8 ms·

EU is planning to order websites to delete extremist content within 1 hour

71 points by martin-adams 8y ago

wolco 8y ago
That sounds possible for large players.
- sparkling 8y ago
  The EU usually makes little distinction between a 3 man startup and a multi national 5000 people company with their laws. They don't get that such laws only re-enforce and strengthen the position of the big dominant players (Facebook, Google, Twitter...) that have the legal capacity to deal with all this nonsense.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    That is how proper laws are supposed to work, there is no rich and poor's court.
    - sparkling 8y ago
      I agree. Thats why you should not pass this law.
    - orbital-decay 8y ago
      In theory. In practice, there are a lot of ways to abuse that, for example by establishing a high entry barrier. The reality is always much more nuanced than ideologies.
- arkades 8y ago
  They’ve made it clear that they are not making exceptions for small players, specifically somas to preclude pushing extremists out into the fringes of the Internet. No small platform will ever be able to launch in the EU again.
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  How? Can you even define "extremist content" in general terms without also making religious texts illegal? Or scientific articles that go against the politically correct narrative?
  - TheHeasman 8y ago
    >Or scientific articles that go against the politically correct narrative? Wut?
    - bufferoverflow 8y ago
      James Damore was fired for citing scientific articles, for example. You can also watch the swedish documentary Hjernevask which shows what happens when science goes against the PC system, it's fascinating.
      - happytoexplain 8y ago
        Damore was fired for what he said, not what he cited while saying it (I'm not saying it was justified). Misrepresenting events as a rhetorical tactic is essentially propaganda - it will never do anything but hurt both sides of the argument.
        bufferoverflow 8y ago
        But what he said we're citations. Nobody is misrepresenting anything.
      - sampo 8y ago
        Norwegian documentary, actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs&list=PLaJtMuDnR5KLwrt4z1O8tKmHWmUm3nObV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs&list=PLaJtMuDnR5... (The links in the Wikipedia article go to videos with a bit higher quality than the Youtube playlist.)
  - alkonaut 8y ago
- ekianjo 8y ago
  really? On youtube there are more hours of videos uploaded every minute than actual human reviewers can ever hope to police, let alone under one hour...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - benologist 8y ago
    Google has $100,000,000,000+ in the bank and slightly more than that in revenue last year, so realistically if they need 100,000 more employees to handle this they will still be ridiculously profitable, especially when they call them contractors to avoid health care, and evade taxes on a global scale, and woo oppressive new markets like China.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    Charging users to upload videos would solve the problem.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      I doubt ISIS and the like lacks funding. If this is really what you want to prevent money wont be a big barrier.
      - onion2k 8y ago
        You're not thinking laterally. The problem isn't extremist videos. The problem is that there are too many videos uploaded to reasonably check all of them. Charging would solve that problem, which in turn solves the problem of extremist content.
sparkling 8y ago
Cookie laws, legal nag screens everywhere, monitoring comment section is a 24/7 job... its just absurd. Honestly, just turn off the internet in the EU.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  GDPR is a good idea (although I remains to be seen if any of it is enforced, as without enforcement it's pointless) but I agree the cookie law was the stupidest nonsense I've seen in a long time.
  - Grue3 8y ago
    GDPR is just cookie law on steroids. Except now you have to click a million checkboxes instead of one button, and it works worldwide.
    - annabellish 8y ago
      That's very untrue. In fact, any site which makes you do that is _violating_ the GDPR - you aren't allowed to have those checkboxes be opt-out. Besides, that's only one small part of the GDPR, which is much closer to the Data Protection Act modernised for 2018's awful internet than anything else. We did this to ourselves by proving we can't be trusted to self-regulate.
      - Rjevski 8y ago
        I think his main point is that for now GDPR is just as inefficient as the cookie "law" it replaced, which I have to agree with - the only thing that will make these regulations useful is enforcement - until that happens companies will just ignore it (as we can already see with plenty of non-GDPR-compliant sites).
      - mrighele 8y ago
        I agree, but until now I have seen very few websites doing GDPR properly (probably because it would go against one of their main ways to make money). The best implementation that I found to date, is on GitLab's website [1]. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/ https://about.gitlab.com/
yladiz 8y ago
I think removing extremist content is a good idea overall (although this then begs the question, how do you legally define extremist content?[1]), but I feel like 1 hour is a bit tough, primarily because 1 hour can mean different things: does it mean from being reported, or being uploaded? This question isn’t covered in the article and it’s an important distinction I feel. 1: the problem being that a lot of religious texts could be defined as “extremist” if an ill defined law is created. I guess you have to define directly what content would be considered extremist, e.g. any video from a known terrorist/terrorist group like ISIL, which will never be perfect but better than having a definition that’s too loose.
