I haven't been as active on those subjects recently, both due to how sick I am of them and being very busy. However it's extremely urgent that we spread the word about this one immediately.
For those who don't know, the European Union has been working on an internet censorship scheme unlike anything ever seen before. It dwarfs even SOPA / PIPA / ACTA or the censorship in countries like Communist China, and already it's halfway through the EU debate processes. It consists of two measures part of a new copyright directive, known as Article 11 (Link Tax) and Article 13 (Censorship Machines).
- Article 11: This makes it obligatory for everyone to pay news sites when posting links to their articles, as long as you're using any snippet of text with a link (even a few words). News sites cannot even waive this obligation: The law would essentially mandate people to take money by force from anyone posting links to their websites!
- Article 13: They want to force every website on the internet to install upload filtering mechanisms, which don't even exist and any attempts to resemble such a thing barely ever work (eg: Youtube's content ID system). If you run a website in the EU that lets users upload anything, you'd have to use special software given to you by the entertainment industry... designed so if any match to a copyrighted work is detected, the user is censored before they're even allowed to upload. This will essentially ban all memes or parodies or references across the internet, and would next be expanded to also censor speech deemed illegal by the state.
As much as this sounds like an absolute joke, it's the reality of the European Union today. Both proposals passed a JURI vote last month, which not only legitimated them but supposedly made them even worse. The EU Parliament's vote is tomorrow: If they legitimate this madness too by granting the negotiation mandate, we have no idea what is going to happen after the final negotiations at the end of the year: It's said that their end goal is to turn the internet into some outdated version of cable television, where only certain people are allowed to host websites or even use them... the internet as we know it would literally be wiped out of existence.
WE HAVE LESS THAN 24 HOURS TO ACT! PLEASE USE AND SPREAD THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO CALL, TWEET, EMAIL, AND SIGN THE PETITION FOR OUR REPRESENTATIVES:
