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The other issue not discussed here is that Google and the rest will be required to remove offending content within an hour. Notwithstanding the rest of the dis

The other issue not discussed here is that Google and the rest will be required to remove offending content within an hour. Notwithstanding the rest of the discussions, this will only create more jobs. I realize Google may not like the hit to the profit line, bit it's a bit disingenuous to ask only the developers to sharpen the axes and fight the Google's war while not informing them of the rest of the legislation: "Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State, such as content inciting people to terrorism, racist or xenophobic, illegal hate speech, child sexual exploitation, illegal commercial practices, breaches of intellectual property rights and product safety. What is illegal offline is also illegal online." I guess I object the delivery. Tell us everything, and then ask us for support. This way they are just spinning it to fit their agenda in a way that keeps us less informed: "they are after your GitHub". Classical FUD Edit: Here is a much better overview http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096 http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=50096

wyager 9y ago
> this will only create more jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- Wohlf 9y ago
  We can create even more jobs by banning construction equipment and computers!
- lumberjack 9y ago
  too bad Google quickly offshores all profits and pays zero taxes
  - adventured 9y ago
    Google commonly pays around 15% to 17% for its overall corporate income tax rate. By comparison, the statutory rate for Norway is 23%, Sweden is 22%, Denmark is 22%, Portugal is 21%, Slovakia is 21%, Finland is 20%, Estonia is 20%, Iceland is 20%, Russia is 20%, Czech is 19%, the UK is 19%, Poland is 19%, Switzerland is 18%, Ukraine is 18%, Romania is 16%, Serbia is 15%, Lithuania is 15%, Ireland is 12.5%, Moldova is 12%, Macedonia is 10%, Hungary is 9%. I'll emphasize again, those are just the statutory rates. Google is obviously aggressive in their tax avoidance, however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      But who do they pay those taxes to? From the perspective of an Australian (for instance), Google pays 0% Australian tax (even though they profit from my country) because they have sufficiently clever accountants. It is less important to me that they pay 15% globally (though that is still a ridiculously small number -- most people have to pay at least 30% tax in Australia) than it is that they pay 0% tax to many countries they do business in. I still have to pay GST when I pay for Google's services -- why do I have to pay my Australian taxes when I transact with them but they don't have to pay their Australian taxes for that transaction? > however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations. But they run businesses in significantly more countries outside of the ones you've listed. The fact that you could only find a handful of countries (several of which have very questionable governments) where 15% tax for a multi-billion dollar company sounds normal is pretty telling.
      - wyager 9y ago
        > Google pays 0% Australian tax (even though they profit from my country) They don’t “profit from your country” - they have users who live in your country. Maybe it makes sense for those users to pay up to the government, but it’s crazy to say that you should have to pay taxes to a foreign government just because someone under that government uses your website. In the long run, if this rhetoric you’re advocating is successful (that if you touch anything somehow related to a government over the internet then you owe them a cut and have to follow their local rules), you can say goodbye to the open, global internet. Companies will IP-restrict (or if that doesn’t convince the lawyers, government ID restrict) every single website.
        cyphar 9y ago
        > They don’t “profit from your country” - they have users who live in your country. Which they make money from -- in fact quite a few companies make more money from a given Australian than other markets[1] meaning that they are profiting more off Australians (even for online services -- like Adobe that charged AU$1400 more for their software in Australia). If a company wishes to sell books in Australia, they have to pay Australian taxes. But if you sell online services, all of a sudden everyone starts talking about the destruction of a free and open internet. If a company selling a service is willing and has the ability to "destroy the free and open internet" through IP blocks if they are asked to pay taxes for the money they make off foreign markets, then ask yourself -- how free is the internet in the first place if that is all it takes to destroy it? You don't pay taxes if you don't make money. I don't understand what you're trying to argue against here. > but it’s crazy to say that you should have to pay taxes to a foreign government just because someone under that government uses your website. It's not about usage, it's about profit. If you're making a profit by providing services to people in a foreign market, you have now made money in a way where society requires that you pay taxes on your profit. Most countries have bilateral tax agreements to avoid double taxation, so if a company pays tax in $countryA they only have to pay the excess in $countryB. Those agreements exist explicitly to facilitate the ability to do business overseas. Not to mention that many of these companies are incorporated in foreign countries as well, which means that they aren't even foreign entities at that point. They're just ordinary Australian companies that don't pay tax. > In the long run, if this rhetoric you’re advocating is successful (that if you touch anything somehow related to a government over the internet then you owe them a cut and have to follow their local rules), you can say goodbye to the open, global internet. I hate to break it to you, but you already have to follow the law of countries that you do business with. If you host certain kinds of hate speech, you are not permitted to provide access to said hate speech in Germany (even if legal in your country). If you host certain kinds of pornography, you are not permitted to provide access to said pornography in other countries (even if legal in your country). And so on. Will you be extradited for breaking those laws? Maybe not, but that doesn't make it any less illegal. I understand the whole "anti-regulation" view that some US folks have (and I agree that many laws regarding the internet are very troubling), but pretending as though companies should be allowed to make money in a foreign market without paying tax just because their company happens to involve the internet is pretty odd to me. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax
- quickben 9y ago
  You can't just link a random analogy without any provided mapping. That analogy is not applicable. Google's profit taking is not the overall global nation state profit taking. It's just one company. Whereas currently the money velocity is lower because it sits on Google's books, employing people will increase only increase it overall, and more in the case of people living in EU.
- jwilk 9y ago
  Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
wlesieutre 9y ago
It will create more jobs at tech giants who are sitting on giant piles of money and can afford to hire people for this. What will it do to 1-person bootstrapped startups with user created content? Try to get any work done, but have to take constant interruptions to review all content? Imagine trying to create Digg or reddit or twitter with this law on the books.
- quickben 9y ago
  Single person startups competing with tech giants for user content usually don't make it precisely because they compete with them. I don't have to imagine. I already have two failed products behind me precisely because the tech giants exist and are big enough to not play by the rules. Coming from where I've been through, I actually see this law proposal opening the playfield for smaller entities.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    > Coming from where I've been through, I actually see this law proposal opening the playfield for smaller entities. How, when it imposes additional costs upon said entities?
    - quickben 9y ago
      if that becomes the law, whoever wants to profit from user content can accomodate that particular piece better. The big ones will be stuck trying to accomodate the entire laws on massive databases for all use cases.
nkrisc 9y ago
Think of all the jobs that could be created by rounding up and burning all books!
falcolas 9y ago
Are these the same jobs that have a history of inciting PTSD-like symptoms in minimum wage employees, jobs that the tech giants limit to 4 hours a day? I'm not sure I can agree that this is a positive thing.
jrs95 9y ago
This sounds great until you realize that "illegal hate speech" includes criticizing your government over rape gangs that are kidnapping your children. But that's fine because there's nothing to worry about, we assure you. It's just sensationalism, not that we weren't doing our jobs in investigating this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/telford-grooming-gang-police-officer-girls-sex-abuse-shropshire-fears-children-a8255841.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/telford-grooming-... Based on how censorship is currently done in Europe, I won't be surprised if this law would be used to target "hate speech" like this and still nothing will be done about all of the content on YouTube being made for pedophiles.
- pjc50 9y ago
  You can't claim that something is "censored" or "not being covered by the press" by linking to an article in a national newspaper.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    I never said it wasn’t being covered by the press. But as an individual, if you were to suggest that these things are happening as a result of immigration policy, you’d run the risk of being charged with a hate crime.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
schlowmo 9y ago
> "Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State [...]" The "law of a Member State" part is very concerning. If it's enough that content is illegal in one member state to have it taken down in the whole EU, very tough times lying ahead. The first two things which came to my mind were the new Polish holocaust law and the current prosecution of various symbols of Kurdish groups (e.g. flags of YPG) in Germany. Say goodbye to free speech.
- adventured 9y ago
  > The "law of a Member State" part is very concerning. Interestingly, this mistake would dramatically increase the market power of the US and its tech giants. The US market would continue to produce endless numbers of wildly profitable, very large tech companies. They'd continue to start out by easily capturing the US + Canada + various global markets, and then they'd better be able to piece by piece target markets in Europe with whatever customized product changes were necessary. A company starting from a small to mid size market in the EU simply can't perform like that, they don't have the financial resources to meet all the demands of each member state. Facebook can trivially do it. This would be a huge gift to US tech.
deltron3030 9y ago
"Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State, such as content inciting people to terrorism, racist or xenophobic, illegal hate speech, child sexual exploitation, illegal commercial practices, breaches of intellectual property rights and product safety. What is illegal offline is also illegal online." In Spain, recently twelve young adults got two years of jail time for "hate speech" lyrics in a rap song. It's a country that didn't yet resolve its fascist past. Not only that, but the post fraquist party (PP) does have a branch at EU level (EPP), and that's where many of those silly proposals originate from.
jccooper 9y ago
Perhaps if a government wants to police illegal content they should have, say, the police or a court do it instead of an algorithm or an offshore cubicle farm. If "what is illegal offline is also illegal online" shouldn't the mechanisms be the same, too?