- wccrawford 8y ago
  I think we can assume that it's within 1 hour of being reported, not uploaded, since there's no way to guarantee everything that's uploaded is fully checked, even with a staff large enough to look at it all and make decisions more than a few seconds long. But that problem also basically exists for smaller sites under the "1 hour after reported" rule, too. IMO, it would basically force them to hide anything that was reported immediately, and then restore it after it was moderated. That will make it horrifyingly easy for internet trolls to mess with things.
  - l9k 8y ago
    For a small website with a team working 9-5 and no advanced AI moderation, that would mean that they can't let users upload things outside of working hours...
  - yladiz 8y ago
    I’m not sure though, because of this quote: > In March, the EU's civil service published details of the current voluntary arrangement, which noted that "terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours of its appearance online". This makes me think it may be timed from the upload, not the report.
    - wccrawford 8y ago
throwawaymanbot 8y ago
Excellent. But I have to wonder what is classed or will be classed extremist. Russian Trolls are subtle, and will be able to avoid this. Democracy is getting hit more by those very trolls than anything else. So have to wonder if this is gonna be worth it.
est 8y ago
just two steps away from china 1. authorities can have their own definition of "extreme" 2. site must delete or get shutdown
- ekianjo 8y ago
  yes, extreme is anything ISIS right now, and soon after whistle blowers, journalists not in the current political movement will be falling under the same net as well. Sounds exactly the same excuse as ever: pretend to protect the children by applying new censorship rules.
  - TheHeasman 8y ago
    There's a thing called the political opposition (or over here in Brit Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition) and that's how democracies stop authoritarian rules y'know.
    - DanAndersen 8y ago
      That assumes that the opposition is willing to spend political capital arguing "in favor of extremism."
    - mistermann 8y ago
      Is it foolproof? Some people believe it's possible for opposing parties to slowly drift towards each other on the political spectrum over time, to the degree that "opposition" becomes rather meaningless in a practical sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who, in his description of his window, claimed that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within the window, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton's description, his window includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office. As an example, consider the reaction of both the Republicans and Democrats (and the news media) to the very notion of Bernie Sander's socialized, single-payer medical care in the last election. In the not too distant past, the Democratic party rallied behind such causes, or at least had an open mind about them. Now, they will stick a knife in your campaign behind the scenes. This touches on what Hillary Clinton used to believe, and what she believes now. Is she "just being pragmatic"? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-health-care-will-never-ever-happen/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-he...
kevin_b_er 8y ago
"Mr King told the FT that the law would apply to small social media apps as well as the bigger players." They are deliberately announcing a law that small upstarts will find impossible to deal with and they are deliberately announcing they intend to discriminate against them. 3 AM video while your entire team is asleep? Fined. That is downright terrible.
- brightball 8y ago
  You’d basically be forced to automatically take down anything that was reported to queue it for review.
  - martin-adams 8y ago
    Assuming it was reported within 1 hour
    - zaarn 8y ago
      From what I read the 1 hour begins counting once something is reported and they also plan to make reviews/counter claims and such mandatory as they already exist on youtube (although youtube seems to have forgot the part where it needs to work)
- martin-adams 8y ago
  This is my fear also. A simple side project in Europe which charges users would have to meet European VAT reporting, cookie consent, GDPR and now (if this happens) figure out how to remove extremist content within 1 hour.
- dominotw 8y ago
  setup pagerduty unfortunately.
zaarn 8y ago
The EU internal report is here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-1169_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-1169_en.htm It seems to be in early stages. The one hour rule is fine for larger sites that can afford it, though for smaller sites where "all employees are asleep" is a valid condition so I'm not sure how they'll handle that. Additionally this seems to piggyback another set of rules determined to make Youtube DMCA/Copyright/Community Guideline strikes more transparent and fair, which is urgently needed IMO. I'll definitely keep any eye on it, it might be harmful depending on how the final draft as law turns out.
afroboy 8y ago
If i said Israel is terrorist organisation and they stole a land doesn't belong to them, does this qualify an extremist content?
- candiodari 8y ago
