It is true that some drugs are very dangerous and can ruin people’s lives. One of the most dangerous ones is alcohol, which is legal. One of the least dangerous ones is cannabis, which is still illegal in most places and at a federal level in the USA.

So maybe (just maybe) this is not about protecting people at all and never was?

Are all merchants who sell alcohol bastards?

Lemmy is a completely different thing. It is a grassroots movement of geeks motivated by an ideal. It has some chance of having enough people “fueling the fire” while it grows slowly and, also importantly, it does not need to grow like crazy to survive. This contrasts with threads, which is an attempt by a big tech company to capture mainstream audience. The mainstream has the attention span of 5 seconds, forms an opinion and never goes back. Either it is immediately fun or it is a flop. Threads had the best possible shot, riding on the enormous unpopularity of Musk and being able to piggy back on the huge user base of Instagram. They took the shot, it didn’t work. The only way they can get a second shot is if another extraordinary event happens. I will admit that given the current tech leadership (and specifically Musk) this is not impossible, but otherwise I’m pretty confident in declaring Threads’ stillbirth.

Social networks that end up being successful have a long initial growth phase. Interest waning after a couple of days is a terrible sign. Threads is already dead.

You are correct, and it is indeed good to make this clear. I meant to argue that it is a bit of an exaggeration to say the the EU has nothing to do with universal healthcare. Arguably, I have more rights to health care as a EU citizen visiting another member state than a US citizen who can’t afford health insurance. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a state without socialized healthcare such as the US would be able to join the EU without reforming its public health policies.

I’m an EU citizen and I strongly approve of GDPR. Out of curiosity: are you an EU citizen?

I do have a card in my wallet issued by the EU that gives me the right to receive healthcare in any EU member state I visit, and I struggle to think of a EU member state that does not have universal healthcare in one form or another.

Same. European here, I have lived in several different EU countries and everyone I know uses either WhatsApp or Signal.