19 ms·

Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

490 points by sdiepend 9y ago

rebuilder 9y ago
So at a quick glance at the leaked document, it seems to contain provisions for requiring certain services to let copyright holders have unlicensed content pulled and to provide ways to stop such content being posted in the first place. Excluded from this group would be e.g. ISPs, storage providers and service providers whose primary function is not to distribute content to the public. The article seems very alarmist and light on detail. This draft may well be pretty bad, but I'd recommend reading it to form your opinion.
shomyo 9y ago
A nice word for censorship
provost 9y ago
The web page is receiving the "hug of death" right now, and is having difficulty loading. Pasting the content here in case it goes down (I did not include the in-paragraph hyperlinks though). However, here is the leaked document they reference in the first sentence: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-estonian-compromises-11783-17.pdf http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright... ====================================== A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality. According to the leaked document, the text suggests two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called “link tax” or ancillary copyright and the upload filter. Regarding the upload filter, the text offers two alternatives: * 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. * 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. The proposals in this leak highlight a very dangerous roadmap for the EU Member States, if they were to follow the Presidency’s lead. The consequences of these flawed proposals can only be prevented if civil society and EU citizens firmly raise their voices against having a censorship machine in the EU. We will be turning on our call tool at savethememe.net before each of the key votes in the European Parliament. Make use of the tool, and call your representatives to stop the #censorshipmachine! No, you can’t enjoy the music you paid for, says EU Parliament Committee (05.07.2017) https://edri.org/no-you-cant-enjoy-the-music-you-paid-for-says-eu-parliament/ https://edri.org/no-you-cant-enjoy-the-music-you-paid-for-sa... Proposed Copyright Directive – Commissioner confirms it is illegal (28.06.2017) https://edri.org/proposed-copyright-directive-commissioner-confirms-it-is-illegal/ https://edri.org/proposed-copyright-directive-commissioner-c... EU Copyright Directive – privatised censorship and filtering of free speech (10.11.2016) https://edri.org/eu-copyright-directive-privatised-censorship-and-filtering-of-free-speech/ https://edri.org/eu-copyright-directive-privatised-censorshi... Copyright reform: Document pool https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/ https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/ (Contribution by Diego Naranjo, EDRi) ======================================
- qmarchi 9y ago
  The document in question is located at Statewatch: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-estonian-compromises-11783-17.pdf http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright...
- snowpanda 9y ago
  Archive of page: https://archive.fo/ZaKft https://archive.fo/ZaKft
- QAPereo 9y ago
  That's horrendous... as it stands what are the odds this sees the light of day? I really hope this leak is a test, and it's just blown out of the water for now.
  - bleke 9y ago
    I guess today maybe no, but 10-15 years later and after one or few terrorists attacks with standard narrative, we will get in situation where without government id you could not write a comment, like today in china. This is not happening because of need security, but because of people ignorance and government greed to control everything.
- almonj 9y ago
  There should be a huge backlash because of this. Make sure all people involved are fired and have no ability to govern anything public ever again.
adekok 9y ago
> the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, I read that as "corporations can enforce copyright... I can't" See Youtube drama of a news organization using someone's video without attribution or payment... and then filing automated copyright claims against the original, because parts of the "copyrighted news broadcast" appear verbatim in the video.
- quuquuquu 9y ago
  Completely agree. When corporations are allowed to enforce the rules, they bend them so that the corporation profits. They also then 1984 the whole situation by using double-speak to explain the situation. I once worked for a company that announced they were doubling our conmission rates from 5 to 10 percent. They couldnt be happier to tell us all about how they were going to pay us more, so we quickly suspected something weird was going on. Well that all was slowly revealed when 3 months later, commissions on deals were being "denied" in full. "Deal is too large." "Deal is not in your territory." "Deal is not on a commission elligible product." So the rates were doubled. But 2x of $0 is still $0.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
  I think there's also a serious risk of infringing on fair use/fair dealing and even remixes and so on here. An algorithm can't tell whether you're using content for piracy or for criticism. As you point out, YouTube's Content ID system has given us a fantastic preview of the potential problems here.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Their solution seems to be mandating providers to offer a mechanism for redressing grievances and having the rightsholders explain themselves in a reasonable time period. It seems to be just for PR (it doesn't seem to provide any mechanism in case the explanation is ridiculous), but it could provide an interesting venue for DDoSing copyright holders.
