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Leaked: EU governments want to give record labels control over what we can post
- QAPereo 9y agoUnless Germany is on board, I can’t see this happening. (Thank god for minute favors)
- skrebbel 9y agoFrance, Spain and Portugal can implement these laws without the rest of the EU. That's a big enough market to make many companies invest in such a "censorship machine". After that, there is precedent.
- QAPereo 9y agoSpain and Portugal will do whatever Germany says, France... is France so who knows? I don’t see how this can be enforced locally though.
- confounded 9y agoFrance already has very draconian laws with regards to file sharing. I think their politicians would go for it.
- kuschku 9y agoThe important bit (and also w.r.t. who to blame): > Documents[1] leaked today by Statewatch expose: The governments of France, Spain and Portugal are pushing to redesign the web away from openness and towards the tight control of cable TV, where a few big companies get to say what goes on the air. ________________________ [1] http://statewatch.org/news/2017/oct/eu-copyright-fr-pt-es.htm http://statewatch.org/news/2017/oct/eu-copyright-fr-pt-es.ht...
- rhn_mk1 9y agoThose attempts will never cease, will they?
- mmanfrin 9y agoI supposed that means freedom is a process, not a state.
- leggomylibro 9y ago"Never Cease" is copyrighted by Endless Flight Media. In order to minimize inconvenience and injury, please redact your comment prior to the arrival of authorities. - Posted under General Indemnification Clause EU3215
- throw2016 9y agoDemocracy is really meaningless, one vote every 4-5 years and in the interim corporate interests are lobbying daily to get laws passed. It just becomes a fig leaf of legitimacy for crony capitalism and we must recognize we are neck deep in it.
- manachar 9y agoDemocracy is supposed to be more involved then showing up every 4-5 years. For most Western democracies the reason governments have been increasingly aligned with corporate interests is those have been the interests actually doing the hard work of democracy. They gather like minded people together, lobby, and keep sustained pressure on elected officials. They constantly work at a democracy whereas most people seem to think politics is an every 4 year divisive inconvenience that's best not discussed. In other words, democracy is captured by corporate interests precisely because they lobby daily whereas most people can barely be counted on to show up to vote.
- Joe-Z 9y agoBut normal people also don't have huge amounts of money and time to spend on sending someone to the parliament to speak for their interests. What they have is parties they can vote for, which are then supposed to make policies as promised to their voters. What happens though is that lobbyists step in and buy them off. So please don't try to sell lobbyists as some pillar of democracy.
- vertex-four 9y agoThe people have political organisations of our own, you realise - I donate to a few in my country that regularly have people talking to our elected representatives and the people in charge of creating Government policy. It doesn't actually cost a lot of money to lobby the Government when enough people are actually interested in a problem. The problem is broadly apathy.
- gtvwill 9y ago
- skrebbel 9y agoMeta-comment: this is a fantastic article. I find that nearly all writings in the pro-internet-freedom camp are overly detailed, technical and long. They take great care to be precisely accurate, come up with unmarketable terms like "net neutrality", and as a result they really just end up preaching to the choir. Then this one! It's rather short, it's to the point, it uses imagery that my dad can understand ("censorship machine" instead of "content recognition algorithms"). I hope all the others fighting the good fight take notice. Really impressed with Reda here. I can actually share this with people!
- tomglynch 9y agoTotally agree. Net neutrality is the most unclear, incomprehensible term for describing internet freedom. And I think the main reason net neutrality is having such a tough time gaining support of the people is most people assume net neutrality is a negative thing and want to get rid of it. I must say, brilliant marketing tactics by whoever coined the term (assuming they are from a company trying to quash net neutrality).
- ldd 9y agoA classic, but an old essay on the topic: George Orwell, Politics and the English Language[1] [1]http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/ http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit...
- jstanley 9y agoThis is just another foot on the accelerator driving everything towards decentralisation and true censorship-resistance.
- black_puppydog 9y agoThat might be the logical next step. But if you (we) don't stand up now for the freedom of the centralized platforms, what's to stop tomorrow's governments from simply outlawing anything that cannot be decrypted and censored? We'd have a hard time connecting to a decentralized service if the mere fact that we're outside government control there was enough to get into trouble. In my opinion, more decentralization is a technical fix to a social problem. And those often only go so far.
- QAPereo 9y agoPeople like the minority represented by HN? Sure. The billions who use social media every day? Not so much.
- jstanley 9y agoDon't forget it was the people like the minority represented by HN who built substantially all of the internet infrastructure.
- pantalaimon 9y agoI'm glad the Pirate Party is still in the EU parliament, doing important work like this.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoWe need a pirate party in the United States.
- slim 9y agoThere are pirate parties in a handful of states. Where do you live?
- Feniks 9y agoThe problem with the EU is that small, non corrupt and transparent countries like mine can be overruled by MEPs from Romania.
- idclip 9y agoThis stuff is heading towards torches and pitchforks.
- squarefoot 9y agoI don't think so. The "censorship machine" will first be publicly motivated by the necessity to limit media piracy, then if necessary they will use the usual child porn consensus device to shift public opinion towards its acceptance, since nobody would dare to oppose it. Finally, once it is working, they'll use it to detect and quash dissent much before it reaches the torches and pitchforks level.
- idclip 9y agoLets hope were both wrong
- nkkollaw 9y agoThank God for Tor... That's our safety net if they eventually succeed in destroying the internet.
- acd 9y agoI express strong dislike of industries lobbying for laws which are non democratic. Does the people of EU want this law?