Europe is debating a surveillance measure to combat child sexual abuse. The measure, nicknamed “Chat Control,” proposes to scan messages sent between mobile devices. Indeed, Europe has shown increasing interest in mass surveillance technologies in recent years. Earlier last year, the UK attempted to compel Apple to implement a backdoor in iMessage, but Apple refused and consequently suspended the Advanced Data Protection service for British users.

In this post, I will criticize Chat Control and, more generally, any mass surveillance measures. Specifically, I will make the following claims:

• Chat Control is unlikely to be an effective solution to child sexual abuse.
• Chat Control may lead to corruption among politicians and soldiers.
• Chat Control poses an existential threat to Europe.
• Reasonable solutions to combat child sexual abuse exist.
• Mass surveillance is not a viable answer to terrorism or crimes committed by immigrants.
• Immigrants are not the Trojan Horse; Chat Control is

What is Chat Control?

The Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse (Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, or CSAR), commonly known as Chat Control, is a European Union regulation proposed by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, on May 11, 2022. The stated aim of the legislation is to prevent child sexual abuse online through the implementation of several measures, including establishing a framework that would make the detection and reporting of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) by digital platforms a legal requirement within the European Union.

A strong version of this regulation will break end-to-end encryption, meaning applications like Signal and WhatsApp would no longer be usable.

A weak version installs a filter before encryption. This filter analyzes messages before they are sent; upon detecting harmful content, it reports to a remote command center.

This proposal is widely supported by politicians across Europe. The Danish Minister for Justice, Peter Hummelgaard, even went as far as declaring that encrypted messaging is not a right. Interestingly, government and military communications are exempted from this restriction.

On the other hand, this proposal faces harsh criticism from security experts and privacy advocates. They argue that this proposal is more akin to a mass surveillance tool in a totalitarian regime than a tool to combat harmful content.

My view aligns with these experts. In the following sections, I will provide supplementary arguments drawing on my field study in China rather than repeat what they have said.

Chat Control is unlikely to be an effective solution to child sexual abuse

China has a long history of combating pornographic content. Although broadcasting adult videos is illegal, “business geniuses” still find ways to livestream sexual activities.

Their tactic is as follows. First, they livestream provocative but legal content on legitimate platforms like Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok). After attracting enough viewers, they lure them into downloading (via a link) a specialized app and sideloading it onto their Android phones. It is only through this illegal app that the viewer can view explicit content and pay the content creator.

Analogously, if Chat Control is ever implemented in Europe, child predators will employ a similar tactic. Criminals will first chat with children as usual, then lure them into downloading a specialized app and sideloading it onto their Android phones. Afterward, they proceed to exploitation.

Google seems to have foreseen this issue and decided to preemptively ban sideloading on certified Android devices. Nevertheless, Google’s measure is insufficient and merely adds inconvenience for criminals. They can lure potential victims elsewhere and provide them with specialized Android phones imported from unnamed Chinese manufacturers. Indeed, one sign a child may be involved in a county line operation is receiving a new, mysterious phone.

Therefore, even if online sexual abuse decreases with Chat Control, offline sexual abuse may instead increase.

Chat Control may lead to corruption among politicians and military personnel

Chat Control grants politicians and military personnel an exemption from censorship, a privilege that makes them ideal candidates for conducting child abusing. All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Following the implementation of Chat Control, there is a risk that individuals in these positions may be tempted to engage in illegal activities, including child trafficking. What exacerbates this concern is that once they decide to do so, we would have limited means to discover or punish such actions.

Chat Control poses an existential threat to Europe.

Let us imagine what will happen to couples’ dialogue before and after Chat Control.

Before Chat Control: I miss your cock!

After Chat Control: Let’s play hide-the-salami!

The fact of knowing that one is being watched significantly changes a person’s behavior. Chat Control will discourage people from opening up, thus making them less likely to build mutual trust. We can therefore foresee a sharp drop in marriage and birth rates among Europeans.

Meanwhile, marriage and birth rates among immigrants will not be affected by Chat Control. Unlike Europeans who are bound by trust, immigrants are bound by kinship.

“Muslims must help Muslims.” The Kite Runner, Chapter 15

“Take two Afghans who’ve never met, put them in a room for ten minutes, and they’ll figure out how they’re related.” The Kite Runner, Chapter 20

It will not take long for Europeans to feel isolated from each other and overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants.

Reasonable solutions to combat child sexual abuse exist

Chat Control is, at its core, a cat-and-mouse game. Sexual offenders can always use and adapt jargon to circumvent censorship—a fact best demonstrated by Chinese netizens.

