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It's super interesting to watch the reaction of the US blogosphere to EU laws. I feel like I'm learning a lot about US culture just by observing the general att
by tw1010 8y ago
It's super interesting to watch the reaction of the US blogosphere to EU laws. I feel like I'm learning a lot about US culture just by observing the general attitude that seems to be coalescing against things like GDPR. I used to think that I'd been pretty well indoctrinated into the US value system, despite being born in the EU, just by virtue of having most of my influences (movies, the internet) having come from there. But seeing how much different my attitude is towards all these laws, compared to articles like this one, totally gives me a whole new source of specific little value updates I aught to make if I want to escape from a mindset I suspect isn't optimal in the current economic climate (an EU-based one), to one that is (i.e. an american attitude to things).
- kodablah 8y agoI also find it interesting from the inverse perspective. I am of course naive, but I think most of the viewpoint differences boil down to how one views business owners and government. Not necessarily one versus the other, though that does come in to play, but more about whether the former deserves rights/consideration and whether the latter is equipped to reasonably restrict them. This is especially true for big business and big laws.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoI also found the reaction interesting because even techies here were overwhelmingly in favour of GDPR. Mainly because it is so similar to data protection that's been in place for 20 years and they have been used to implementing without problem. That included founders and executives within companies. Thanks to the profile of people I know that's been mainly in smaller companies. Most of the negative opinion I heard was that the regulations wouldn't be enforced strongly enough to achieve enough change. Yet a common US reaction was to view GDPR as something draconian and anti small business, and to deliberately misunderstand that a maximum penalty wasn't going to be the always penalty. Much like this blog post does. On the copyright proposals those same people here in the EU are unanimously against.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago>and to deliberately misunderstand that a maximum penalty wasn't going to be the always penalty. This is the only way to view penalties like this that don't have clearly defined criteria. It's all up to a judge, and when so much is at risk, a company will assume the worse.
- Nursie 8y agoA very American view! This just sort of proves the point the poster was making. People here don't assume that the worst case is going to happen. Most sorts of these laws so far result in initial action taken to help (or force) the company to comply. Fines are usually only considered for those who repeatedly refuse to come into line. My view of the US is that there are many more aggressive public prosecutors who will swing for maximum penalties, in order to make a name for themselves. But maybe I just watch too much tv.
- hyperman1 8y agoI agree, a very American view. Nobody but the national regulatory instance of each country can sue, and they are in general not very happy on legal procedures. In practice, a common Euro-pattern is this: First, a sternly worded private letter is sent to the target company. If that doesn't help, a public statement is made. After that, basic legal procedures for a small amount. The amount gets larger when the abuse is more flagrant and previous messages did not help. When the target company seems to co-operate reasonably well, no legal procedures are even started.
- cortesoft 8y agoIt isn't about assuming that the worst will always happen, it is just NOT assuming that the worst WON'T happen. How is that a bad thing to do? Pretending that the worst result couldn't happen is just delusional - it is like people who don't wear seat belts or helmets, or don't buy insurance. Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean you should ignore the risk, especially when the consequences of the unlikely even are so high. Yes, the maximum penalty is probably pretty unlikely; on the other hand, if you GOT the maximum penalty, it might be a death sentence for your company. When the stakes are that high, you can't just ignore the risk.
- plandis 8y agoIn my mind the difference is that: * In the US: Don’t use social media if you don’t want to be tracked, it’s your choice. * In the EU: We cannot compete against big US companies so we will pass laws that are popular with entitled people to weaken them in the name of social benefits. Win-win for politicians.
- yifanl 8y agoI mean, the former attitude is known to be totally ineffective. The latter is possibly effective, at the cost of being (possibly?) extremely damaging.
- mdex 8y agoI don't use any social media, how is that ineffective?
- driminicus 8y agoFacebook and Google are known to track non-users around the internet as well.
- packet_nerd 8y agoYou're still tracked, analyzed, and targeted both on and off the web by thousands of companies. Not to mention government snooping and surveillance. Even the social media giants which you deliberately never signed up for are still collecting and monetizing data on you.
- ktosobcy 8y agoMy perception and view of the US and it's culture also slightly shifted after GDPR came into spotlight (same conclusions as yours). Just the other day I ended up in a discussion with a US citizen (it started completely harmless and away from culture/politics) and ended up in the same corner: "EU is bad because it limits your freedom, US is great because it gives you freedom". The problem is - the argument (my understanding of the interlocutor) was about companies, and what they can do. In my view, in Europe there is a bigger pressure to value people/individuals over company/corporate interest and that's seems like the crux of the difference.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y agoIdk how you can argue the EU values people over corporate interest while this copyright law is on it's way to being passed. Here's one of the many articles about what's wrong with it. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal-extremely-bad-news-everyone-even-especially-wikipedia https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/eus-copyright-proposal...
