A clever circumvention of innocent until proven guilty - make disobedience carry huge legal risk. You must obey orders (takedown 'requests'), not backed by any court. If you fail, and <i>one</i> turns out to be legitimate, you get punished.<p>Imagine if you had to stop doing business with anyone reported as a thief (but not convicted).
Funny how exactly EU follows the path Russia has recently taken. After Russia passed the law that banned online material promoting terrorist content, suicide, drug information and harm to children, and so on, there was an avalanche of false takedown requests and misidentifications, including attempting to block Wikipedia, ban Bhagavad Gita commentary (yes, really) and many more anecdotes that sound funny unless you live there. Now Russia has progressed to banning "insulting" the government publicly, i.e. direct ban on political dissent. I wonder how long it would be until EU does the same.
Politicians do not care about the ramifications of this. They only care about granting themselves power over who sees what when through the guise of combating hate speech, terrorism, child porn, etc. Posting a blog about this will change nothing.
Not quite my circus, not quite my monkeys, but I wonder if it's possible to fight fire with fire.<p>Could a committed group of individuals report the most pernicious EU politicians' homepages and facebook pages as similarly banned content? Looks like the firehose has overwhelmed whatever inadequate safeguards they originally had in place.
Why does the proposed EU legislation have a 1-hour deadline? No matter what you think of the action it's trying to take, a 1-hour deadline is preposterous for anyone and seems expressly designed to force people to set up an automated process that acts on takedown notices without prior review. But who benefits from this?<p>About the only thing I can think of is if some big company, think Facebook or Google, lobbied for this because they're large enough that they can actually implement it with review, whereas anyone smaller can't.
Can anyone with a bit more information explain why the EU might have any saying as to what a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library can and can not host?<p>Disclaimer: I currently am a EU citizen.
In situations with notice-and-takedown like this, I always wonder why there aren't stronger protections against abuse. Should a platform or user who had their content ordered removed in error be able to receive damages? Should the lawyers or civil servants instigating these notices be disciplined for issuing erroneous, improper, or overly broad takedown notices be disciplined or blacklisted?
Hey, someone ought to start reporting EU sites as "terrorist content".<p>Edit: Or better yet, report major MPAA members for copyright infringement, using spoofed accounts for other major MPAA members :)
So underfunded and overworked EU agency is asked to manage reporting for poorly thought out and overly broad legislation.<p>Maybe this is the best outcome as it might provide a valid defense for those who choose to ignore the notices.
What exactly is "terrorist content?" Do calls to arms from the American Revolution against England count? What about other revolutions of the past?
Reminds me of: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/09/man-charged-with-leeds-terror-offences-appears-in-court" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/09/man-charged-...</a><p>> The charges allege that Golaszewski was found with copies of 21 Silent Techniques of Killing by Master Hei Long, The Anarchist Cookbook and The Big Book of Mischief on 23 February in Leeds. It is also alleged that he had in his possession the Improvised Munitions Handbook, Murder Inc, The Book by Jack the Rippa, and Minimanual Of The Urban Guerilla, by Carlos Marighella.<p>The guy is charged with possession of six books, some of these books are likely to be present at archive.org<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pawel-golaszewski-uk-terror-leeds-arrest-right-wing-a8815116.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pawel-golaszewsk...</a><p>> Pawel Golaszewski faces six counts under the Terrorism Act and has been charged with possession of a document or record "containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".<p>Six books, six counts.<p>••••••••••<p>Unsure where is this heading. Does anyone think the law can stop technology?
Essentially, this is the DMCA for terrorist content. With a somewhat short time requirement driven by some recent events (New Zealand being the most prominent, but not first).<p>Here's a link to the current EU draft: <a href="https://www.laquadrature.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/04/Terr-Reg-LIBE-Final-Compromises.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.laquadrature.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019...</a><p>(It's a document highlighting the latest changes from committee, making it somewhat hard to read but not less interesting)<p>I'm not sure if it's fair to compare notices from the current program, which sends out notices without any legal force, to what this envisages. The directive sets out a process and requirements for notices, including detailed reasoning for each. It also specifically mentions avenues to protest (and sue) in cases of disagreements.<p>I'm no particular fan of this for both practical and philosophical reasons. If youtube had invested in some sort of oversight that prevented this kiwi neckbeard from live-streaming his massacre of innocents, the vote this week would probably have ended differently.
Happened in Feb 2019 to a story on telegra.ph archived by me. It was scary first, then I asked the archive.org webmaster and I understood that it was a telegra.ph link, not because of the content. Now the archived link works OK. <a href="https://imgur.com/a/eJd4FeM" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/eJd4FeM</a>
Interestingly, I can't get one of the linked videos[1] to load, although the other stuff seems to work fine.<p>[1]: <a href="https://archive.org/details/002Baqarah_201712" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/002Baqarah_201712</a>
Blocking the EU seems to be the only viable option here, right? Am I missing any less bad options? Or would blocking the EU still leave publishers vulnerable to some abuse?
Given US state linked organizations like Atlantic Council, ThinkProgress, Propornot manned by ex US security services personnel are working with Facebook, Google and other social media websites to 'takedown' dissent on US involvement in Yemen, Syria, Venezuela, black activism against police brutality, general anti-war activism and socialism leaning content it seems the time to be concerned about censorship is passed.<p>Who can explain these SV 'relationships' with state actors? Anyone who cares about censorship should be extremely concerned about state actors flagging content. Snowden is still in Russia, Assange is virtual imprisoned and Manning is back in prison. Isn't it curious that these basic actions of whistle blowing and dissent are not able to operate freely in the west?<p>Is it simply as transparent as when other countries take down dissent or imprison activists its censorship and totalitarianism and when we do its 'fake news', 'Russian propaganda' or 'some reason'. It's incredible people can ignore everything and talk of free speech, censorship, and democracy as if none of the above is happening.
Just doin their job and slowly but safely moving towards a well off retirement...<p>Why is this surprising or unusual? It doesn't matter to them. Citizens aren't their customers and can't refuse to fund them. What other outcome can one rationally expect?
what the EU thinks is irrelevant. I wouldn't respond to a GDPR notice, a cookie notice, "terrorist content" takedowns. they are free to block my site. I'm free to never visit their 1984 land. good thing the UK is leaving them.
The EU is a nightmare. Once the UK leaves and people see they are doing better it’s going to start a procession of other countries out the door. Too many regulations and red tape like this make doing business in the EU difficult. I am slightly annoyed every time a cookie banner blocks my view on a website. To think some person in Belgium decided that was a good idea and now everyone online has to deal with it is disturbing.
How are we going to punish the EU for this? The penalty for interfering with Archive.org must be so severe that even an international entity would never contemplate doing this again.
Thank Uncle Sam for the first amendment. Not that this kind of censorship won't happen in the United States but there are stronger institutional barriers to it here, so it will take longer.<p>But it's coming here too and not slowly. For instance five years ago 48 US Senators voted gut much of the core of the first amendment. (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/19/text" rel="nofollow">https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-joint-re...</a>) After every terrorist attack we hear how the constitution is not a suicide note (and therefore the bill of rights is highly contingent). Pressure to act against (flexibly defined) hate speech is growing particularly in the young cohort of voters.<p>In the not distant future I expect hundreds or thousands of US officials to have the same kind of power that their EU counterparts are seeking here: to automatically switch off almost any domestic web resource if it hurts the feelings of an important constituent.<p>Many of us will fight it, and as in the EU, we'll lose.