For instance, Douyin and other Chinese video platforms banned the word “Alcohol” (酒), so video creators used “9” (the same pronunciation as Alcohol in Chinese) and subsequently “8+1” instead.

This is a battle the cat will never win.

Instead of playing this doomed game, a more sensible solution is to address the root cause.

Children engage online because their parents neglect them. Globally, parents use mobile devices to babysit their children while pursuing extramarital affairs themselves.

If they do not supervise their children, child sexual abusers will.

European parents should therefore ban children’s use of social media (and even smartphones), as is done in Australia, and spend more time with their children.

Mass surveillance is not a viable answer to terrorism or crimes committed by immigrants

With the rise in terrorism and crimes involving immigrants, democratic countries are increasingly adopting mass surveillance techniques. I strongly disagree with this approach.

China has the most stringent mass surveillance system; everything you do is associated with your real name. However, China also experiences a disproportionately high number of scams, often because data collected by the government is leaked or sold to scammers.

Ironically, despite such advanced and comprehensive mass surveillance technologies, the Chinese government still encourages its citizens to manually identify potential spies around them. Even more ironically, this spy-catching campaign risks evolving into a second Cultural Revolution.

Now, the Chinese government has even developed a dependence on surveillance technologies. It cannot simply dismantle this syste because Chinese citizens have grown accustomed to a perceived sense of security and consequently lack preparedness for its absence. Removing the surveillance could leave people vulnerable to criminals, analogous to how many experienced hardship following the lifting of the zero-COVID policy.

Therefore, democratic countries should stop plagiarizing and stealing Chinese government’s mass surveillance intellectual properties, something the Chinese government should have patented. Instead, they should develop methods rooted in democratic principles to combat terrorism and crime.

Immigrants are not the Trojan Horse; Chat Control is

When reading recent Western news and articles, I have sensed a sentiment comparing immigrants to the Trojan Horse. This comparison is rarely stated explicitly, likely because it’s so insensitive, inflammatory, racist, and politically incorrect. Nonetheless, I will address this issue here.

Before making my argument, I would like to point out that the Trojan Horse, though a clever ruse, was full of flaws. There were multiple occasions where the Trojans could have disrupted the plan.

• The Trojans could have burnt the horse instead of bringing it into Troy, suggesting they were obsessed with fame and material gains and ignored potential risks.

• The Trojan priest Laocoön guessed the plot but was killed by two sea serpents sent by Poseidon, indicating that Troy suffered from internal conflict (assassination, gangstalking, and microtargeting) and unchecked power from the Greek Gods.

• King Priam’s daughter Cassandra, the soothsayer of Troy, also warned that the horse would be the city’s downfall. She too was ignored, demonstrating how women were frequently placed in symbolic positions (tokens), whose advice was usually disregarded (i.e., tokenism).

• The Trojans could have opened the horse to inspect its interior, but they failed to do so because horses were sacred animals. This shows that religious correctness suppressed critical thinking and freedom of speech.

• The Trojans could have sent scouts to confirm the Greeks had truly retreated before celebrating prematurely, suggesting their project management was mere bureaucratic theater.

• The Trojans could have stationed an army within the city for emergency instead of everyone indulging in a full banquet, indicating a lack of preparedness and self-sacrifice.

• The Trojans could have detained Sinon, the Greek soldier who came with the horse and later signaled to the Greeks by lighting a beacon, showing that they were careless when accepting outsiders.

• The horse could only hold 30 soldiers—a number theoretically too insignificant to make a difference in a well-organized society,suggesting Troy’s governance was chaotic and lacked effective leadership.

• Odysseus himself could have refrained from risking 30 of his best fighters (including himself) inside the horse, as its failure would have meant total defeat for the Greeks, indicating that the Greeks likely had already bribed important officials within Troy to convince the king and people of the horse’s harmlessness.

Therefore, it was Troy’s internal weaknesses that caused its downfall; the Trojan Horse merely exploited these vulnerabilities and triggered the collapse.

Today, we observe similar phenomena in democratic countries. After years of immigration and accompanying economic gains, people can become arrogant, complacent, and greedy—no longer maintaining efficient governance or upholding democratic values. It is only a matter of time before such societies falter.

Likewise, Chat Control will accelerate this decline by further eroding mutual trust and self-organizing capabilities, which are essential pillars for democracy. Chat Control is thus the new Trojan Horse.

To combat this potential downfall, Europeans need to eliminate corruption, invest in the people, and uphold European values (reduce the number of immigrants if necessary) rather than use Chat Control as a means of mass surveillance.