- Tomte 8y agoIt's one of thousands of laws, but sure, this one is the definitive indicator of the EU's values. Maybe we could try to find a single US law that we don't like and dismiss America just as readily?
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoThe "US blogosphere"'s perspective is heavily weighted by people who are employed by companies which lose money because of EU laws, people who have invested in companies which lose money because of EU laws, or people who are paid by companies which lose money because of EU laws. Which is to say, I'm an American who's wildly in favor of the EU's regulatory changes to reign in big tech, but when you consider how many different individuals or organizations are by FAANG companies, the media perspective on these laws can be... tainted by self-interest. Also note that movies and TV are often oddly at odds with even the industry that creates them. For instance, Hollywood is notoriously liberal (to the point that conservatives have to hide their political affiliation), and hence very pro gun control. Yet if you've seen many of our movies, you might have noticed that building props for Hollywood is a statistically significant portion of the gun manufacturing industry!
- ergothus 8y agoBe careful about assuming too much consistency in the US populace. I'm born-and-raised US, and our attitudes can be very hard to describe. We'll hate "Obamacare" but actually support all the individual parts. We'll complain about govt spending then complain when the govt doesn't function. We'll complain that people don't trust science about global warming but avoid vaccines and expect GMOs to actually mutate us. We'll complain about "participation trophies" but want benefits for seniority without regard to performance. We'll celebrate a rancher facing off against the govt and then rail against someone else "taking the law into their own hands". Then we'll reverse any of these positions at the drop of a hat. I'm not saying we're RANDOM, I'm saying it can look so. There might be dozens of upcoming responses to this comment, each suggesting a different "simple" solution ("It's about self-interest" "It's about freedom" "it's about personal responsibility") but they will all either fail to reconcile, or give you a simple explanation that is nonetheless hard to extrapolate how the public will respond to a given topic. My personal opinion is that neither the EU nor the US has an optimal economic outlook, but it may not be possible to have one - it's hard to combine the benefits of rugged individualism with the benefits of communal cohesion. Hard to mix diversity with unity.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago> Hard to mix diversity with unity. It's actually not that hard. You can have a mexican restaurant, hibachi restaurant, cajun restaurant and winery all in the same city and patronize a different one each day. That's the benefit of diversity. What doing it wrong looks like is accusing the mexican restaurant of a moral failing because their staff is mostly latino, or the winery because their staff is mostly English or French. You don't maintain diverse cultures by requiring every place to be formed of exact proportions of statistically precise homogenized diversity paste, you get them by having clumps of different cultures near each other that trade and learn with each other while continuing to possess their own discrete cultural identities. All unity requires is coexisting without fighting each other. The fact that some people do it wrong doesn't mean there isn't a way to do it right. And that's also why you see people on both sides of any given issue. A diverse country does not have a homogeneous people.
- 8y ago
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y agoYour last sentence sounds like cargo culting at its best. I won't claim to know what the "optimal mindset" is, but I think it's obvious that both the US and the EU have made many blunders in recent history, economically and otherwise. I'm sure if there is an optimal mindset, it is one that learns from those of the US, EU, Asia, etc. and takes the best of each (not necessarily in equal proportions, of course). Knowing different cultures, contrasting them and making your own choices will always be superior to being "indoctrinated" (voluntarily or not) into one.
- phobosdeimos 8y agoYeah I always laugh when people talk about "the West". Globalization is far, so far away. Truth be told there was more unity in the world when dynastic royal families ruled the world- not democratic nation states.
- tomp 8y agoThey're just complaining because it's EU and not US. American DMCA law is much worse than GDPR, predates it by like 2 decades, and basically the whole world is subjected to some of it (because US companies are global monopolies).
- AnthonyMouse 8y agoThe people complaining about the GDPR have been complaining about the DMCA since before it was passed.
- kodablah 8y agoExactly. It's when the complaining stops (and/or the complainers are demonized) that the mandate to move on to more invasive laws is given.
- Nursie 8y agoThe DMCA was and is terrible. The GDPR is a great step forwards. The DMCA was an attack on consumer rights. The GDPR is their extension.