wyager 9y ago

> this will only create more jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Wohlf 9y ago
We can create even more jobs by banning construction equipment and computers!
lumberjack 9y ago
too bad Google quickly offshores all profits and pays zero taxes
- adventured 9y ago
  Google commonly pays around 15% to 17% for its overall corporate income tax rate. By comparison, the statutory rate for Norway is 23%, Sweden is 22%, Denmark is 22%, Portugal is 21%, Slovakia is 21%, Finland is 20%, Estonia is 20%, Iceland is 20%, Russia is 20%, Czech is 19%, the UK is 19%, Poland is 19%, Switzerland is 18%, Ukraine is 18%, Romania is 16%, Serbia is 15%, Lithuania is 15%, Ireland is 12.5%, Moldova is 12%, Macedonia is 10%, Hungary is 9%. I'll emphasize again, those are just the statutory rates. Google is obviously aggressive in their tax avoidance, however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    But who do they pay those taxes to? From the perspective of an Australian (for instance), Google pays 0% Australian tax (even though they profit from my country) because they have sufficiently clever accountants. It is less important to me that they pay 15% globally (though that is still a ridiculously small number -- most people have to pay at least 30% tax in Australia) than it is that they pay 0% tax to many countries they do business in. I still have to pay GST when I pay for Google's services -- why do I have to pay my Australian taxes when I transact with them but they don't have to pay their Australian taxes for that transaction? > however they're not in fact paying low rates compared to what can be managed in more than a dozen European nations. But they run businesses in significantly more countries outside of the ones you've listed. The fact that you could only find a handful of countries (several of which have very questionable governments) where 15% tax for a multi-billion dollar company sounds normal is pretty telling.
    - wyager 9y ago
      > Google pays 0% Australian tax (even though they profit from my country) They don’t “profit from your country” - they have users who live in your country. Maybe it makes sense for those users to pay up to the government, but it’s crazy to say that you should have to pay taxes to a foreign government just because someone under that government uses your website. In the long run, if this rhetoric you’re advocating is successful (that if you touch anything somehow related to a government over the internet then you owe them a cut and have to follow their local rules), you can say goodbye to the open, global internet. Companies will IP-restrict (or if that doesn’t convince the lawyers, government ID restrict) every single website.
      - cyphar 9y ago
        > They don’t “profit from your country” - they have users who live in your country. Which they make money from -- in fact quite a few companies make more money from a given Australian than other markets[1] meaning that they are profiting more off Australians (even for online services -- like Adobe that charged AU$1400 more for their software in Australia). If a company wishes to sell books in Australia, they have to pay Australian taxes. But if you sell online services, all of a sudden everyone starts talking about the destruction of a free and open internet. If a company selling a service is willing and has the ability to "destroy the free and open internet" through IP blocks if they are asked to pay taxes for the money they make off foreign markets, then ask yourself -- how free is the internet in the first place if that is all it takes to destroy it? You don't pay taxes if you don't make money. I don't understand what you're trying to argue against here. > but it’s crazy to say that you should have to pay taxes to a foreign government just because someone under that government uses your website. It's not about usage, it's about profit. If you're making a profit by providing services to people in a foreign market, you have now made money in a way where society requires that you pay taxes on your profit. Most countries have bilateral tax agreements to avoid double taxation, so if a company pays tax in $countryA they only have to pay the excess in $countryB. Those agreements exist explicitly to facilitate the ability to do business overseas. Not to mention that many of these companies are incorporated in foreign countries as well, which means that they aren't even foreign entities at that point. They're just ordinary Australian companies that don't pay tax. > In the long run, if this rhetoric you’re advocating is successful (that if you touch anything somehow related to a government over the internet then you owe them a cut and have to follow their local rules), you can say goodbye to the open, global internet. I hate to break it to you, but you already have to follow the law of countries that you do business with. If you host certain kinds of hate speech, you are not permitted to provide access to said hate speech in Germany (even if legal in your country). If you host certain kinds of pornography, you are not permitted to provide access to said pornography in other countries (even if legal in your country). And so on. Will you be extradited for breaking those laws? Maybe not, but that doesn't make it any less illegal. I understand the whole "anti-regulation" view that some US folks have (and I agree that many laws regarding the internet are very troubling), but pretending as though companies should be allowed to make money in a foreign market without paying tax just because their company happens to involve the internet is pretty odd to me. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax
quickben 9y ago
You can't just link a random analogy without any provided mapping. That analogy is not applicable. Google's profit taking is not the overall global nation state profit taking. It's just one company. Whereas currently the money velocity is lower because it sits on Google's books, employing people will increase only increase it overall, and more in the case of people living in EU.
jwilk 9y ago
Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

