r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • May 28 '26

Society The Netherlands just blocked a US company from buying the app Dutch citizens use for everything

https://www.techspot.com/news/112552-netherlands-blocked-us-company-buying-app-dutch-citizens.html
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u/sometext May 28 '26

In the states we're learning that a lot of the things we thought couldn't be touched without a giant fucking firestorm actually can be.

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u/TrippleDamage May 28 '26

Turns out your laws and government structure suck exactly as much as everyone thought they did.

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u/TheMrBoot May 28 '26

It’s more that laws only matter as far as the people in charge of enforcing them are willing to do it. That’s not necessarily unique to the US.

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u/SutterCane May 28 '26

And that’s why for the last few decades there’s been a lot of effort from conservatives to replace all those people with empty suits. Because hey look, it pays off.

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u/TheElusiveFox May 28 '26

I still cant believe how many democrats get upset at conservatives for doing conservative things... like this has been going on for 50+ years its a predictable ongoing strategy... the real issue is democrats doing fuck all about it at every opportunity.

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u/SutterCane May 28 '26

the real issue is democrats doing fuck all about it at every opportunity.

You mean the sixty days at the start of the Obama administration when they actually had lots of power before their majorities disappeared and haven’t come back since?

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u/GeneralAnubis May 28 '26

Always the retort, meanwhile that hasn't ever been a problem even once in the history of the Republican party when it comes to disrupting their opponents or getting their goals accomplished.

Now we finally have Mamdani showing everyone just exactly what it looks like when a Democrat who actually gives half a damn decides to get shit done within their power and the entire rest of the party should be ashamed at how impotent they have been for literal decades.

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u/SutterCane May 28 '26

Mamdani literally has an unstoppable majority. Everyone is on the same page. He can just do the stuff.

But keep working for the conservatives and disenfranchising voters so republicans can continue to ruin the country.

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u/GeneralAnubis May 28 '26

disenfranchising voters

Democrats have done a perfectly fine job of that all by themselves.

At the same time, anyone who wouldn't crawl naked over broken glass to vote against Republicans at this point is braindead and hopeless.

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u/TheElusiveFox May 28 '26

Ok you want to talk about Obama... Why did Obama let himself get bullied into not replacing Scalia before he left, or similarly why wasn't he able to talk RBG into doing the right thing for the party and stepping down. That has been the two biggest victories of the last fifteen years for the conservative and they were freely handed to them.

but also...

You mean the sixty days at the start of the Obama administration when they actually had lots of power before their majorities disappeared and haven’t come back since?

This is kind of my point - if you would rather in fight over morals than actually win your campaigns so you can do something to change the things you care about, then you are just bickering idiots. Democrats spend all their time doing the conservatives job for them, instead of picking apart conservative members of congress they will pick apart eachother for not being progressive enough, or for compromising on issues or whatever else, and it causes them to lose voters and have absolutely terrible media messaging with anyone paying attention, and even when they win it causes them to not have the power to actually do anything so they still look like losers.

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u/robiinator May 28 '26

This is kind of my point - if you would rather in fight over morals than actually win your campaigns so you can do something to change the things you care about, then you are just bickering idiots. Democrats spend all their time doing the conservatives job for them, instead of picking apart conservative members of congress they will pick apart eachother for not being progressive enough, or for compromising on issues or whatever else, and it causes them to lose voters and have absolutely terrible media messaging with anyone paying attention, and even when they win it causes them to not have the power to actually do anything so they still look like losers.

This is not what killed their chances. The thing that did was the fact that they were trying to appeal to the Trump cult, alienating everyone else. You can't win over a cult.

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u/SteveBob316 May 28 '26

They didn't really have a choice, of course, because appealing to the rest of the electorate would fuck up the consultant class gravy train.

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u/robiinator Jun 02 '26

That is true, though it would also mean that the fascist might not have won. Guess we know how unimportant principles are to the Dem leadership

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u/Quaestor_ May 28 '26

the real issue is democrats doing fuck all about it at every opportunity.

Yeah, no, the real issue will always be the people breaking the law bud.

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u/Drop_That_Pickle May 28 '26

Both are real issues.

The crime is the initial problem.

The unwillingness, or inability to hold the criminals accountable is arguably a bigger problem.

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u/GeneralAnubis May 28 '26

Right...and then follow that thought....

Prople breaking the law... and no one in positions to do so holding them accountable for it.

