EU Presidency Calls For Massive Internet Filtering, Leaked Document Shows (edri.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission's original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality. According to the leaked document, the text suggests two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called "link tax" or ancillary copyright and the upload filter.

Comments

New internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us in the tech sector need to be seriously talking about building a new layer of internet on top of the old one.

Human expression and dignity is under assault by fascists cloaked in the sheepskin of virtue.

Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, are now marching lockstep with the oppressive regimes of China and the EU.

Fascism spreads

[evolutionary]

there is only one reason for using China's system for control data/opinions shows: To guarantee the status quo and minimize or eliminate any threat to your current power structure. Unless the world wants their governments run like China, those that don't like it need to speak up, openly, now....because once it's in, it will be a lot harder to remove. (as per design)

Re:EU

[AmiMoJo]

Since the presidency of the EU is not "big government", it's literally just a rotating position that gives countries an opportunity to propose an agenda. Estonia has pissed it's opportunity away by proposing something that seems to violate the human rights of EU citizens (the right to privacy in particular) and which has no hope of ever being adopted or even influencing the legislation.

Before you complain about the EU, note that it has some of the strongest privacy protections in the world. They have been used to stop government spying, they have been used to force massive multinational companies like Google to respect individual privacy. And those are actual, written and enforced law, not some random proposal that has zero chance of ever being enacted.