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Query: if this directive passes and the outcomes are in line with the negative predictions, what happens? If it becomes standard practice for all except certai
by larkeith 8y ago
Query: if this directive passes and the outcomes are in line with the negative predictions, what happens?
If it becomes standard practice for all except certain large corporations to ban all EU addresses, how will this impact the web and the EU?
- Kenji 8y agoThe web in the EU will be dead and everyone will use a VPN to participate in the actual internet, i.e. the internet outside the EU.
- slipstream- 8y agoI would hope that Tor usage in the EU goes up.
- mirimir 8y agoTor isn't such a great solution here, because too many sites discriminate against Tor users, in one way or another. Some impose horrible CAPTCHAs. Or block access entirely. Some allow access, and even logins, but don't allow account creation. And maintaining usable Google or Facebook login accounts via Tor is virtually impossible. Using VPN services would be far more practical. Although some sites do discriminate against VPN users, it's much less common than for Tor users. The EU could of course block access to VPN servers, just as China has done. But some VPN services use obfsproxy, and so can piggyback on obfuscation efforts by the Tor Project.
- craftyguy 8y ago> And maintaining usable Google or Facebook login accounts via Tor is virtually impossible. Sounds like a feature more than an issue.
- mirimir 8y agoI suppose. It depends on your perspective. As it is now, only serious criminals can manage it.
- craftyguy 8y ago> only serious criminals can manage it. Manage what? Not having to use Google and Facebook?
- mirimir 8y agoNo, having functional Google and Facebook accounts that they can use to anonymously mess with people. Basically, you need clean IPs and mobile accounts. Tor and VPN exits don't work so well. Creating your own VPN in a VPS sometimes works. But I gather that the pros use botnet slaves with genuine residential IPs.
- icebraining 8y agoFor Facebook you don't need an exit node, they have an official onion address, facebookcorewwwi.onion
- mirimir 8y agoGood point. I bet, though, that creating an account there triggers heavy-duty authentication. And that reminds me. I recently tried to create a ProtonMail account via Tor. But they wouldn't activate it without mobile and credit/debit card numbers. Ironic, no? And yes, I do get that many jerks have misused ProtonMail accounts. Edit: I take that back about Facebook. Via the onion, it just wanted an email address to authenticate. I'm impressed.
- Karunamon 8y agoIt’s worth mentioning that this discrimination is sadly necessary. Tor amounts to a massive open proxy, and just about any service that requires accounts (and many that don’t, like IRC or image boards) looks down on open proxies as primary abuse sources. As someone who has run both an image board and a decent IRC server in the past, it’s a choice between heavily scrutinizing tor connections or banning them outright.
- mirimir 8y agoHN allows Tor access. I don't know about account creation, though. I suppose that it might create shadowbanned accounts.
- wx13p 8y agoIt works.
- Jaruzel 8y agowx13p 7 hours ago [dead] [-] It works. Apparently not.
- mirimir 8y agoYes, that account was automatically shadowbanned. But someone did a manual override. I am impressed. HN does allow throwaway accounts, when necessary to post anonymously. And making that possible via Tor is admirable. There's certainly potential for abuse. I see occasional spam, and angry insults, but nowhere near as much as one might expect. Which suggests either that shadowbanning works well enough, or efficient moderation.
- slipstream- 8y agoI was assuming that a hypothetical increase in Tor use would also increase the number of onion services.
- matte_black 8y agoIsn’t it obvious? The EU will be blocked out from the latest and greatest experiences on the web.
- mirimir 8y agoRight. Just like China etc. So anyone in the EU will need to use VPNs and/or Tor to reach the real Internet. I mean, it's one thing to force respect for people's privacy. But this stuff is fundamentally inconsistent with the Internet.
- adrianN 8y agoMaybe it's just the latest ploy in the game of creating home grown internet companies. Weibo et al seem to do great behind the Great Firewall.
- mirimir 8y agoGood point, I guess. But that's a pretty blunt instrument. In China's case, there is a genuine (not that I like it) interest in blocking access to "disruptive" material.
- walterstucco 8y agoThe internet outside EU is not so interesting as you think American online services will be available without problems
- greglindahl 8y agoIf the part of the law about responsibility for republishing 3rd party content directly applies to search engines, then they will be afraid to show snippets and anchortext, since they're now responsible for all of that content as if the search engine had explicitly chosen to publish it. This is how Russia made Yandex censor the Russian web. Search about a gay topic? Sorry, comrade, we don't want to violate the law about promoting homosexuality to minors, so we're going to self-censor the result. In Europe, this will make it unsafe to provide search results with anchortext or snippets that might be hate speech, Holocaust denial, or encourage sex trafficking. Choose your snippetizing algorithm carefully! Drop the wrong words and someone's going to jail.
- DanBC 8y ago> and the outcomes are in line with the negative predictions, what happens? This law is bad, but the negative predictions are unhinged. There is no link tax. Article 11 is a requirement for commercial sites using copyright material as part of their commercial work to either get permission or pay a licence. I'd be interested to know how article 11 is any different from existing law.
- Kliment 8y agoThe problem is the definition of commercial use. A German court ruled a few years back that use of a creative commons image by a non-profit publically funded television station was "commercial use" with the argumentation that "had the CC-NC image not existed they would have had to license an image and pay for it". Another German court ruling decided that a personal blog containing any sort of advertising qualifies as "commercial use" (in the context of the exemption from making the operator contact information visible on websites operated for personal use). The definition of commercial use is not clear-cut and definitely not in line with US rulings. This is why Art11 is a significant increase in reach. Small organizations and nonprofits operating mailing lists with a web interface would now have to screen all messages to make sure nobody quotes a news snippet. Same with forums and such. And of course it would shut down wikinews (wikipedia is explicitly and narrowly excluded, other wikimedia projects are not) and other user-operated news agregators where users are likely to quote parts of articles.
- overkalix 8y agoI literally cannot believe
- Kliment 8y agoHere's commentary on the court decision (in German) with links to the actual decision: https://netzpolitik.org/2014/urteil-des-lg-koeln-zu-creative-commons-im-oeffentlich-rechtlichen-rundfunk/ https://netzpolitik.org/2014/urteil-des-lg-koeln-zu-creative...
- lagadu 8y ago
- jonathanstrange 8y ago> If it becomes standard practice for all except certain large corporations to ban all EU addresses, how will this impact the web and the EU? That would be great, because better solutions with less monopoly would quickly spring up if those corporations don't make deals with publishers. That's just hypothetical, counterfactual speculation, though, since corporations like Google would make deals. Like others have pointed out, these regulations will primarily have bad effects on small content providers such as individual authors, small forum sites, and not for profit information-providers.
- dingaling 8y ago> what happens? Ideally, people would submit their own creative content. Personal blogging and vlogging would flourish. Gallery sites would expand exponentially with floods of new, self-made art. The Internet would shift back from primarily consumption to creation. Ideally...