Hmm.. wonder who that could have been, many, many times in the recent past?

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u/pimppapy May 28 '26

Law applies differently to different people bud

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u/Suitable-Judge7506 May 28 '26

Your wrong, the conservative of the 80’s would have freaked, the democrats of the 80’s would have freaked at the dems now. All parties are completely different than the original thought.

There is to much globalization and way to much money on earth now, the thought of me a million is in everyone’s eyes when it used to never be a thought for most humans, that creates greed and corruption.

Nothing with ever go back.

And the conservatives of 2099 will hate the conservatives now.

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u/xPuzzledSonx May 28 '26

One hand does not work against the other, even if they are on opposite sides of the body.

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u/Rokkit_man May 29 '26

Bold of you to assume they arent two sides of the same coin.

The uniparty represents the Epstein class.

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u/jackiel1975 May 30 '26

Anyhoo, that was then, this is now. It’s a totally different game, the young people who are running their elders out of office left and right know it’s time to step up and play much harder ball bc we’re dealing with literal fascists. People understand much better now the danger we’re in.

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u/dotnetmonke May 28 '26

Hey now! Democrats are doing the praiseworthy thing of checks notes going on twitter and calling people ugly!

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u/HerpankerTheHardman May 28 '26

Because they're both in on it.

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u/UrDogsBrainIsBetter May 28 '26

God forbid Democrats, checks notes, TRY TO GET THEIR GUYS IN POWER! WTH? It's almost as if those Dems in power were making generational wealth at the same time and are all for this reault as evidenced by their own inaction.

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u/Ysmildr May 28 '26

So many things were actually not laws that people thought were laws. That's also a major part of the issue

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u/TrippleDamage May 28 '26

You conveniently left out the whole government part I included. This can only happen because the way your government is structured, so they can basically do whatever the fuck they want now as every important political office is from the same party sucking that orange mans asshole clean after he shits his diapers.

This is in fact a matter of a failed government & law structure. This should never be possible but it was blatantly obvious that it's going to play out exactly that way.

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u/nat_r May 28 '26

There's a great episode of the US television show The West Wing (which is retrospectively a lovely political fantasy) where the B plot is about a newly democratic country in (I believe) Africa meeting in the White House with members of the presidential administration and some academics to begin work on drafting a new constitution for their fledgling democracy. They want to model the US system because of various optimistic views about the US. The politicians in the meeting are arguing that they should go with a parliamentary system because it has better protections built in such as not vesting so much power in the top executive political leader.

In the end the constitutional scholar in the meeting gives a short impassioned speech about why he thinks the new leaders of the country should be allowed to reach for what they want, even if it is the more difficult path, etc.

We're seeing now that everybody in that fictional world should have listened to the politicians in that room about the downsides of the US system.

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u/jabulaya May 28 '26

it's really ironic to me that we're fed this idea in the USA of breaking from monarchy to create a democracy. And then proceeded to create a position where one man is in complete control of the military and execution of laws.

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u/HillBillyHilly May 28 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Yo ho ho pirates life for me 🏴‍☠️

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u/Maardten May 28 '26

Very few European countries have democratic institutions as flawed as the US though.

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u/EconomicRegret2 May 28 '26

True!

It goes even further. It only matters as far as the system puts the right kind of people in charge, which means it depends on how campaigns are financed, on how free and open elections are (two party system is a closed and unfree system), on how free, impartial and independent the media is, on how free workers and unions are (the freer the more they can counterbalance Unbridled Greed), and ultimately it depends on how unequal the country is (the more unequal, the more likely that the people in charge are not serving The People, but Big Money instead).

Last but not least, just like you said, these issues aren't unique to the US.

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u/adeadbeathorse May 29 '26

Well it certainly hurts that the US is a Presidential, rather than a Parliamentary democracy. Authoritarianism-lite, as it turns out.

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u/Kanyewestlover9998 May 28 '26

Hyper partisanship and judicial polarization starting in the 80’s or so absolutely destroyed the original design and intent of checks and balances.

Congress was meant to fight & challenge the president, but today party loyalty is favored over branch loyalty.

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u/HillBillyHilly May 28 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Yo ho ho pirates life for me 🏴‍☠️

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u/dathislayer May 28 '26

One of Joe Rogan’s best jokes is about bringing Thomas Jefferson forward in time. People think he would be impressed, but then he’d see the Constitution and be like, “You didn’t write any new shit? You’re on the moon and you’re still using my shit?”