wlesieutre 9y ago

It will create more jobs at tech giants who are sitting on giant piles of money and can afford to hire people for this. What will it do to 1-person bootstrapped startups with user created content? Try to get any work done, but have to take constant interruptions to review all content? Imagine trying to create Digg or reddit or twitter with this law on the books.

quickben 9y ago
Single person startups competing with tech giants for user content usually don't make it precisely because they compete with them. I don't have to imagine. I already have two failed products behind me precisely because the tech giants exist and are big enough to not play by the rules. Coming from where I've been through, I actually see this law proposal opening the playfield for smaller entities.
- falcolas 9y ago
  > Coming from where I've been through, I actually see this law proposal opening the playfield for smaller entities. How, when it imposes additional costs upon said entities?
  - quickben 9y ago
    if that becomes the law, whoever wants to profit from user content can accomodate that particular piece better. The big ones will be stuck trying to accomodate the entire laws on massive databases for all use cases.

nkrisc 9y ago

Think of all the jobs that could be created by rounding up and burning all books!

falcolas 9y ago

Are these the same jobs that have a history of inciting PTSD-like symptoms in minimum wage employees, jobs that the tech giants limit to 4 hours a day? I'm not sure I can agree that this is a positive thing.

jrs95 9y ago

This sounds great until you realize that "illegal hate speech" includes criticizing your government over rape gangs that are kidnapping your children. But that's fine because there's nothing to worry about, we assure you. It's just sensationalism, not that we weren't doing our jobs in investigating this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/telford-grooming-gang-police-officer-girls-sex-abuse-shropshire-fears-children-a8255841.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/telford-grooming-... Based on how censorship is currently done in Europe, I won't be surprised if this law would be used to target "hate speech" like this and still nothing will be done about all of the content on YouTube being made for pedophiles.

pjc50 9y ago
You can't claim that something is "censored" or "not being covered by the press" by linking to an article in a national newspaper.
- jrs95 9y ago
  I never said it wasn’t being covered by the press. But as an individual, if you were to suggest that these things are happening as a result of immigration policy, you’d run the risk of being charged with a hate crime.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

schlowmo 9y ago

> "Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State [...]" The "law of a Member State" part is very concerning. If it's enough that content is illegal in one member state to have it taken down in the whole EU, very tough times lying ahead. The first two things which came to my mind were the new Polish holocaust law and the current prosecution of various symbols of Kurdish groups (e.g. flags of YPG) in Germany. Say goodbye to free speech.

adventured 9y ago
> The "law of a Member State" part is very concerning. Interestingly, this mistake would dramatically increase the market power of the US and its tech giants. The US market would continue to produce endless numbers of wildly profitable, very large tech companies. They'd continue to start out by easily capturing the US + Canada + various global markets, and then they'd better be able to piece by piece target markets in Europe with whatever customized product changes were necessary. A company starting from a small to mid size market in the EU simply can't perform like that, they don't have the financial resources to meet all the demands of each member state. Facebook can trivially do it. This would be a huge gift to US tech.

deltron3030 9y ago

"Illegal content means any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of a Member State, such as content inciting people to terrorism, racist or xenophobic, illegal hate speech, child sexual exploitation, illegal commercial practices, breaches of intellectual property rights and product safety. What is illegal offline is also illegal online." In Spain, recently twelve young adults got two years of jail time for "hate speech" lyrics in a rap song. It's a country that didn't yet resolve its fascist past. Not only that, but the post fraquist party (PP) does have a branch at EU level (EPP), and that's where many of those silly proposals originate from.

jccooper 9y ago

Perhaps if a government wants to police illegal content they should have, say, the police or a court do it instead of an algorithm or an offshore cubicle farm. If "what is illegal offline is also illegal online" shouldn't the mechanisms be the same, too?