#literally 1984

This is really stupid, but also really terrifying.

Parliament waved through Chat Control 1.0 again, the same suspicionless mass-scanning regime they'd already rejected twice back in March. The even more fucked up fact is that most MEPs who voted were actually against it (314 no vs 276 yes, 17 abstained), but because of the second-reading procedure they needed an absolute majority of 361 to kill it. So a proposal a majority opposed, and which 1.4 million citizens petitioned against, passed anyway. Mass scanning will remain in effect until 2028 or until new, permanent regulagion is passed.

In 1984 the whole point of newspeak was that it shrinks. Ideas that could once be communicated now cannot. Everything is simplified as much as possible. You cannot explain complicated ideas of freedom or equality because the words no longer exist, or they don’t mean what they once did.

More specifically, there is canonically no word for “gay” in 1984. There are only two words for the entire spectrum of sexuality. “goodsex” and “sexcrime”. If you’re gay it’s the exact same as being a pedophile. And those are is the exact same as cheating on your wife, which is the exact same daring to fuck your wife just because you feel like it. Which is no different than literally any sex act that might offend big brother.

Do you see what’s happening? In 1984 can no longer ask someone of the same sex to fuck you because the word for gay sex is the exact same as the word for pedophile. And you can’t come out as gay because all you can say is that you did a criminal sex act, which means you cannot make a case for your rights either.