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As terrible as this is, I am actually even more shocked by this proposal: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hour-takedown-law-for-terror

As terrible as this is, I am actually even more shocked by this proposal: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hour-takedown-law-for-terrorist-content/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/12/europe-to-push-for-one-hou... Having one hour to remove offending content, draconian fines and no, absolutely no exceptions for small content providers would, I think, end the internet as we know it in Europe. I see no way to host any kind of content under such jurisdiction and surely all non European content providers would just block the EU rather then take on a task that even giants like facebook and google can barely manage.

arendtio 8y ago
Sounds like the web without user content... Web 1.0? So much for free speech.
- rmrfrmrf 8y ago
  glances at Facebook timeline well... maybe that won't be so bad afterall.
- sircastor 8y ago
  Wasn't Web 1.0 only user content?
  - Natanael_L 8y ago
    With a few exceptions, mostly self hosted
  - wrs 8y ago
    Indeed. Of course it was limited to a very small and weird collection of “users”.
    - strictnein 8y ago
      > it was limited to a very small and weird collection of “users” Agreed. It was a much better place.
  - arendtio 8y ago
    Well, I was referring to the definition of the web 2.0. Wikipedia says: Web 2.0, [...] refers to World Wide Web websites that emphasize user-generated content [...][1] So while in the beginning most users were also authors, there was a time between when there were a lot of websites which served content, but didn't let users add theirs. At that time guestbooks were to only place you could add content to someone elses website. To some degree message boards where the start of the Web 2.0. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
  - smsm42 8y ago
    No, it was owner content. Of course, for some sites, like my personal Geocities page, the owner frequently was the sole user too, but the concepts of "one entity who owns the site builds the content" and "third parties visiting the site build the content" are different.
zaarn 8y ago
From what I read on this specific proposal, it's not entirely draconian and has some benefits to the user, since the process also implements transparency requirements and complaint mechanisms. As far as the one-hour-rule goes; if I get an email about taking down content at 01:00AM, then I will naturally be unable to respond for atleast another 5 hours, German courts atleast agree that for such things, it counts when you are first aware of the illegal/infringing content, even if it's weeks after (though you already have an obligation to operate a contact through which you can be quickly reached when you operate in germany atleast, IIRC this proposal will introduce that EU-wide which is good IMO).
- dmix 8y ago
  > German courts at least agree that for such things This implies that you are going to have to go to court because you got an email at 1am and didn't reply right away...in order to fight off potentially serious fines. Whether it's accurate or not it's still very expensive to prove it's inaccuracy (in time alone, not including financially and stress). This has very serious consequences for small and even medium businesses.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    >This implies that you are going to have to go to court No it doesn't, it means that if you get dragged to court because you got the email at 1AM and you were asleep, then you're not guilty of anything. No judge will put up a fine for that.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > if you get dragged to court because you got the email at 1AM and you were asleep, then you're not guilty of anything Getting dragged to court is disruptive, unsettling and expensive.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        And the other party will be found guilty of disrupting your business by having you get into court for complaints without legal grounds.
closeparen 8y ago
The pro-GDPR "good riddance" argument applies just as well here: obliterating operations which are too fly-by-night to obey the law is, in fact, the socially desired outcome. The law is the law. We shouldn't exempt small players from internet regulation any more than we should exempt small factories from pollution controls or small automakers from safety rules. European institutions do no wrong [0]. If a website's conduct is actually okay, there won't be enforcement. If there's enforcement, it won't be that bad. And if it is that bad, the website must deserve it. [0] https://www.chrisshepherd.org/the-narcissists-prayer/ https://www.chrisshepherd.org/the-narcissists-prayer/
- opportune 8y ago
  Sure small players shouldn’t be exempt from the law, but surely it’s ridiculous to expect every website with user uploaded content to have an on-call team of content managers to comply with takedowns. This hurts small players much more than big players, because now it’s not possible to be a small player in this area. It’s not exemptions which are important, it’s understanding why this makes the entire approach flawed to begin with
  - ivan_gammel 8y ago
    I'm not sure it's entirely impossible to be a small player. Let's say, a small player allows their users to make a copyright statement with the "proof of original content" (not necessarily 100% valid, just something like "I, Max Mustermann, confirm that this work is my original content produced on 13.09 in Berlin..."), possibly, automatically. This statement will identify copyright holder of the content and mark it valid, since copyright holder himself uploaded the content. This may (but not necessarily will) mean that other filters/copyright checks may not be executed, because the platform allows the participation only of original content creators. One more option (assuming that the national law will take amendment 149 into account) is to implement a filter as an API call to the server designated by the right holder and expect the claim/"no infringement" response with some reasonable timeout (1 sec) and detailed response in extended time frame (10 min). It's a cheap "now it's your problem" solution, that might actually be allowed.
smsm42 8y ago
Wow, this gets crazier and crazier. So either any content provider should be able to determine within one hour whether every comment is "terrorist" or not (with guidelines as clear as "information which is used to incite and glorify the commission of terrorist offences") and remove it, or, more likely, they'd auto-remove every comment that anybody marked as "terrorist" and let people complain about it later. Coupled with law enforcement interface (which would probably mean notifying the law enforcement about somebody posting "terrorist content" - that's only make sense?) this paints a very scary picture for the future of online free speech in EU.
- Someguywhatever 8y ago
  Obviously that's impossible and it'll be easier to just not have comments, which is exactly what websites will do, and exactly what the EU wants. The EU is sick and tired of people sharing their opinions and pointing out how stupid and draconian and bereaucratic the EU can be, so they did this to shut it all down under the guise of protecting copyright or somesuch.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
    >The EU is sick and tired of people sharing their opinions Why the EU specifically? I'd say, most states and groups of states have this attitude nowadays.
    - Kalium 8y ago
      Is it perhaps possible that this comment is about the EU specifically because the EU specifically is the subject of this particular conversation? After all, this is about a law the EU specifically is choosing to pursue, rather than some broader worldwide trend. Commenting narrowly on just the EU implies nothing, in any way, shape, form, or manner, about other entities.
matheusmoreira 8y ago
They will never stop asking for more power to police the use of their imaginary property. They'd push for mandatory deletion of copies inside people's brains if that was possible.
IanSanders 8y ago
>all non European content providers would just block the EU rather then take on a task that even giants like facebook and google can barely manage. One way to ensure your citizen don't read them "foreign propaganda websites".

