European Union Calls For Massive Internet Censorship

[You_are_a_cunt]

Welp. Looks like the Internet Censorship disease jumped the pond to us in Europe (or at least in the EU)

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A leaked document from the European Union reveals that the EU presidency is calling for massive internet censorship and filtering.

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The proposals, if adopted, call for European countries to follow in China’s footsteps regarding online censorship.

The directive calls on the EU to enact even stricter copyright laws, which EDRi says pushes pre-existing terms “further into the realms of illegality.”

The text contains “two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called ‘link tax’ or ancillary copyright, and the upload filter.” EDRi says both directives would be harmful to a free and open Internet.

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Option A maintains the Commission’s original proposal of having in place an upload filter which will be under the control of platforms and other companies that are hosting online content. Although it removes mentions to “content recognition technologies”, in reality, there is no way to “prevent the availability” (another expression which remains in the text) of certain content without scanning all the content first.

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Option B is, at best, a more extreme version of Option A. In fact, it seems so extreme that it almost makes the first option look like a reasonable compromise. This may, of course, be the “diplomatic” strategy. In this extreme option, the text attacks again the liability regime of the e-commerce Directive – which, bizarrely, would not be repealed, leaving us with two contradictory pieces of EU law but adds a “clarification” of what constitutes a “communication to the public”. This clarification establishes that platforms (and its users) would be liable for the copyright infringing content uploaded by its users.

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In other words, platforms like Twitter or YouTube could be held responsible for each and every piece of content uploaded by their users. Demanding that these websites vet each and every piece of content would not only cost too much, it is also impossible to do manually — even for tech giants.

sauce thanks to @SurvivorNVL

 

My rant:

Once again the EU proves it's full of dinguses, clowns and all-round dumbasses.

We, as a global community, fight the good fight for Net Neutrality and Free Speech and a bunch of bigwigs come and try to essentially take control over what content is available to us.

Censorship is one of the lowest and most asshattish thing a "governing body" (be it at a local, national or international community level) and serves no purpose other than controlling what information is being distributed and opens the floodgates to doctored news.

This is what the Communists did (at least in Romania) and look how well that turned out.

They'd better drop this fast, else I see a lot of people getting real angry.

The article mentions Twitter and YouTube, but I can see them taking it even further than social media. Imagine an overseer controlling what news can and can't be reported or going as far as demanding that a particular piece of news be presented in a certain way. Sound familiar?

 

 

Since people like to complain, here's further reading material:

 

https://edri.org/leaked-document-eu-presidency-calls-for-massive-internet-filtering/

 

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-estonian-compromises-11783-17.pdf

 

[Coaxialgamer]

They're not calling for anything yet. It's a proposal. It still has to be voted and ratified. 

[CardinalHunter]

9 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Welp. Looks like the Internet Censorship disease jumped the pond to us in Europe (or at least in the EU)

sauce thanks to @SurvivorNVL

 

My rant:

Once again the EU proves it's full of dinguses, clowns and all-round dumbasses.

We, as a global community, fight the good fight for Net Neutrality and Free Speech and a bunch of bigwigs come and try to essentially take control over what content is available to us.

Censorship is one of the lowest and most asshattish thing a "governing body" (be it at a local, national or international community level) and serves no purpose other than controlling what information is being distributed and opens the floodgates to doctored news.

This is what the Communists did (at least in Romania) and look how well that turned out.

They'd better drop this fast, else I see a lot of people getting real angry.

The article mentions Twitter and YouTube, but I can see them taking it even further than social media. Imagine an overseer controlling what news can and can't be reported or going as far as demanding that a particular piece of news be presented in a certain way. Sound familiar?

Them doing that would just make more people start using vpn right I see no point in doing this why would they wanna be cancerous like chia

[mr moose]

I want winmx back.

 

Surely in this day and age a program similar to it or limewire can be made to avoid meddling government controls?

[captain_to_fire]

34 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Once again the EU proves it's full of dinguses, clowns and all-round dumbasses.

We, as a global community, fight the good fight for Net Neutrality and Free Speech and a bunch of bigwigs come and try to essentially take control over what content is available to us.

If there's one thing good about it if it ever happened is that VPN sales will skyrocket. But then again, I don't see something as ludicrous as this to become a reality. If there's one thing history has taught humanity is that authoritarianism doesn't work.

[lobster_zoidberg]

27 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

They're not calling for anything yet. It's a proposal. It still has to be voted and ratified. 

In what way is a proposal not calling for somthing? 

[Droidbot]

instead of censoring the internet they should be solving their own problems, like NOT GIVING GREECE MORE EUROS

[Jurrunio]

At least unlike China, this [profanity] [profanity] proposal can be rejected by the public.

[Dabombinable]

Do you even have to follow a "law" if its illegal?

[Tech_Dreamer]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Do you even have to follow a "law" if its illegal?

Welcome to politics , The wolf in sheep's clothing .

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, Coaxialgamer said:

They're not calling for anything yet. It's a proposal. It still has to be voted and ratified. 

This is how EU works:

Proposal with some very quiet public statements and publications

nothing (secret lobbying)

nothing (secret bickering)

nothing (secret voting)

Legislation announced to the public with a date upon which it turns into law

Public outrage ensues

Representatives addresses the complaints (goes on vacation to the bahamas on EU travel expenses)

Nothing changes

Law is in effect

fuck you public

 

This is what you get, when you allow a unelected, unregulated and UN-DEMOCRATIC ruling body, with NO responsibility nor accountability to its affected "subjects" to "govern" your life.

