Another fun one: Signal is the No. 1 downloaded app in the Netherlands. But why? | TechCrunch, from March 2 2025
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41483581
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/1j38sgw/signal_is_t...
Apparently not anymore. Unless there's a different, working URL.
But in French it would be different, as NATO is OTAN in French or AIDS is SIDA.
In French, it would be Transfert de paquets terroristes hostiles sécurisé - TPTHS :) /s
Btw I like France and French people, I have relatives there.
I agree that that's a bit too much binary thinking, and a collection of separate actions that would be legal on their own can nonetheless add up to evidence of a crime when taken together.
Because political advocacy is a passionate business, people sometimes forget basic tents of communication and end up publishing jeremiads that are only comprehensible to people who already agree with them, while failing to convert anyone else to their cause. I quite agree about the overreach of the French state here, but on first encounter I couldn't make head or tail of what their passionate opponents were arguing about.
First, to make things straight, neither Signal nor AdBlock are illegal in France, they are used by many without any problem. As in some other countries E2E encryption is sometimes attacked, and usually, it makes the news, but for now there is no problem using any privacy-focused app in France.
But, and I think it is what happened here, there is nothing stopping a prosecutor mentioning the use of such apps when making an argument in combination with other facts. It is like the use of cash. It is not illegal to use cash and possess large amounts of it (there are limits for large transactions though), but a prosecutor will certainly mention it if they can and it makes you more suspicious to justify an arrest. Not a conviction though, for a conviction, you need actual proof.
And of course, the defense attorney will point out the many legitimate uses of Signal as a way to discredit the accusation, this is the side we have here. A judge will hear both sides and settle the case in the end.
Not to say that there are not deeper political motivations, or that justice can't be corrupted, but I prefer not to make an opinion without hearing both sides.
Seems a modern problem is the significant watering down of what "terrorist" means. If blocking ads has become three measure of a terrorist:
If everyone's a terrorist... No one is.
The word no longer has any meaning. Eventually there will be two labels to apply to everyone: "corporate sheep" and "terrorist".
In which case I will always strive towards terrorist.
WTF is going on with France?
We need to repeal the War Against Terror acts that allow this to happen.
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/desi...
But what are then the people making the ads? In my head they are litterers, as they fill the public space with unwanted rubbish. But if I'm a terrorist, then these guys have to be on a whole other level. I sometimes think maybe 'rapists' is a suitable word, since they sure as fuck don't care about my consent when they push their rubbish on me. But in the worldview of the people who think I'm a terrorist for using uBlock, things are probably just all back to front.
Up is down, left is right.
A few times i did see a still from the video for a fraction of a second, but then it got overwritten by nothingness.
Well, I wasn't much of a fan of watching videos when the same info can be conveyed in writing in 1/20 of the time. Now I just have more incentive not to bother.
Anyway, I won't investigate further. If there's a video i really really want/need to watch I can open it in Chrome, which sends all my data to Google anyway.
If someone, as a purely theoretical example, feels as if they fall under various 'modern' classifications of terrorist, then it could break down certain walls of reasoning preventing them from participating in activities that would fall under the 'historic' classification of terrorist.
What I'm saying is: Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.
And that is a dead-fucking-wrong approach; 180 degrees away from the correct heading. Gross negligence.
That'll be almost all ruling parties, in almost all governments, in almost all countries. Especially since 2001.