arendtio 8y ago

Sounds like the web without user content... Web 1.0? So much for free speech.

rmrfrmrf 8y ago
glances at Facebook timeline well... maybe that won't be so bad afterall.
sircastor 8y ago
Wasn't Web 1.0 only user content?
- Natanael_L 8y ago
  With a few exceptions, mostly self hosted
- wrs 8y ago
  Indeed. Of course it was limited to a very small and weird collection of “users”.
  - strictnein 8y ago
    > it was limited to a very small and weird collection of “users” Agreed. It was a much better place.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Well, I was referring to the definition of the web 2.0. Wikipedia says: Web 2.0, [...] refers to World Wide Web websites that emphasize user-generated content [...][1] So while in the beginning most users were also authors, there was a time between when there were a lot of websites which served content, but didn't let users add theirs. At that time guestbooks were to only place you could add content to someone elses website. To some degree message boards where the start of the Web 2.0. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
- smsm42 8y ago
  No, it was owner content. Of course, for some sites, like my personal Geocities page, the owner frequently was the sole user too, but the concepts of "one entity who owns the site builds the content" and "third parties visiting the site build the content" are different.

zaarn 8y ago

From what I read on this specific proposal, it's not entirely draconian and has some benefits to the user, since the process also implements transparency requirements and complaint mechanisms. As far as the one-hour-rule goes; if I get an email about taking down content at 01:00AM, then I will naturally be unable to respond for atleast another 5 hours, German courts atleast agree that for such things, it counts when you are first aware of the illegal/infringing content, even if it's weeks after (though you already have an obligation to operate a contact through which you can be quickly reached when you operate in germany atleast, IIRC this proposal will introduce that EU-wide which is good IMO).