 

This is why, if given the chance, i'd move to America. I dont care about Trump, violence, shitty pay, horrible healthcare or whatever. At the very least, you have the opportunity to call out your democratically elected leaders on their BS and actually have a hope of things improving.

The only "people" that can affect whatever the EU does, is top brass of hedgefunds and fortune 500 companies/chinese/american government. Because nobody else has the ability to impose any actual "threat" or "consequence" to these people

[AlTech]

Hooray........ This is totally why I'm proud to be an EU passport holder   /sarcasm.

 

Honestly, what the hell is going on. This is not something that the EU of all people should be trying to do.....

[matrix07012]

I LOVE living in the EU. /s

 

[yian88]

This is bad, the leftist scum is everywhere. How the heck do we break EUnion once and for all? I hate living in it they destroyed everything, they destroyed independent europe and continue restricting citizen rights.

[suicidalfranco]

Italexit please and thank you

[snortingfrogs]

There is no wonder that EU is imploding with more and more countries leaving (or wants to leave).

Hopefully there will be a Swexit soon as well.

[jagdtigger]

2 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

They're not calling for anything yet. It's a proposal. It still has to be voted and ratified. 

Yeah because they never voted in anything stupid... (*cough* """refugee""" quota *cough*)

[You_are_a_cunt]

I'm waiting for the EU to implode just so I can say I called it.

Unfortunately I'm stuck here for another 3 to 5 years, but if I'm ever given the opportunity to leave pops up, I'm going to probably take it ASAP.

[Droidbot]

42 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

I'm waiting for the EU to implode just so I can say I called it.

Unfortunately I'm stuck here for another 3 to 5 years, but if I'm ever given the opportunity to leave pops up, I'm going to probably take it ASAP.

as long as the english economy doesnt hit the fuckin fan within the next 5 years I'll be fine

half english so I get that passport and bam, a country that doesn't totally suck

[You_are_a_cunt]

9 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

as long as the english economy doesnt hit the fuckin fan within the next 5 years I'll be fine

half english so I get that passport and bam, a country that doesn't totally suck

IIRC post-Brexit they're limiting the number of people coming to the UK to work, including cutting down the ones already employed that aren't UK nationals or aren't in the process of obtaining a citizenship

[Coaxialgamer]

3 hours ago, lobster_zoidberg said:

In what way is a proposal not calling for somthing? 

 

2 hours ago, Prysin said:

This is how EU works:

Proposal with some very quiet public statements and publications

nothing (secret lobbying)

nothing (secret bickering)

nothing (secret voting)

Legislation announced to the public with a date upon which it turns into law

Public outrage ensues

Representatives addresses the complaints (goes on vacation to the bahamas on EU travel expenses)

Nothing changes

Law is in effect

fuck you public

 

This is what you get, when you allow a unelected, unregulated and UN-DEMOCRATIC ruling body, with NO responsibility nor accountability to its affected "subjects" to "govern" your life.

 

This is why, if given the chance, i'd move to America. I dont care about Trump, violence, shitty pay, horrible healthcare or whatever. At the very least, you have the opportunity to call out your democratically elected leaders on their BS and actually have a hope of things improving.

The only "people" that can affect whatever the EU does, is top brass of hedgefunds and fortune 500 companies/chinese/american government. Because nobody else has the ability to impose any actual "threat" or "consequence" to these people

 

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Yeah because they never voted in anything stupid... (*cough* """refugee""" quota *cough*)

Do you have how many proposals go through the European council without ever being adopted? 

You're just assuming that this law will be adopted just because you view the EU as some dictatorial institution, when the fact is the citizens are the ones that vote for their countrie's representatives in the European council. 

People just need to realize that their wishes also have to contend with those of other EU members as well. 

If you mean that citizens can't directly vote for individual laws, I'll remind you that neither can people vote for the laws of their individual country. They elect leaders with whom the share views, who then vote those laws. 

The EU council is just an extension of a national congress you'd find in any country. 

[lobster_zoidberg]

Just now, Coaxialgamer said:

 

 

Do you have how many proposals go through the European council without ever being adopted? 

 

First someone calls for something, then it gets proposed. You stupidly claimed "a proposal isn't calling for something". It is. I don't care or did claim to know how the EU works. 

[Trixanity]

While I dislike the EU as much as the next guy, this is a bit FUD spreading. 

This proposal (from what I understand)  comes from the presidency of the council which resides in Estonia. So for some reason Estonia has some heavy lobbying going on to control the internet to prevent piracy which is likely to come from the movie and music industry.

 

Why on Earth Estonia thought it'd be a good idea to put it forward is beyond me. I can't imagine it passing considering how pro free internet the EU is outwardly trying to appear to be.

[abazigal]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Do you even have to follow a "law" if its illegal?

Can a law be illegal? Unfair perhaps? 

[Coaxialgamer]

3 minutes ago, lobster_zoidberg said:

First someone calls for something, then it gets proposed. You stupidly claimed "a proposal isn't calling for something". It is. I don't care or did claim to know how the EU works. 

Ok, maybe i did misphrase that.