The European Union proposes to become a branch of China.

The European Union executive branch has proposed a directive for mandatory censorship of communication services including chat and email, which includes requiring client software to scan for prohibited communications. Interpreting the description here literally, this would prohibit free software email or chat clients.

The rules would also apply to cloudy services that offer to store data and snoop on it. Under these rules, they would be required to snoop on everything.

The proposal would also require all digital services to make users prove their identity, presumably through some nonfree software and/or online disservice. This would be the total surveillance society that we have long feared the internet would turn into — a place in which whistleblowing and dissent would inevitably be caught.