EFF: What’s Next For Europe’s Internet Censorship Plan?
What’s Next For Europe’s Internet Censorship Plan? Last month, a key European vote brought the EU much closer to a system of universal mass censorship and surveillance , in the name of defending copyright. Members of the EU Parliament voted to advance the new Copyright Directive, even though it contained two extreme and unworkable clauses: Article 13 (“Censorship Machines”) that would filter everything everyone posts to online platforms to see if matches a crowdsourced database of “copyrighted works” that anyone could add anything to; and Article 11 (“The Link Tax”), a ban on quote more than one word from an article when linking to them unless you are using a platform that has paid for a linking license. The link tax provision allows, but does not require, member states to create exceptions and limitations to protect online speech. With the vote out of the way, the next step is the “trilogues.” These closed-door meetings are held between representatives from European national gov...