- digi_owl 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Joe-Z 9y ago
I sincerely hope that we will succeed in keeping the internet as democratic as possible and not let it be destroyed by corporate interests in the name 'terrorism prevention'. I'd like to give a shout-out to epicenter.works, an Austrian NGO, which I've been following the last 1.5 years or so. I think it's hard to get the public engaged in these topics, but they seem to be really determined. Here's a google translate link to one of their latest articles / achievements (preventing a 'surveillance package' in Austrian law): https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fepicenter.works%2Fcontent%2Fueberwachungspaket-gescheitert-wir-rufen-zum-schulterschluss-fuer-sicherheit-statt https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...
- cies 9y ago
  > keep[...] the internet as democratic as possible and not let it be destroyed by corporate interests in the name 'terrorism prevention'. Yups. Exactly this is what's going on in my opinion as well.
  - fghtr 9y ago
    And there is even a term for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  The Internet was never democratic. When did you get to vote on anything?
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    Anarchy might be a better description, and that too within reason and having been made less and less so over time via law enforcement and such. The dark web is more of that ideal, but you know where that ends up.
    - alacombe 9y ago
pmyteh 9y ago
Non-EU readers should bear in mind that the presidency of the EU is much much weaker than that of, say, the US. It's rotated around the countries on a schedule, and has mainly agenda-setting authority. That is, countries who hold the presidency will use it to try to get movement on some issues that they care about, but it doesn't have anywhere close to enough power to get something passed which the other member states do not agree with. Real power sits with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament in various proportions.
- ForRealsies 9y ago
  Real power sits with Merkel.
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    Or Erdogan ?
    - VeejayRampay 9y ago
      Turkey is not part of the EU yet. I don't see how exactly the power "sits with Erdoğan".
      - wiz21c 9y ago
        Erdogan controls a massive amount of refugees. Moreover, there's one or two pipelines crossing Turkey and I'm sure that helps to control things a bit too. Of course I'm no politician, I've no access to confidential information, but I'm sure he might use that to influence Europe (and there's nothing wrong with that, that's international politics as usual).
      - d33 9y ago
        Well, I heard people say he controls the flow of the "refugees", so he gets to make some decisions.
        9y ago
jonssons 9y ago
and they still call me paranoid ...
samuell 9y ago
Site can't be reached at the moment. Anybody care to provide a TL;DR?
_fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
> follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship This phrase makes the article seem overly dramatic. The proposed directive is all about copyright and not about censorship in the common sense. So, if I own the copyright (e.g. I wrote a blog post critizing the European Commission), this directive doesn't apply to me.
- snsr 9y ago
  Copyright enforcement is censorship.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
dalbasal 9y ago
China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake. No censorship for its own sake. etc. Much harder. Much more prone to compromise and erosion.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- JBReefer 9y ago
  A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...
  - pjc50 9y ago
    > everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great Hardly. Especially on the left. Including such issues as the ban on breastfeeding photos, ban on trans people using their names, and widespread failure to ban hate speech. (I'm sure I've seen one case of someone recieving a pile of death threats, reporting them, getting told they were "not offensive", then reposting them as an image to say what sort of garbage facebook tolerates .. and then getting that post deleted by facebook. But not any of the original abuse.)
    - ravenstine 9y ago
