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Wikipedia Italy Blocks All Articles in Protest of EU's Ruinous Copyright Proposals (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, Wikipedia Italy set all of its pages to redirect to a statement raising awareness for the upcoming vote that (barring some legislative wrangling) would make the copyright directive law. The statement reads, in part (emphasis theirs): On July 5, 2018, The Plenary of the European Parliament will vote whether to proceed with a copyright directive proposal which, if approved, will significantly harm the openness of the Internet . The directive instead of updating the copyright laws in Europe and promoting the participation of all the citizens to the society of information, threatens online freedom and creates obstacles to accessing the Web, imposing new barriers, filters and restrictions. If the proposal would be approved in its current form, it could be impossible to share a news article on social networks, or find it through a search engine; Wikipedia itself would be at risk.
I agree with them; I think they should have done the same for all EU ip adresses and all languages.
EU citizens can still act a little: https://saveyourinternet.eu/
Where i stand, i can donate to the EFF. Which i did. About other laws hurting the American internet.
This is take two on the attempts by the copyright industry to get to loot Google, no more and no less. The Spanish copyright lobby tried to extort Google news, with the catastrophic consequence for them that Google simply closed the service. The German tried to extort them on their turf, and then Google simply stopped linking to them, which turned out so badly for them that they had to come crawling back and make special allowances for Google.
This is about the same thing again, just on another level. It's still about greedy fuckers who can't stand seeing anyone else making any money, even if they have to cut off their own (and everyone else's as collateral damage) noses just to spite their faces. Hopefully sanity prevails over apathetic incompetence though, which otherwise generally is the biggest hurdle in the EU, not outright corruption like in the US.
I am really confused by this comment. Not sure if I agree with the premise that this is corruption because it seems like "corruption" is an easy answer for the lazy to say "anything the government does that I don't like is corruption".
Even granting that, this is absolute retardation.
Shit like this is everyday occurrences in the US, while it makes real news in the EU - which coincidentally is seen as practically communist by a lot of retarded Americans who have never set their foot outside North Bumfuck but are experts on everything on the Internet.
Everyday occurrences? I assume you are referring to PACs and Citizens United. I find that hilarious because what it comes down to is the US is more supportive of free speech and less government intervention of political speech. God forbid someone make a documentary critical of a politician running for office and release that on the internet around the time of an election! The government should be able to restrict that kind of political speech because anything else is "corruption"!
Maybe there is something wrong with you and your ideas if you think the government has the authority to restrict political speech because it happens to be around an election. Likewise, maybe there is something wrong with the government when it thinks it can pass absurd laws that infringe on the rights of their citizens. The US has it's problems but Europe seems more than content with overbearing government without the need of "corruption" from corporations.
Why wold anyone mod that post informative?
UK citizens should be happy about brexit now. If they can stay out of the EU they may be able to retain their Freedom of Speech if they ever had it.
You can find holes in "free speech" for any country or countries (including the US). Nowhere really has "free" speech.
Sadly, the UK is less free than many when it comes to free speech. I don't think any of us would disagree that racism is a bad thing- but in Britain if you say something racist in public you can be arrested for it. I want racism to die- but I don't approve of arresting people for simply saying something bad- it comes down to a very subjective "what is racist?"
If you're rich, you can block the nations press from reporting certain embarrassing stories on you. You can ask for a super-injunction which prevents the press from being allowed to report on a story AND they're not even allowed to say you have asked for the super-injunction. A lot of embarrassing news about the royal family that might be published overseas is blocked in the UK.
TV, video games, etc, are regulary censored. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to be released under the name Teenage Mutant "Hero" turtles in the UK because "Ninja" was considered too violent a term for UK children. Songs with explicit lyrics are often blocked from UK airways. Certain pron, such as face-sitting is considered indecent in the UK and is not allowed.
UK might actually have more freedom of speech had they remained in the EU.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
... may be that this will strongly accelerate migrations from GAFA services to independent, open and untractable systems like Diaspora / Mastodon / Pixelfed etc. :-D
Initially I thought that only 'slow-throughput' sevices could be dealt with this way, but I even discovered Peertube, a movie service.
Honestly, at this moment the only final push these guys need is... a big influx of new users pushed away from GAFA by the new EU restrictions
Herve S.