6 ms·

Europe was pretty torn and I got the impression that votes were ”for” by default and ”against” where there was an ongoing public debate. If true, I hope that wa

• shmerl 8y ago
  It doesn't look like misunderstanding. There was more than enough information about how bad this bill is. I'd blame corruption here.
  • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    I would argue on the contrary, that this bill is massively helpful and much in line with the EU's focus on reigning in abuse by the tech industry. It'd be far preferable to implement this as-is and fix edge cases if needed than fail to act against these behemoths now.
    • shmerl 8y ago
      I won't agree that a horrendous censorship bill is helfpul for anyone, except for corrupt supporters of police state methodology and control freaks from the obsolete industries who don't care about human rights as long as they can extend their information control craze (under pretense for copyright) to further reaches to satisfy their thirst for power. They are the abusers here and they should be stopped.
      • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
        Human rights is at the forefront of my mind. Privacy is a human right, and these companies and these social platforms have been abusing it. Copyright protection is hardly "censorship", and contrary to the marketing and popular belief on the matter, all of the well-understood protections for fair use remain intact with this law.
        • shmerl 8y ago
          > Copyright protection is hardly "censorship" It often is. Because by its nature, copyright is about restricting information flow, and therefore it naturally can conflict with free speech, especially when copyright maximalists go overboard with it (which they always do). So any kind of abusive copyright initiative should always be a suspect as attack on free speech. And this case is a very obvious example.
          • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
            Is this someone exercising free speech? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glBB_Ftky8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glBB_Ftky8I It's not abusive to point out that finding full episodes of copyrighted shows in their entirety has been trivial and that YouTube benefits significantly from distributing stolen content. The reality is, tech companies have had over a decade to demonstrate that they could behave themselves, manage their own platforms, and balance the needs of both content creators and the public. They failed, and it's time for the party to end.
            • shmerl 8y ago
              Let me put it very simply for you. Those who try to extend the copyright in all directions are often proponents of censorship and police state methodology. It's commonly the same ones who push for DRM and anti-circumvention laws. Example: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/GeoHot/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/GeoHot/ Public should not tolerate such kind of garbage, especially when corrupt politicians lie through their teeth about the consequences of such kind of laws.
    • ivan_gammel 8y ago
      The bill will hit smaller business much harder than real behemoths, thus strengthening the rule of big American corporations which can afford content filtering.
      • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
        This argument is made every time regulation against big companies is brought to the table, and it's almost always made... by big companies. If it were true, and it isn't, why would big companies be spending so much money fighting these regulations? Automated content filtering fails to meet the requirements of the EU article, so it will disproportionately impact large companies which rely on those systems, rather than smaller ones which use human moderation teams.
        • shmerl 8y ago
          This isn't a "regulation against big companies" though, this is a direct attack on free speech and a power grab by copyright maximalists, who are feeling that their industries are getting obsolete and want to tax everyone to compensate for their own failures (like the link tax and the like). I'd say let them crash and fail, no one owns them anything just because they can't compete.
          • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
            It's impossible to argue with your portrayal of the law, as opposed to what it actually says, so I'm going to have to just agree to disagree with you. There is no "link tax", nor is there a "meme ban". Both of these concepts are not actually based in the law, but in marketing of those opposed to it.
            • imtringued 8y ago
              The actual law might not explicitly mandate upload filters but they are the only way to comply with the law other than just shutting down in the EU of course.
    • imtringued 8y ago
      Those laws hurt small companies and small creators more than they hurt behemoths with large legal departments and already implemented filters.
      • ocdtrekkie 8y ago
        I responded to an almost identical comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19617420
    • JohnFen 8y ago
      > It'd be far preferable to implement this as-is and fix edge cases It looks to me like the "edge cases" constitute the majority.
• Mirioron 8y ago
  People seem too simply not know what goes on in the EU. And even if they do they feel powerless about it in smaller countries. I'm in an ex-Soviet country and some of the older people I've talked to about it have said that they think they have as much of a say in the EU as they did in the Soviet Union. (Which is none.)
  • vkou 8y ago
    The point of democracy is that individuals, or even small groups of individuals have almost no say in governance. So, yes, you are supposed to attach yourself to larger umbrella movements, to get your opinions heard. It's by design. One other small difference between the EU, and the USSR, is that T-54 tanks don't start rolling in, when your country decides to hold a little regime change... Or even a general strike.
    • IntegrationDude 8y ago
      >One other small difference between the EU, and the USSR, is that T-54 tanks don't start rolling in, when your country decides to hold a little regime change... Or even a general strike. T-54 are quite outdated, so you're right there.
    • int_19h 8y ago
      The point of democracy is to prevent a minority of society from dictating the rules to the majority by excluding it from governance. It doesn't necessarily imply that individuals or small groups have almost no say in governance, especially on matters where they're uniquely affected.
  • iknowstuff 8y ago
    Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - the only ex-soviet member states - sure as hell have way more say in the EU than they did when they weren't even countries under USSR. Those older people are deluded. Not only do they each have 1/28th of the vote in the Council, they are over-represented in the Parliament. Those folks you mentioned probably don't even realize they have the right to vote for local representatives in the European Parliament. In fact, look at population per MEP: State Pop MEPs Pop/MEP Influence Malta 0.4 5 80,800 10.30 Cyprus 0.77 6 127,667 6.52 Estonia 1.34 6 224,000 3.72 Lithuania 3.4 12 283,583 2.94 Slovenia 2 7 286,143 2.91 Latvia 2.3 8 286,875 2.90 .... Germany 82.43 99 832,606 1.00 UK 60.64 72 839,194 0.99 France 62.89 72 873,417 0.95 Spain 43.76 50 875,160 0.9