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The GDPR was basically a legislative accident, in that the a member of the Greens and strong proponent of privacy and data protection was made rapporteur to the

The GDPR was basically a legislative accident, in that the a member of the Greens and strong proponent of privacy and data protection was made rapporteur to the European Parlament for the proposal [0]. There is an interesting documentary on that ("Democracy", 2015, by David Bernet). This new Copyright Directive seems to be an accident in the opposite direction, with Axel Voss as rapporteur. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Philipp_Albrecht https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Philipp_Albrecht

mschuster91 8y ago
> This new Copyright Directive seems to be an accident in the opposite direction, with Axel Voss as rapporteur. It's not an accident. Look who will profit from the link tax the most... the Axel Springer Verlag, owner of many large publications in Germany, especially the tabloid BILD. The boss of ASV is Friede Springer... who happens to be good friends with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Axel Voss is in the same party (CDU). Now add in that for a very long time the BILD was considered to be the "inofficial voice" of the CDU/CSU (the refugee influx changed that a bit, as BILD heavily went down the racist route and attacking Merkel's refugee politics but still, the paper is leaning heavily conservative). Sascha Lobo, German journalist for SPIEGEL, has outlined the entire stuff here (in German, though): http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/leistungsschutzrecht-fuer-presseverleger-so-ein-quatschgesetz-a-1212697.html http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/leistungsschutzre...
- briandear 8y ago
  Off topic, but how is attacking refugee policy “racist?” Are debates of such policy not allowed? Germany had the exact same debates over Serbian and Bosnian refugees during those wars. Syrian refugees were treated better legally than Bosnians and Serbs — Bosnians and Serbs were granted “temporary protection” status and not permitted to stay permanently and they were informed of that policy upon arrival, unlike Syrian refugees which have the opportunity for permenant resettlement. If it’s “racist” to debate that, then racism as a word has lost all meaning. If anything Syrian refugees have been granted greater privileges than Bosnian-Serbs. It would seem that policy could, be considered racist. Folks have bent over backwards to be as “unracist” as possible and thus, bad policy has happened because any debate on the topic is automatically shut down as racism. You can’t have a legitimate policy debate without being called a racist anymore.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    > Off topic, but how is attacking refugee policy “racist?” The narrative pushed by BILD was that for anything from antisemitism over rising housing costs to "rises" in criminality was caused by refugees (and refugees alone, never mind still dominant Nazi antisemitism, capitalism and fabricated statistics), that refugees are dangerous, that Islam is dangerous and other stuff that basically echoed what the local right-wing extremist party AfD also said. It's perfectly valid to debate refugee (or other) politics, but if one crosses that thin line of feeding the population outright lies or incite hatred, one deserves to be called a racist hate monger.
    - antidesitter 8y ago
      Is calling out the dangers of radical Islam “racist hate mongering”, in your view?
      - mschuster91 8y ago
        > Is calling out the dangers of radical Islam “racist hate mongering”, in your view? There is nothing wrong in calling out the bullshit represented in certain Islamic groups (e.g. Salafism or Wahhabism). What BILD (and a boatload of other racist outlets) do, however, is throwing all the millions of Turks, the refugees and other Muslims in Germany, in the same boat as ISIS, Saudi-Arabia and al-Quaeda. This is the hate mongering that's really dangerous for societies.
- groestl 8y ago
  I agree, I mean accident in the sense that the extreme position of the EU Parlament is a breakdown of it's democratic function, caused by a negligent and uninformed majority which allows a strongly opinionated group to take over the legislative process via the rapporteur. If someone like Axel Voss is handed the keys to the castle, this is what you get.

mschuster91 8y ago

> This new Copyright Directive seems to be an accident in the opposite direction, with Axel Voss as rapporteur. It's not an accident. Look who will profit from the link tax the most... the Axel Springer Verlag, owner of many large publications in Germany, especially the tabloid BILD. The boss of ASV is Friede Springer... who happens to be good friends with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Axel Voss is in the same party (CDU). Now add in that for a very long time the BILD was considered to be the "inofficial voice" of the CDU/CSU (the refugee influx changed that a bit, as BILD heavily went down the racist route and attacking Merkel's refugee politics but still, the paper is leaning heavily conservative). Sascha Lobo, German journalist for SPIEGEL, has outlined the entire stuff here (in German, though): http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/leistungsschutzrecht-fuer-presseverleger-so-ein-quatschgesetz-a-1212697.html http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/leistungsschutzre...

briandear 8y ago
Off topic, but how is attacking refugee policy “racist?” Are debates of such policy not allowed? Germany had the exact same debates over Serbian and Bosnian refugees during those wars. Syrian refugees were treated better legally than Bosnians and Serbs — Bosnians and Serbs were granted “temporary protection” status and not permitted to stay permanently and they were informed of that policy upon arrival, unlike Syrian refugees which have the opportunity for permenant resettlement. If it’s “racist” to debate that, then racism as a word has lost all meaning. If anything Syrian refugees have been granted greater privileges than Bosnian-Serbs. It would seem that policy could, be considered racist. Folks have bent over backwards to be as “unracist” as possible and thus, bad policy has happened because any debate on the topic is automatically shut down as racism. You can’t have a legitimate policy debate without being called a racist anymore.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > Off topic, but how is attacking refugee policy “racist?” The narrative pushed by BILD was that for anything from antisemitism over rising housing costs to "rises" in criminality was caused by refugees (and refugees alone, never mind still dominant Nazi antisemitism, capitalism and fabricated statistics), that refugees are dangerous, that Islam is dangerous and other stuff that basically echoed what the local right-wing extremist party AfD also said. It's perfectly valid to debate refugee (or other) politics, but if one crosses that thin line of feeding the population outright lies or incite hatred, one deserves to be called a racist hate monger.
  - antidesitter 8y ago
    Is calling out the dangers of radical Islam “racist hate mongering”, in your view?
    - mschuster91 8y ago
      > Is calling out the dangers of radical Islam “racist hate mongering”, in your view? There is nothing wrong in calling out the bullshit represented in certain Islamic groups (e.g. Salafism or Wahhabism). What BILD (and a boatload of other racist outlets) do, however, is throwing all the millions of Turks, the refugees and other Muslims in Germany, in the same boat as ISIS, Saudi-Arabia and al-Quaeda. This is the hate mongering that's really dangerous for societies.
groestl 8y ago
I agree, I mean accident in the sense that the extreme position of the EU Parlament is a breakdown of it's democratic function, caused by a negligent and uninformed majority which allows a strongly opinionated group to take over the legislative process via the rapporteur. If someone like Axel Voss is handed the keys to the castle, this is what you get.