      Just because they advocate freedom to express those ideas does not mean they advocate freedom of speech as a whole. Talking about anything not in the liberal vogue right now opens one up to a world of hurt that wasn't as prevalent even 10 years ago. Bring up being against draconian gun control and, depending on where you live and how large your social circle is, you might get a reputation for being a bunch of things you're not. I'm often seen as a conservative for bringing up the fact that violent crime in America is down, or challenging misconceptions about GMOs or criticizing Bill Nye the Science Guy(no, I'm not kidding), or even so much as questioning the accuracy of the gender pay gap statistic. Yet I have nothing in common with the kind of "conservatives" people are talking about. In fact I'd argue that almost all of my actual positions are far more liberal and progressive than that of most liberals. The problem is that free speech of any value has to be facilitated by the likes of Facebook and other companies. If companies control who gets banned for saying something, and their goal is largely profit-driven, and the consensus is to make communication habitable for the most consumers(as opposed to actual expression of ideas beyond vapid Instagram photos), we are essentially screwed. The left is at an advantage because they have the facade of being the ones who fight for social injustice and those who are "historically oppressed", which are things that most people, including many conservatives, can't really argue against on face value; when they are handed the keys to media power, they behave just as conservative religious fundamentalists would, just with their own particular set of ideas that are not always congruent. That is why I find the public's support of censorship, and the socially-acceptable level of vexation over "offensive" ideas, to be very disturbing. I find that I cannot even trust a large number of people who I know, and I think many people have discovered the same thing, which is why platforms like Facebook have turned into digital ghettos.
program_whiz 9y ago
Is anyone surprised at this? The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now. Someone who is in power can potentially eliminate threats and increase their own power/wealth. I would be more surprised to find the opposite -- that the powerful had privately written a memo telling others that privacy matters more than their own power/wealth/safety. Its like all the "shocking" revelations on the corruption of elections using voting machines -- hardly surprising given that the manipulation guarantees "legitimate" power from the people, the cost is fairly low relative to payoff, and the effect is largely untraceable.
- klez 9y ago
  The fact that it's not surprising shouldn't prevent us from being outraged and from demanding a repeal.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  > The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now. That is because instead of building mesh networks out of our routers, mobile phones, home servers, raspberry pis, we, in Europe, are waiting on the {government,council,leadership,isp,bigco} to do it for us. It would be more than possible to build city-wide networks in the UK and cross-city connections with, for example, long range ubiquity, without and ISP or corporation or BT involved, but nobody seems interested, because nobody care any more. Virgin blocked a few more sites, "meh". I know this sounds like a rant, but I'd really love to see a worm which turns every wifi capable device into gigantic mesh network and see how ISPs panic.
chatmasta 9y ago
> upload filter Your upload is my download. A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Of course that sounds unnatural compared to the user downloading the HTTP response. But the difference between upload/download is purely semantic and only distinguishes the intent of the user. Regardless of terms used, data flows in one direction, then back in another. The only distinguishing factor is its direction and whether or not both sides can establish the initial connection. So in that sense, a server uploads data to the user, who implicitly permitted the sever to do so when establishing the connection. This misappropriation of technical language to advance a policy goal is revealing in that it shows the concept is fundamentally unlegislatable and therefore unenforceable, or worse, arbitrarily enforceable. This is just part of an ongoing legislative pattern of the past 5-10 years. My reading of its trajectory is that regulatory regimes will eventually require licenses to run any service behind public IP addresses, to register domain names, and to advertise BGP routes or run public DNS resolvers. When coupled with centralization of inbound routing infrastructure (transatlantic fiber) and/or increased regulation of IP transit companies, this licensing legislature will work effectively.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  > A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Direction-wise, this is true, connection-wise, it's not. There is no active connection initiated from the server to the client; it's one long connection that is client->server, only the direction of the data changes.
sdbrown 9y ago
So I admit that I've only skimmed the PDF on statewatch.org that the site points to, but I didn't see the "massive filtering" bit. This reads like the DMCA seems to be practiced; can someone point out to me the specific page number of the PDF, or better the text within the document, which refers to the content filtering? I'm not saying the DMCA is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just trying to get calibrated to what is being proposed in the directive. Thanks for the help!
apk-d 9y ago
Personally, I think the cookie law could be expanded a bit further. Currently, I'm not always appropriately notified that the website I'm visiting uses cookies. How about we institute a law that requires browsers to implement a feature that detects when a cookie is stored, locks the browser and proceeds to play an unbridged rendition of the Ode to Freedom (yes, that's really what it's called) while displaying a full page warning that you have to manually accept. Later, we could expand the mechanism to cover websites that use CSS stylesheets.

490 points by sdiepend 9y ago

So at a quick glance at the leaked document, it seems to contain provisions for requiring certain services to let copyright holders have unlicensed content pulled and to provide ways to stop such content being posted in the first place. Excluded from this group would be e.g. ISPs, storage providers and service providers whose primary function is not to distribute content to the public. The article seems very alarmist and light on detail. This draft may well be pretty bad, but I'd recommend reading it to form your opinion.

shomyo 9y ago

A nice word for censorship

provost 9y ago

The web page is receiving the "hug of death" right now, and is having difficulty loading. Pasting the content here in case it goes down (I did not include the in-paragraph hyperlinks though). However, here is the leaked document they reference in the first sentence: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-estonian-compromises-11783-17.pdf http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright... ====================================== A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality. According to the leaked document, the text suggests two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called “link tax” or ancillary copyright and the upload filter. Regarding the upload filter, the text offers two alternatives: * 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. * 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. The proposals in this leak highlight a very dangerous roadmap for the EU Member States, if they were to follow the Presidency’s lead. The consequences of these flawed proposals can only be prevented if civil society and EU citizens firmly raise their voices against having a censorship machine in the EU. We will be turning on our call tool at savethememe.net before each of the key votes in the European Parliament. Make use of the tool, and call your representatives to stop the #censorshipmachine! No, you can’t enjoy the music you paid for, says EU Parliament Committee (05.07.2017) https://edri.org/no-you-cant-enjoy-the-music-you-paid-for-says-eu-parliament/ https://edri.org/no-you-cant-enjoy-the-music-you-paid-for-sa... Proposed Copyright Directive – Commissioner confirms it is illegal (28.06.2017) https://edri.org/proposed-copyright-directive-commissioner-confirms-it-is-illegal/ https://edri.org/proposed-copyright-directive-commissioner-c... EU Copyright Directive – privatised censorship and filtering of free speech (10.11.2016) https://edri.org/eu-copyright-directive-privatised-censorship-and-filtering-of-free-speech/ https://edri.org/eu-copyright-directive-privatised-censorshi... Copyright reform: Document pool https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/ https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/ (Contribution by Diego Naranjo, EDRi) ======================================

qmarchi 9y ago
The document in question is located at Statewatch: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright-directive-estonian-compromises-11783-17.pdf http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright...
snowpanda 9y ago
Archive of page: https://archive.fo/ZaKft https://archive.fo/ZaKft
QAPereo 9y ago
That's horrendous... as it stands what are the odds this sees the light of day? I really hope this leak is a test, and it's just blown out of the water for now.
- bleke 9y ago
  I guess today maybe no, but 10-15 years later and after one or few terrorists attacks with standard narrative, we will get in situation where without government id you could not write a comment, like today in china. This is not happening because of need security, but because of people ignorance and government greed to control everything.
almonj 9y ago
There should be a huge backlash because of this. Make sure all people involved are fired and have no ability to govern anything public ever again.

adekok 9y ago

> the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, I read that as "corporations can enforce copyright... I can't" See Youtube drama of a news organization using someone's video without attribution or payment... and then filing automated copyright claims against the original, because parts of the "copyrighted news broadcast" appear verbatim in the video.

quuquuquu 9y ago
Completely agree. When corporations are allowed to enforce the rules, they bend them so that the corporation profits. They also then 1984 the whole situation by using double-speak to explain the situation. I once worked for a company that announced they were doubling our conmission rates from 5 to 10 percent. They couldnt be happier to tell us all about how they were going to pay us more, so we quickly suspected something weird was going on. Well that all was slowly revealed when 3 months later, commissions on deals were being "denied" in full. "Deal is too large." "Deal is not in your territory." "Deal is not on a commission elligible product." So the rates were doubled. But 2x of $0 is still $0.
TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
I think there's also a serious risk of infringing on fair use/fair dealing and even remixes and so on here. An algorithm can't tell whether you're using content for piracy or for criticism. As you point out, YouTube's Content ID system has given us a fantastic preview of the potential problems here.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Their solution seems to be mandating providers to offer a mechanism for redressing grievances and having the rightsholders explain themselves in a reasonable time period. It seems to be just for PR (it doesn't seem to provide any mechanism in case the explanation is ridiculous), but it could provide an interesting venue for DDoSing copyright holders.
digi_owl 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Joe-Z 9y ago