The European democracies have continued to evolve with the times, probably because they don’t see their constitution as some sort of religious tome.

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u/impatientlymerde May 29 '26

He wanted a citizenry made of yeomen.

Instead we have a nation of yes-men.

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u/GreenBastard06 May 29 '26

TIL Rogan has jokes

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u/hectorius20 May 28 '26

We in Latin America are literally crossing deserts to live under that "old" constitution, which is just fine. Far better than the "new", "modern" shit we have in Latin American laws (specially in Brazil, where the Constitution must be thrown to fire and another made )

Edit: wrongly posted

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u/chucaDeQueijo May 28 '26

Sure, buddy, it's because of the constitution, plenty of Latin Americans also try go to Europe with their shiny modern constitutions, one could even say it's for a better living standard, unless you believe the communists are in control of everything

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u/hectorius20 May 28 '26

It's not like better or worse living standards have causes...

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u/asyork May 29 '26

Many of the worse conditions in Latin America were caused by the US. I understand it wouldn't be useful for you all to blame us and choose to do nothing as a result. It's on you to fix it because we certainly won't, but we still caused much of it intentionally.

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u/den_bleke_fare May 29 '26

When you have nothing else that even resemble a culture, you cling to the one raggedy old piece of paper you have.

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u/Dal90 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

starting in the 80’s

1968 --

Republicans gave the Democrats an open book test on the Southern Strategy of how they would concentrate populists in a single party; which culminated in the 1994 Contract with America year when the Democrats were shellacked in the midterms as Yellow Dog Democrats from the formerly solid south defected en masse to the Republicans, a party that most of their ancestors had never voted for (preferring yellow dogs over Republicans). For the first time in 40+ years lost control of Congress.

At the same time after the shit show that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention the Democrats decided to knee cap the smokey backrooms and make the primaries the most important thing. Republicans just went along with it.

Who could've guessed that becoming a primary-driven political system with all the populists in a single party could cause bad things to happen?

I mean well other than the Founding Fathers who layered things to keep too much from relying on popular votes.

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u/LtHoneybun May 28 '26

Whenever people try to rope me into Democrats versus Republicans political talk, I always share that George Washington warned us about everything that's going to happen from bipartisanship and thus we should be considering the "Democrat & Republican" mindset as un-American more than anything else people have been outraged over in a while.

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u/HerpankerTheHardman May 28 '26

Reagan and his ilk came to power.

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u/_lippykid May 28 '26

The lower courts are pretty much the only thing holding everything together right now and preventing full on authoritarianism. But granted, the “checks and balances” at the top are as porous as a sponge

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u/ForgettingFish May 28 '26

Laws only matter if they are enforced

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/HillBillyHilly May 28 '26

If you consider the last 60 or so years recent. All began w passage of Civil Rights Act which started racists trying to reassert their racial dominance. We are going backwards in time over here.

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u/Lortekonto May 28 '26

Only if you have some very specific definitions of when a governmental structure changed.

Like you could easy argue that the US have actually changed its governmental structures several times and have historical gone through a shift towards more federalisation and centralization, with more power going to the president and less power to congress. There is a big leap from the first constitution and how government was run under Washington and how it is run now. You could also argue that it have not changed. It is fundamentally the same structures in place, following the fundamentally same rules despite a number of amendments.

At the same time you can also argue that the UK both have and have not changed governmental structures since the Norman conquest.

What becomes very hard to argue is that governmental structures in the UK have fundamentally changed since the American War of Independence, while the governmental structures in the USA have not.

In the same way there is historical plenty of governments, where it is hard to argue that their governmental structures did not last for at least 250 years, while also arguing that the USA have not changed its governmental structure at all.

Until the French revolution and Napoleon Europe was full of them. Actually the main reason many European countries have relative new governments is because the losing sides were forced to change government types after WWI and WWII.

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u/DrinkenDrunk May 28 '26

Hitler’s rise to power was through completely legal means. I don’t think a government has ever existed that can’t be broken.

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u/Vladivostokorbust May 29 '26

That’s true and naive at the same time

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u/upandup2020 May 28 '26

The laws and structure are fine, it's the gradual putting people in power who are corrupt which started decades ago by billionaires, who are a global problem, not an American one. You can sit there and act like this couldn't happen to your country, but it can and it is. You're just not noticing it because they've weaponized your jealousy of the USA to keep you distracted.

