The EU is an authoritarian state. Nowadays it is only nominally democratic, with a bigger and bigger wedge between the ruling elite and the population.
What makes you think they won't filter out means of private communication?
It's just an electronic box from china.
You're assuming direct democracy will be better in this aspect. Why? Direct democracy is likely to result in naive populist decisions, and a big enough threat will scare majority of people into relinquishing liberties.
I can fully see them eventually making it illegal and enforcing a new encrypted protocol to which they have the keys for. Obviously, such a setup would leak, but the people who make these rules think they are flawless and omniscient and think they could keep such keys private into perpetuity. They also assume that future government won't be even more totalitarian than them.
It is possible, and even in a democratic way. When large enough majority, defined in constitution, votes for destruction of democratic constitution, it is still a democratic process. It's a known bug of the usual democratic systems.
I didn't ask if something is possible, I asked if they think it will happen. As far as I'm concerned, the parent commenter is fearmongering because they've decided they hate the EU, and everything else comes secondary to that.
I am not fearmongering, but I think it can happen. Some of the possible things eventually do happen, and we can't get comfy just because "we think we're western liberal democracy".
It is hard to prevent me or any regular user from downloading and running software. Are they going to block Git forges and repositories?
They won't be able to see what my communications are, nor confirm what I am using if I tunnel all traffic through Tor or a VPN.
Will they block VPNs like authoritarian states?