I sincerely hope that we will succeed in keeping the internet as democratic as possible and not let it be destroyed by corporate interests in the name 'terrorism prevention'. I'd like to give a shout-out to epicenter.works, an Austrian NGO, which I've been following the last 1.5 years or so. I think it's hard to get the public engaged in these topics, but they seem to be really determined. Here's a google translate link to one of their latest articles / achievements (preventing a 'surveillance package' in Austrian law): https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fepicenter.works%2Fcontent%2Fueberwachungspaket-gescheitert-wir-rufen-zum-schulterschluss-fuer-sicherheit-statt https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...

cies 9y ago
> keep[...] the internet as democratic as possible and not let it be destroyed by corporate interests in the name 'terrorism prevention'. Yups. Exactly this is what's going on in my opinion as well.
- fghtr 9y ago
  And there is even a term for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
tinus_hn 9y ago
The Internet was never democratic. When did you get to vote on anything?
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Anarchy might be a better description, and that too within reason and having been made less and less so over time via law enforcement and such. The dark web is more of that ideal, but you know where that ends up.
  - alacombe 9y ago

pmyteh 9y ago

Non-EU readers should bear in mind that the presidency of the EU is much much weaker than that of, say, the US. It's rotated around the countries on a schedule, and has mainly agenda-setting authority. That is, countries who hold the presidency will use it to try to get movement on some issues that they care about, but it doesn't have anywhere close to enough power to get something passed which the other member states do not agree with. Real power sits with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament in various proportions.

ForRealsies 9y ago
Real power sits with Merkel.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  Or Erdogan ?
  - VeejayRampay 9y ago
    Turkey is not part of the EU yet. I don't see how exactly the power "sits with Erdoğan".
    - wiz21c 9y ago
      Erdogan controls a massive amount of refugees. Moreover, there's one or two pipelines crossing Turkey and I'm sure that helps to control things a bit too. Of course I'm no politician, I've no access to confidential information, but I'm sure he might use that to influence Europe (and there's nothing wrong with that, that's international politics as usual).
    - d33 9y ago
      Well, I heard people say he controls the flow of the "refugees", so he gets to make some decisions.
      - 9y ago

jonssons 9y ago

and they still call me paranoid ...

samuell 9y ago

Site can't be reached at the moment. Anybody care to provide a TL;DR?

_fizz_buzz_ 9y ago

> follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship This phrase makes the article seem overly dramatic. The proposed directive is all about copyright and not about censorship in the common sense. So, if I own the copyright (e.g. I wrote a blog post critizing the European Commission), this directive doesn't apply to me.

snsr 9y ago
Copyright enforcement is censorship.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

dalbasal 9y ago

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake. No censorship for its own sake. etc. Much harder. Much more prone to compromise and erosion.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JBReefer 9y ago
A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...
- pjc50 9y ago
  > everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great Hardly. Especially on the left. Including such issues as the ban on breastfeeding photos, ban on trans people using their names, and widespread failure to ban hate speech. (I'm sure I've seen one case of someone recieving a pile of death threats, reporting them, getting told they were "not offensive", then reposting them as an image to say what sort of garbage facebook tolerates .. and then getting that post deleted by facebook. But not any of the original abuse.)
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    Just because they advocate freedom to express those ideas does not mean they advocate freedom of speech as a whole. Talking about anything not in the liberal vogue right now opens one up to a world of hurt that wasn't as prevalent even 10 years ago. Bring up being against draconian gun control and, depending on where you live and how large your social circle is, you might get a reputation for being a bunch of things you're not. I'm often seen as a conservative for bringing up the fact that violent crime in America is down, or challenging misconceptions about GMOs or criticizing Bill Nye the Science Guy(no, I'm not kidding), or even so much as questioning the accuracy of the gender pay gap statistic. Yet I have nothing in common with the kind of "conservatives" people are talking about. In fact I'd argue that almost all of my actual positions are far more liberal and progressive than that of most liberals. The problem is that free speech of any value has to be facilitated by the likes of Facebook and other companies. If companies control who gets banned for saying something, and their goal is largely profit-driven, and the consensus is to make communication habitable for the most consumers(as opposed to actual expression of ideas beyond vapid Instagram photos), we are essentially screwed. The left is at an advantage because they have the facade of being the ones who fight for social injustice and those who are "historically oppressed", which are things that most people, including many conservatives, can't really argue against on face value; when they are handed the keys to media power, they behave just as conservative religious fundamentalists would, just with their own particular set of ideas that are not always congruent. That is why I find the public's support of censorship, and the socially-acceptable level of vexation over "offensive" ideas, to be very disturbing. I find that I cannot even trust a large number of people who I know, and I think many people have discovered the same thing, which is why platforms like Facebook have turned into digital ghettos.

