For those who are big supporters of the Obama era Net Neutrality rule from O’s FCC, do you really, really think it’s a good idea to give the government a massive say in how the Internet acts? Is it really a good idea to treat it as a public utility, like the phone system from the 1940’s? Because nothing could go wrong, right? They wouldn’t get a bee in their burr and decide to get a little wild, right? You love your memes, right?
(Moonbattery) Many take open communication on the Internet for granted. They shouldn’t. The free Internet will not last unless there is major pushback against attempts to put it in a straitjacket, like the European Union’s Article 13:
Article 13 of the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the Digital Single Market, to give it its full name, is an attempt to reshape copyright law for the internet age. It’s based around the relationship between copyright holders and online platforms, compelling the latter to enforce tighter regulation over protected content. …
The Article stipulates that platforms should “prevent the availability†of protected works, suggesting these ISSPs will need to adopt technology that can recognise and filter work created by someone other than the person uploading it. This could include fragments of music, pictures and videos. …
The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has previously warned that: “Some requirements contained in Article 13 can enable abusive behaviour, thereby threatening freedom of expression and informationâ€. Last October, 56 leading academics published a set of recommendations on the proposed directive, including claims that Article 13 is “incompatible with the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms and the obligation to strike a fair balance between all rights and freedoms involvedâ€.
All those memes you like to spread around? Most would be illegal under Article 13. Would you be happy that your ISP would be monitoring your every move on the Internet? That they’d be checking every upload to make sure it is Compliant? When you give up power to government, they will use that power. And then mission creep slips in, and you wonder what happened.