  Depends. Is it election season or they're buying submarines from us season ?
akshayB 8y ago
1 hours is an extremely unrealistic timeline to remove or taken down content. This specially is externally hard because lot of social networks depend on people reporting something and then an action is taken. To add complexity there can be foreign language at play as well which people might get scared off even without knowing what it is.
dbelchamber 8y ago
Classically unreasonable political demand, 10/10
jasonkester 8y ago
Expect more things like this to come along. The EU has tested the waters and confirmed that yes, it is safe to mandate that every dev team in the world perform a 2 week sprint at its whim, anytime if feels like it. We're partially responsible, for having implemented our silly cookie popups and GDPR checkbox screens without pushing back hard enough.
- sparkling 8y ago
  This. Someone needs to teach EU bureaucrats a lesson. A second "blackout day" (similar to what was done to protest SOPA in 2014), but limited to the EU, would be a nice idea. Things like the cookie nag screens are just absurd. They will unload much more BS if they aren't stopped early on. Honestly, as a US based company with mainly US visitors, i would simply return HTTP 451 to any EU visitors. The risk of being sued for some silly EU law is just not worth it.
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    As a European victim, those cookie screens are simply exhausting. It's pushing us users towards silos like FB/Snapchat/Apple News where we don't get constantly nagged.
    - Nadya 8y ago
      >It's pushing us users towards silos like FB/Snapchat/Apple News where we don't get constantly nagged. Some would say that's the point. Not only are they pushing for laws that smaller players will have difficulty following - they're also making it less convenient to try and escape any large, centralized silos.
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    Who's gonna sue you? The EU has no power or jurisdiction over you, you're not required to block access to their citizens.
    - drivingmenuts 8y ago
nilsocket 8y ago
It seems they were making these laws without understanding how technology works. Consider a website, which have a moderate community and solely runned by one or two developers. How are they going to detect the content which is oppressive. By creating a NLP and image recognition software and run it within an hour. If they want there country audience to have the content they like, either have a seperate internet for Europe or teach their own citizens to not visit such sites.
- d0lph 8y ago
  Censorship as a Service?
  - mistermann 8y ago
    And who shall provide that service? Why, the government of course. It's just common sense.
- sebazzz 8y ago
  > How are they going to detect the content which is oppressive. That is not a requirement, but if they get a call from Europol they are required to take the offending content offline.
- froogie 8y ago
  Well at simplest, if enforced, it will force a company to figure a way to comply. Either get rid of people who share such content or otherwise mute them. If not, you pay fines, preferrably way more than what you profit from letting such voices have a safe haven. How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around? Serious question, as this is a constant challenge for every social group anywhere.
  - dominotw 8y ago
    > How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around? Though education, independent thinking. Presumably ideas itself are not unwanted, things resulting from those ideas are unwanted.
madengr 8y ago
How do they classify videos about Catalonian Independance?
- sn41 8y ago
  Extremist if Catalonia stays in Spain, I suppose. Winner takes all.
pier25 8y ago
What is "extremist content"? How can the website owner be notified?
stringcode 8y ago
We are witnessing rise of totalitarian 1984esk dystopia.
Calib3r 8y ago
"Extremist" is a word that carries no weight without context. Funny how laws are written before the context is formalized. Like a blank check for future oppression.
- sparkling 8y ago
  But THEY are the good guys, don't worry ;)
- bitL 8y ago
  I am sure our mainstream is unbelievably extremist from the point of view of people living at the beginning of 20th century...
  - dominotw 8y ago
    Or different parts of the world. Drones are extremist and suicide bombings are noble in parts of pakistan while opposite is true in usa.
dictum 8y ago
That most reactions focus on the absurdity of a 1h deadline is proof that this technique still works wonders. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique
- spyrosg 8y ago
  Indeed. Or more people than you realise implicitly support the idea of censure with only vague restraint, and are just nerding out on the details. In the end it will likely not matter how expertly the eurocrats contain the symptoms of deeper, social problems, it might very well blow up in their faces.
bitL 8y ago
End of our civilization. Wonderful. Now what was supposed to be the difference between EU and Soviet Union? That we voluntarily cheer for this and not get dragged to accept it? I am sure this opinion gets flagged as extremist soon...
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  I'm not sure it gets flagged, but might deserve a honorable mention in a weekly n-gate writeup.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yason 8y ago
extremist adj 1: (used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm; I think I should begin to consider the EU plans quite a bit extremist themselves.
tannhaeuser 8y ago
Didn't the European Parliament vote this down just three months ago?