dmix 8y ago
> German courts at least agree that for such things This implies that you are going to have to go to court because you got an email at 1am and didn't reply right away...in order to fight off potentially serious fines. Whether it's accurate or not it's still very expensive to prove it's inaccuracy (in time alone, not including financially and stress). This has very serious consequences for small and even medium businesses.
- zaarn 8y ago
  >This implies that you are going to have to go to court No it doesn't, it means that if you get dragged to court because you got the email at 1AM and you were asleep, then you're not guilty of anything. No judge will put up a fine for that.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > if you get dragged to court because you got the email at 1AM and you were asleep, then you're not guilty of anything Getting dragged to court is disruptive, unsettling and expensive.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      And the other party will be found guilty of disrupting your business by having you get into court for complaints without legal grounds.

closeparen 8y ago

The pro-GDPR "good riddance" argument applies just as well here: obliterating operations which are too fly-by-night to obey the law is, in fact, the socially desired outcome. The law is the law. We shouldn't exempt small players from internet regulation any more than we should exempt small factories from pollution controls or small automakers from safety rules. European institutions do no wrong [0]. If a website's conduct is actually okay, there won't be enforcement. If there's enforcement, it won't be that bad. And if it is that bad, the website must deserve it. [0] https://www.chrisshepherd.org/the-narcissists-prayer/ https://www.chrisshepherd.org/the-narcissists-prayer/

opportune 8y ago
Sure small players shouldn’t be exempt from the law, but surely it’s ridiculous to expect every website with user uploaded content to have an on-call team of content managers to comply with takedowns. This hurts small players much more than big players, because now it’s not possible to be a small player in this area. It’s not exemptions which are important, it’s understanding why this makes the entire approach flawed to begin with
- ivan_gammel 8y ago
  I'm not sure it's entirely impossible to be a small player. Let's say, a small player allows their users to make a copyright statement with the "proof of original content" (not necessarily 100% valid, just something like "I, Max Mustermann, confirm that this work is my original content produced on 13.09 in Berlin..."), possibly, automatically. This statement will identify copyright holder of the content and mark it valid, since copyright holder himself uploaded the content. This may (but not necessarily will) mean that other filters/copyright checks may not be executed, because the platform allows the participation only of original content creators. One more option (assuming that the national law will take amendment 149 into account) is to implement a filter as an API call to the server designated by the right holder and expect the claim/"no infringement" response with some reasonable timeout (1 sec) and detailed response in extended time frame (10 min). It's a cheap "now it's your problem" solution, that might actually be allowed.

smsm42 8y ago

Wow, this gets crazier and crazier. So either any content provider should be able to determine within one hour whether every comment is "terrorist" or not (with guidelines as clear as "information which is used to incite and glorify the commission of terrorist offences") and remove it, or, more likely, they'd auto-remove every comment that anybody marked as "terrorist" and let people complain about it later. Coupled with law enforcement interface (which would probably mean notifying the law enforcement about somebody posting "terrorist content" - that's only make sense?) this paints a very scary picture for the future of online free speech in EU.

Someguywhatever 8y ago
Obviously that's impossible and it'll be easier to just not have comments, which is exactly what websites will do, and exactly what the EU wants. The EU is sick and tired of people sharing their opinions and pointing out how stupid and draconian and bereaucratic the EU can be, so they did this to shut it all down under the guise of protecting copyright or somesuch.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
  >The EU is sick and tired of people sharing their opinions Why the EU specifically? I'd say, most states and groups of states have this attitude nowadays.
  - Kalium 8y ago
    Is it perhaps possible that this comment is about the EU specifically because the EU specifically is the subject of this particular conversation? After all, this is about a law the EU specifically is choosing to pursue, rather than some broader worldwide trend. Commenting narrowly on just the EU implies nothing, in any way, shape, form, or manner, about other entities.

matheusmoreira 8y ago

They will never stop asking for more power to police the use of their imaginary property. They'd push for mandatory deletion of copies inside people's brains if that was possible.

IanSanders 8y ago

>all non European content providers would just block the EU rather then take on a task that even giants like facebook and google can barely manage. One way to ensure your citizen don't read them "foreign propaganda websites".