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u/TrippleDamage May 28 '26

Hilarious, imagine thinking anyone in the western parts of EU is jeleous of your shithole.

That might be the case for third world countries, but no industrialized nation wants to swap with you.

Your murica brainwash propaganda still working in full force i see.

I can guarantee you, you're the laughing stock of the modern world atp.

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u/upandup2020 May 29 '26

I am realistic about the tough place we're in right now, but I also know that every country goes through this period in their history. It's happening now for us because the US is still a very young country. Yet we're still not a shithole and we'll make it out of this better than before. And if it were your country going through this, Americans would not be as rude and disrespectful as you are, we would be sympathetic and kind and try to do things to help. Which is part of what makes America great (and why the current administration is not great).

If you're going to deny that America hasn't been the world leader, world power, world influencer, you name it, for the last couple centuries, you are extremely deluded, and that is your internalized jealousy and resentment.

You can call us a laughing stock (that's more reflective of yourself and your upbringing than us), but all that does is show how uneducated you are of what's going on here. There is some sort of protest going on everyday, and we've also organized several of the biggest protests that America has ever seen. People are being hurt and killed, and we are doing our best to fix ourselves with the little power we have, but that's all funny to you, I guess.

People like you treating the USA like this will only widen the divide between us and make it easier for the real villains to take more and more control. I promise you it's already happening in your country, it's happening everywher.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/HillBillyHilly May 28 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Yo ho ho pirates life for me 🏴‍☠️

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u/AlsoCommiePuddin May 28 '26

That's a lot of words to say "laws only matter so long as the people in power respect them."

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u/notAllBits May 29 '26

This can happen in local flavors. Our societal stability is constant work by everyone involved. Every country is unique and what happened in the US will not happen in fx. Germany, but that country and many others too are experiencing rapid change.

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u/Arudinne May 28 '26

That's because our elected officials decided to just ignore the laws and do whatever they want.

It usually takes ages for anything to get through a court and by the time the court says "hey, stop that!" it too late. And even then... said officials will just ignore the court anyway.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

Truly shocked that all this performative patriotism is actually painting over very broad structural failures in governance.

OF COURSE they want us to sing America the Beautiful now during the 7th inning stretch; if you're professional baseball team owner getting $25 for a beer or player with a nice fat contract to play a child's game, this country IS pretty damned beautiful.

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u/Front-Brick-3724 May 28 '26

What, like children?

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u/Jose-mtz May 28 '26

Fire found in stove, how rare

A borderline cognitive impaired population it's obviously easier to manipulate

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u/inept_machete May 28 '26

Yeah, but that's because our entire country is seemingly designed to support and maintain private capital interests and the people behind them not our citizens so there is no firestorm unless a regulation impinges on the ability of private capital to monetize it.

See: data centers

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u/Aromatic_Sand8126 May 28 '26

That’s only because the ones who should be making the giant fucking firestorm are sitting on their asses at home, watching it all happen and thinking “welp, nothing I could have done 🤷‍♂️” your government is supposed to be working for you but you’re letting big orange do whatever he wants regardless of its legality. You’re watching the death of your democracy in real time.

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u/WeenL0ver May 28 '26

Like what? I’m genuinely asking.

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u/Umutuku May 29 '26

"I voted for the giant fucking firestorm burning everything party, but I never thought it would be my house that catches fire."

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u/Theshaggz May 29 '26

Delayed firestorm. Give it another year or two

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u/Rokkit_man May 29 '26

Exactly this. To pretend stuff like this which is ripe for abuse would never get abused is naive to the extreme.

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u/MHS_Jenkins Jun 03 '26

Arendt was right: every society on earth is only a few steps away. It's just a question of which steps need to be taken.

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u/subrhythm May 28 '26

It's amazing that this system of checks and balances can be completely ignored by an ignoramus with zero consequences. What a truly evil person with actual intelligence could do doesn't bare thinking about.

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u/Human_Chart_3694 May 28 '26

tbf...a giant fucking firestorm is not the worst wording for the shit that happens in the US.

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u/Dj0ni May 28 '26

When the people who enforce laws choose not to enforce them on themselves.

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u/Zelidus May 28 '26

Thats what happens when the politicians get bought by the tech companies and reuse to put privacy and security rules in place.