71 points by martin-adams 8y ago

wolco 8y ago

That sounds possible for large players.

sparkling 8y ago
The EU usually makes little distinction between a 3 man startup and a multi national 5000 people company with their laws. They don't get that such laws only re-enforce and strengthen the position of the big dominant players (Facebook, Google, Twitter...) that have the legal capacity to deal with all this nonsense.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  That is how proper laws are supposed to work, there is no rich and poor's court.
  - sparkling 8y ago
    I agree. Thats why you should not pass this law.
  - orbital-decay 8y ago
    In theory. In practice, there are a lot of ways to abuse that, for example by establishing a high entry barrier. The reality is always much more nuanced than ideologies.
arkades 8y ago
They’ve made it clear that they are not making exceptions for small players, specifically somas to preclude pushing extremists out into the fringes of the Internet. No small platform will ever be able to launch in the EU again.
bufferoverflow 8y ago
How? Can you even define "extremist content" in general terms without also making religious texts illegal? Or scientific articles that go against the politically correct narrative?
- TheHeasman 8y ago
  >Or scientific articles that go against the politically correct narrative? Wut?
  - bufferoverflow 8y ago
    James Damore was fired for citing scientific articles, for example. You can also watch the swedish documentary Hjernevask which shows what happens when science goes against the PC system, it's fascinating.
    - happytoexplain 8y ago
      Damore was fired for what he said, not what he cited while saying it (I'm not saying it was justified). Misrepresenting events as a rhetorical tactic is essentially propaganda - it will never do anything but hurt both sides of the argument.
      - bufferoverflow 8y ago
        But what he said we're citations. Nobody is misrepresenting anything.
    - sampo 8y ago
      Norwegian documentary, actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs&list=PLaJtMuDnR5KLwrt4z1O8tKmHWmUm3nObV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVaTc15plVs&list=PLaJtMuDnR5... (The links in the Wikipedia article go to videos with a bit higher quality than the Youtube playlist.)
- alkonaut 8y ago
ekianjo 8y ago
really? On youtube there are more hours of videos uploaded every minute than actual human reviewers can ever hope to police, let alone under one hour...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- benologist 8y ago
  Google has $100,000,000,000+ in the bank and slightly more than that in revenue last year, so realistically if they need 100,000 more employees to handle this they will still be ridiculously profitable, especially when they call them contractors to avoid health care, and evade taxes on a global scale, and woo oppressive new markets like China.
- onion2k 8y ago
  Charging users to upload videos would solve the problem.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    I doubt ISIS and the like lacks funding. If this is really what you want to prevent money wont be a big barrier.
    - onion2k 8y ago
      You're not thinking laterally. The problem isn't extremist videos. The problem is that there are too many videos uploaded to reasonably check all of them. Charging would solve that problem, which in turn solves the problem of extremist content.

sparkling 8y ago

Cookie laws, legal nag screens everywhere, monitoring comment section is a 24/7 job... its just absurd. Honestly, just turn off the internet in the EU.

Rjevski 8y ago
GDPR is a good idea (although I remains to be seen if any of it is enforced, as without enforcement it's pointless) but I agree the cookie law was the stupidest nonsense I've seen in a long time.
- Grue3 8y ago
  GDPR is just cookie law on steroids. Except now you have to click a million checkboxes instead of one button, and it works worldwide.
  - annabellish 8y ago
    That's very untrue. In fact, any site which makes you do that is _violating_ the GDPR - you aren't allowed to have those checkboxes be opt-out. Besides, that's only one small part of the GDPR, which is much closer to the Data Protection Act modernised for 2018's awful internet than anything else. We did this to ourselves by proving we can't be trusted to self-regulate.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      I think his main point is that for now GDPR is just as inefficient as the cookie "law" it replaced, which I have to agree with - the only thing that will make these regulations useful is enforcement - until that happens companies will just ignore it (as we can already see with plenty of non-GDPR-compliant sites).
    - mrighele 8y ago
      I agree, but until now I have seen very few websites doing GDPR properly (probably because it would go against one of their main ways to make money). The best implementation that I found to date, is on GitLab's website [1]. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/ https://about.gitlab.com/

yladiz 8y ago

I think removing extremist content is a good idea overall (although this then begs the question, how do you legally define extremist content?[1]), but I feel like 1 hour is a bit tough, primarily because 1 hour can mean different things: does it mean from being reported, or being uploaded? This question isn’t covered in the article and it’s an important distinction I feel. 1: the problem being that a lot of religious texts could be defined as “extremist” if an ill defined law is created. I guess you have to define directly what content would be considered extremist, e.g. any video from a known terrorist/terrorist group like ISIL, which will never be perfect but better than having a definition that’s too loose.