program_whiz 9y ago

Is anyone surprised at this? The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now. Someone who is in power can potentially eliminate threats and increase their own power/wealth. I would be more surprised to find the opposite -- that the powerful had privately written a memo telling others that privacy matters more than their own power/wealth/safety. Its like all the "shocking" revelations on the corruption of elections using voting machines -- hardly surprising given that the manipulation guarantees "legitimate" power from the people, the cost is fairly low relative to payoff, and the effect is largely untraceable.

klez 9y ago
The fact that it's not surprising shouldn't prevent us from being outraged and from demanding a repeal.
pmlnr 9y ago
> The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now. That is because instead of building mesh networks out of our routers, mobile phones, home servers, raspberry pis, we, in Europe, are waiting on the {government,council,leadership,isp,bigco} to do it for us. It would be more than possible to build city-wide networks in the UK and cross-city connections with, for example, long range ubiquity, without and ISP or corporation or BT involved, but nobody seems interested, because nobody care any more. Virgin blocked a few more sites, "meh". I know this sounds like a rant, but I'd really love to see a worm which turns every wifi capable device into gigantic mesh network and see how ISPs panic.

chatmasta 9y ago

> upload filter Your upload is my download. A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Of course that sounds unnatural compared to the user downloading the HTTP response. But the difference between upload/download is purely semantic and only distinguishes the intent of the user. Regardless of terms used, data flows in one direction, then back in another. The only distinguishing factor is its direction and whether or not both sides can establish the initial connection. So in that sense, a server uploads data to the user, who implicitly permitted the sever to do so when establishing the connection. This misappropriation of technical language to advance a policy goal is revealing in that it shows the concept is fundamentally unlegislatable and therefore unenforceable, or worse, arbitrarily enforceable. This is just part of an ongoing legislative pattern of the past 5-10 years. My reading of its trajectory is that regulatory regimes will eventually require licenses to run any service behind public IP addresses, to register domain names, and to advertise BGP routes or run public DNS resolvers. When coupled with centralization of inbound routing infrastructure (transatlantic fiber) and/or increased regulation of IP transit companies, this licensing legislature will work effectively.

pmlnr 9y ago
> A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Direction-wise, this is true, connection-wise, it's not. There is no active connection initiated from the server to the client; it's one long connection that is client->server, only the direction of the data changes.

sdbrown 9y ago

So I admit that I've only skimmed the PDF on statewatch.org that the site points to, but I didn't see the "massive filtering" bit. This reads like the DMCA seems to be practiced; can someone point out to me the specific page number of the PDF, or better the text within the document, which refers to the content filtering? I'm not saying the DMCA is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just trying to get calibrated to what is being proposed in the directive. Thanks for the help!

apk-d 9y ago

Personally, I think the cookie law could be expanded a bit further. Currently, I'm not always appropriately notified that the website I'm visiting uses cookies. How about we institute a law that requires browsers to implement a feature that detects when a cookie is stored, locks the browser and proceeds to play an unbridged rendition of the Ode to Freedom (yes, that's really what it's called) while displaying a full page warning that you have to manually accept. Later, we could expand the mechanism to cover websites that use CSS stylesheets.