylum will severely cut back on the human trafficing organization’s proftis and reduce the ammount of death and injury in a dangerous ocean crossing.

      It will also allow us to sped less money supporting people here, and do much more for them in their own home countries.

      I am sure I will get downvoted massively, but this is the explanation as to why I won’t vote left unless they show that they are serious at cutting migration.

      • EddyBot@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        there is good hint of xenophobia in your comment
        you probably need to meet some people foreign of your country and learn they are humans just like you

        It will also allow us to sped less money supporting people here, and do much more for them in their own home countries.

        tax rich people/companies
        these are taking your money away for a good cause for everyone

        • stoy@lemmy.zip
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          5 months ago

          That is fair, I can see how my comment might seem xenophobic to people who don’t know the real me.

          I absolutely believe that the rich pay too little tax, it is a global problem, that has a veey simple solution, but extremely difficult execution.

          Taxing the rich isn’t the be all end all solution, integration is, I am a Swede, and we have absolutely failed with integrating migrants. We see that with migrant gangs in Sweden.

          I could write more, but this is not the forum for that discussion.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I don’t understand how anyone can think that migration policy is the EU’s main problem. And I really don’t get why someone should vote for a party that does not share their own convictions because of EU migration policy.

        • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Bait and switch.

          Immigrants = bad. Just focus on immigrants being bad, while I line my own pockets and/or gather power while you are distracted.

          But just remember: immigrants = bad!

      • 0x0@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        Restricting the right of asylum will severely cut back on the human trafficing organization’s proftis and reduce the ammount of death and injury in a dangerous ocean crossing.

        Prohibition creates black markets. Restrict asylum and you’ll increase human trafficking.

        • stoy@lemmy.zip
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          5 months ago

          That is fair point, I have myself made the argument of legalizing drugs to remove power and influence from gangs.

          When I wrote my long reply I didn’t consider that.

  • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

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

    • devfuuu@lemmy.world
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      5 months 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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months 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.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        5 months 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.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    Does the average voter just not care at all about anything actually important? What is even going on here?

    • HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      We just had a vote for government officials along the EP vote. Less than 60% turned up which means the most common vote was a vote for nothing. The average voter doesn’t care.

      • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        At least voters who don’t turn up are harmless. If all the people who voted for EPP-affiliated parties just didn’t turn up instead, we’d face far fewer problems.

        • nexusband@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          What a load of bullshit, Voters that don’t turn up are the most dangerous of them all, because it lowers the percentage and skews the votes. If 40% go voting and make their vote invalid, those 40% still get counted, meaning the percentage for other parties is overall lower.

          • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Brexit in the UK happened because most didn’t vote, meaning a small percentage of voters had over-inflated influence.

    • 0x0@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      More and more the average voter earns minimum wage, has to pay increasing rent, increasing food prices, has shit education, degrading public healthcare, etc… last thing on their mind is voting and when they do they follow what the (not independent at all) media feeds down their throats.

  • Deathcrow@lemmy.ml
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    5 months 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.

      • tibi@lemmy.world
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        5 months 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.

      • index@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months 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.

  • fluckx@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I wish I could actually vote for the pirate party. But I can’t here. Didn’t show up in the election list. They were 2 or elections ago

  • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months 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.

    • teolan@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

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

        • raldone01@lemmy.world
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          5 months 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.

          • tabular@lemmy.world
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            5 months 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.

      • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months 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.

        • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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          5 months 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.

          • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months 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@infosec.pub
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              5 months 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.

  • Takios@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months 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 :(

  • Firipu@startrek.website
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    5 months ago

    I wanted to vote for them, I did so last time, but they didn’t appear on the ballot in my country this time. Couldn’t vote for them…

  • mal3oon@lemmy.world
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    5 months 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.

    • Lad@reddthat.com
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      5 months 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.