wccrawford 8y ago
I think we can assume that it's within 1 hour of being reported, not uploaded, since there's no way to guarantee everything that's uploaded is fully checked, even with a staff large enough to look at it all and make decisions more than a few seconds long. But that problem also basically exists for smaller sites under the "1 hour after reported" rule, too. IMO, it would basically force them to hide anything that was reported immediately, and then restore it after it was moderated. That will make it horrifyingly easy for internet trolls to mess with things.
- l9k 8y ago
  For a small website with a team working 9-5 and no advanced AI moderation, that would mean that they can't let users upload things outside of working hours...
- yladiz 8y ago
  I’m not sure though, because of this quote: > In March, the EU's civil service published details of the current voluntary arrangement, which noted that "terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours of its appearance online". This makes me think it may be timed from the upload, not the report.
  - wccrawford 8y ago

throwawaymanbot 8y ago

Excellent. But I have to wonder what is classed or will be classed extremist. Russian Trolls are subtle, and will be able to avoid this. Democracy is getting hit more by those very trolls than anything else. So have to wonder if this is gonna be worth it.

est 8y ago

just two steps away from china 1. authorities can have their own definition of "extreme" 2. site must delete or get shutdown

ekianjo 8y ago
yes, extreme is anything ISIS right now, and soon after whistle blowers, journalists not in the current political movement will be falling under the same net as well. Sounds exactly the same excuse as ever: pretend to protect the children by applying new censorship rules.
- TheHeasman 8y ago
  There's a thing called the political opposition (or over here in Brit Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition) and that's how democracies stop authoritarian rules y'know.
  - DanAndersen 8y ago
    That assumes that the opposition is willing to spend political capital arguing "in favor of extremism."
  - mistermann 8y ago
    Is it foolproof? Some people believe it's possible for opposing parties to slowly drift towards each other on the political spectrum over time, to the degree that "opposition" becomes rather meaningless in a practical sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who, in his description of his window, claimed that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within the window, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton's description, his window includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office. As an example, consider the reaction of both the Republicans and Democrats (and the news media) to the very notion of Bernie Sander's socialized, single-payer medical care in the last election. In the not too distant past, the Democratic party rallied behind such causes, or at least had an open mind about them. Now, they will stick a knife in your campaign behind the scenes. This touches on what Hillary Clinton used to believe, and what she believes now. Is she "just being pragmatic"? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-health-care-will-never-ever-happen/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-he...

kevin_b_er 8y ago

"Mr King told the FT that the law would apply to small social media apps as well as the bigger players." They are deliberately announcing a law that small upstarts will find impossible to deal with and they are deliberately announcing they intend to discriminate against them. 3 AM video while your entire team is asleep? Fined. That is downright terrible.

brightball 8y ago
You’d basically be forced to automatically take down anything that was reported to queue it for review.
- martin-adams 8y ago
  Assuming it was reported within 1 hour
  - zaarn 8y ago
    From what I read the 1 hour begins counting once something is reported and they also plan to make reviews/counter claims and such mandatory as they already exist on youtube (although youtube seems to have forgot the part where it needs to work)
martin-adams 8y ago
This is my fear also. A simple side project in Europe which charges users would have to meet European VAT reporting, cookie consent, GDPR and now (if this happens) figure out how to remove extremist content within 1 hour.
dominotw 8y ago
setup pagerduty unfortunately.

zaarn 8y ago

The EU internal report is here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-1169_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-1169_en.htm It seems to be in early stages. The one hour rule is fine for larger sites that can afford it, though for smaller sites where "all employees are asleep" is a valid condition so I'm not sure how they'll handle that. Additionally this seems to piggyback another set of rules determined to make Youtube DMCA/Copyright/Community Guideline strikes more transparent and fair, which is urgently needed IMO. I'll definitely keep any eye on it, it might be harmful depending on how the final draft as law turns out.

afroboy 8y ago

If i said Israel is terrorist organisation and they stole a land doesn't belong to them, does this qualify an extremist content?

candiodari 8y ago
Depends. Is it election season or they're buying submarines from us season ?

