logoalt Hacker News

Say No to Palantir in Europe

479 pointsby Betelbuddytoday at 2:51 PM115 commentsview on HN

Comments

gobdovantoday at 7:24 PM

'Say "Yes" to Palantir not coming to Europe' - would have been the wording if the vote were organized by Romanian politicians. (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Romanian_presidential_imp...)

niekiepriekietoday at 4:38 PM

But it’s already widespread in Europe, or at least in the Netherlands. Amsterdam Airport uses it, as do the Dutch police and the Dutch army. So shouldn’t it be: kick out Palantir?

show 3 replies
redanddeadtoday at 3:55 PM

say no to palantir in america too

they're giving startups an awful name in the eyes of the people, supposedly by the guy teaching others how to do startups, good grief

mrlonglongtoday at 3:47 PM

The UK has decided to terminate Palantir contracts when they become due for renewal. Not before time.

show 2 replies
epolanskitoday at 4:09 PM

Instantly signed up.

I'm already moving most of my clients out of any US-based offering.

Azure and Jira are sticky, but they'll be out sooner or later.

show 4 replies
linhnstoday at 3:43 PM

Europe can regulate anything out. Palantir should be no different.

show 2 replies
lokimedestoday at 4:21 PM

Even Alex Karp openly recommends European countries to roll their own alternatives. If anyone in Europe insists on Palantir it’s by their own volition.

The hard work is integration and data workflows, that is hard work regardless of the chosen “exploitation interface”.

__natty__today at 3:52 PM

I wonder what the alternative for Europe might be? A new project to launch, or is there an existing solution? Siren? Argon? In any case, it could be a great opportunity for Europe to create new jobs whilst increasing its sovereignty.

show 4 replies
simianwordstoday at 6:25 PM

How do we differentiate between genuine empathy and love for the world and simple virtue signalling?

If USA weren't the one safeguarding (contentious but please read on) the world and its modern interests then we would end up with something much worse.

If you only focus locally, it is quite easy to dismiss any form of killing, any form of surveillance and any form of inconvenience. This is "Defund the Police" meme all over again.

I gain social points by showing my disgust against the killings and murder done by the west. I gain nothing by promoting what they safeguard and promote that is necessary for the world to function. Such dynamics will lead to self ownage at the long run but social status points for oneself in the short term.

show 2 replies
lucasaytoday at 3:54 PM

Petitions don’t do much on their own, but they’re often how pressure starts. And ‘not European issues’ feels off when these companies operate globally anyway.

show 1 reply
chmetoday at 5:33 PM

I'm just wondering why this isn't a European Citizen Initiative (ECI)...

I could not find any information on what kind of influence a online-petition on wemove.eu would have...

renewiltordtoday at 4:26 PM

Oh boy, I'm looking forward to the brand new EU program to allocate one million dollars to eligible startups that can develop a weapons and targeting platform so long as all forms are filed well and a registered notary has read out the bill to all participants and each participant has read out the application so that informed consent is received.

deauxtoday at 3:49 PM

Sure, Europe should absolutely be saying no to Palantir.

However

> A powerful company enables genocide in Gaza, helps ICE separate families, and fuels Trump’s war with Iran

So does Google, so does Meta, so does Oracle. What do you think all that Palantir software runs on in the clouds? On Palantir's own huge datacenters? They don'thave those. The huge bulk of it runs on it on clouds provided my Microsoft, Amazon, Google.

Meta in particular causes such ridiculously larger amounts of societal damage that focusing so much energy on Palantir specifically is a dead giveaway it's not really about harm caused, it's about optics. Because they themselves likely use WhatsApp and Instagram, yet they don't knowingly use Palantir products.

If you're going to single out one US tech company as "we need to stop cooperating with them", I don't see how it can be any other than Meta. It's like telling someone morbidly obese to stop eating a single cookie per day rather than the 5 cheese pizzas they're also having. Maybe the cookie is slightly worse per gram, but it's also completely ineffective to focus on.

show 3 replies
gzreadtoday at 3:39 PM

Petitions accomplish nothing. Money talks, talking doesn't.

show 5 replies
chopete3today at 4:02 PM

>> Palantir enables genocide in Gaza, helps ICE separate families, and fuels Trump’s war with Iran.

Out of technical curiosity,where do we find more on how Palatir is helping technically?.

Types of ML jobs they are running?

Open source or AI models they are using.

show 2 replies
helftoday at 3:55 PM

I love how Palantir is comically evil. Their logo being the Palantir from LoTR (duh) and all. It's wild to me lol. They don't even try to pretend anymore.

BurningFrogtoday at 4:35 PM

[dead]

0x3ftoday at 3:44 PM

> A powerful company enables genocide in Gaza, helps ICE separate families, and fuels Trump’s war with Iran.

Ah yes, European issues

show 4 replies
grokcodectoday at 4:58 PM

"powerful company enables genocide in Gaza" first sentence flags this as a complete load of malarcky

bicxtoday at 3:54 PM

No to Palantir in Europe

show 1 reply
gradus_adtoday at 4:22 PM

Say No to Subsidizing European Defense

mcostatoday at 3:47 PM

Europe needs its own Palatir

delichontoday at 4:22 PM

Isn't this a bit like foregoing the use of gunpowder because it isn't chivalrous? If your enemies don't agree it doesn't end well.

show 5 replies
nicklotoday at 4:57 PM

or say yes? decel mentality like this is why europe is falling behind. some poor startup will try to backfill these contracts to be the new palantir of europe only to be cut at the knees by regulation and more outcry think piece boycotts like this. rinse and repeat until the us and china become the only relevant acceleration hubs on earth during the singularity

karl11today at 4:49 PM

I don't think there has ever been a company so poorly understood (willfully or otherwise) as Palantir. They make a software platform, it does not come with any data, does not come connected to any datasources, etc. You can literally sign up right now for a trial and see this for yourself. It looks the same if you were to purchase a license. This headline might as well say 'Say No to PostgreSQL' or 'Say No to Excel' or 'Say No to Salesforce', etc. Wild.

show 5 replies