akshayB 8y ago

1 hours is an extremely unrealistic timeline to remove or taken down content. This specially is externally hard because lot of social networks depend on people reporting something and then an action is taken. To add complexity there can be foreign language at play as well which people might get scared off even without knowing what it is.

dbelchamber 8y ago

Classically unreasonable political demand, 10/10

jasonkester 8y ago

Expect more things like this to come along. The EU has tested the waters and confirmed that yes, it is safe to mandate that every dev team in the world perform a 2 week sprint at its whim, anytime if feels like it. We're partially responsible, for having implemented our silly cookie popups and GDPR checkbox screens without pushing back hard enough.

sparkling 8y ago
This. Someone needs to teach EU bureaucrats a lesson. A second "blackout day" (similar to what was done to protest SOPA in 2014), but limited to the EU, would be a nice idea. Things like the cookie nag screens are just absurd. They will unload much more BS if they aren't stopped early on. Honestly, as a US based company with mainly US visitors, i would simply return HTTP 451 to any EU visitors. The risk of being sued for some silly EU law is just not worth it.
- Jyaif 8y ago
  As a European victim, those cookie screens are simply exhausting. It's pushing us users towards silos like FB/Snapchat/Apple News where we don't get constantly nagged.
  - Nadya 8y ago
    >It's pushing us users towards silos like FB/Snapchat/Apple News where we don't get constantly nagged. Some would say that's the point. Not only are they pushing for laws that smaller players will have difficulty following - they're also making it less convenient to try and escape any large, centralized silos.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  Who's gonna sue you? The EU has no power or jurisdiction over you, you're not required to block access to their citizens.
  - drivingmenuts 8y ago

nilsocket 8y ago

It seems they were making these laws without understanding how technology works. Consider a website, which have a moderate community and solely runned by one or two developers. How are they going to detect the content which is oppressive. By creating a NLP and image recognition software and run it within an hour. If they want there country audience to have the content they like, either have a seperate internet for Europe or teach their own citizens to not visit such sites.

d0lph 8y ago
Censorship as a Service?
- mistermann 8y ago
  And who shall provide that service? Why, the government of course. It's just common sense.
sebazzz 8y ago
> How are they going to detect the content which is oppressive. That is not a requirement, but if they get a call from Europol they are required to take the offending content offline.
froogie 8y ago
Well at simplest, if enforced, it will force a company to figure a way to comply. Either get rid of people who share such content or otherwise mute them. If not, you pay fines, preferrably way more than what you profit from letting such voices have a safe haven. How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around? Serious question, as this is a constant challenge for every social group anywhere.
- dominotw 8y ago
  > How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around? Though education, independent thinking. Presumably ideas itself are not unwanted, things resulting from those ideas are unwanted.

madengr 8y ago

How do they classify videos about Catalonian Independance?

sn41 8y ago
Extremist if Catalonia stays in Spain, I suppose. Winner takes all.

pier25 8y ago

What is "extremist content"? How can the website owner be notified?

stringcode 8y ago

We are witnessing rise of totalitarian 1984esk dystopia.

Calib3r 8y ago

"Extremist" is a word that carries no weight without context. Funny how laws are written before the context is formalized. Like a blank check for future oppression.

sparkling 8y ago
But THEY are the good guys, don't worry ;)
bitL 8y ago
I am sure our mainstream is unbelievably extremist from the point of view of people living at the beginning of 20th century...
- dominotw 8y ago
  Or different parts of the world. Drones are extremist and suicide bombings are noble in parts of pakistan while opposite is true in usa.

dictum 8y ago

That most reactions focus on the absurdity of a 1h deadline is proof that this technique still works wonders. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

spyrosg 8y ago
Indeed. Or more people than you realise implicitly support the idea of censure with only vague restraint, and are just nerding out on the details. In the end it will likely not matter how expertly the eurocrats contain the symptoms of deeper, social problems, it might very well blow up in their faces.

bitL 8y ago

End of our civilization. Wonderful. Now what was supposed to be the difference between EU and Soviet Union? That we voluntarily cheer for this and not get dragged to accept it? I am sure this opinion gets flagged as extremist soon...

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
I'm not sure it gets flagged, but might deserve a honorable mention in a weekly n-gate writeup.

deleted 8y ago

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yason 8y ago

extremist adj 1: (used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm; I think I should begin to consider the EU plans quite a bit extremist themselves.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

Didn't the European Parliament vote this down just three months ago?