New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection • Hacker News Board

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#81

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:16 AM UTC

pilsetnieks wrote: post #17

dalbasal wrote: post #10

This feels like a fight we're going to lose eventually. Proposals come up.. most fail. I admire those responsible for putting up resistance. But.. some succeed. Others partially succeed. Limited to stopping pedophilia, piracy, nazis... Those are bridgeheads. The direction is monodirectional. Eighty six proposals can fail, but if the eighty seventh succeeds that's just as good. There is no going back. Win, good. Lose,…

> The direction is monodirectional The obvious tautology aside, I wouldn't agree with this in case of the EU (the US, probably.) To me, the EU feels more like two steps forward, one step back - this being the step back but, for example, the GDPR being the two steps (or leaps) forward. In any case, this regulation seems more misguided rather than malicious. It's targeting real problems that have to be tackled but it d…

Tautology intended. :)

Misguided, malicious, bootlegger, baptist, real problems, fake ones... I don't think it matters much.

Norms are being established for regulating the web. The "proper channels" for seizing domains, ip blocking, de-indexing etc. There will be a number to call, forms to get stamped, enforcement.. These are growing around the world, at multiple levels of government. The EU is not an exception. Restrictions and censorship is growing at the EU and member state level.

I guess we disagree about the premise: when such channels exist (they basically do now) then they'll be used directly and indirectly in the same way their equivalents are used to regulate every other medium.

These thing are usually icebergs, mostly below the surface. China doesn't have to tell sites what to do most of the time, they "self regulate."

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#82

Post by pawy » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:23 AM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #68

mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"risk of serious harm to the collective interests of consumers" What a weaselly term. Bet they spent months trying to come up with something that didn't sound ridiculously biased/anti-consumer and that's the best they came up with. So obviously corrupt.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims of corruption or are you just loud mouthing based on what you feel is true? I ask because the EU already has the ability to block sites infringe on copyrights. To me this law is one of the reactions taken to the fact that foreign powers are using completely faked news papers and social media pages to influence out elections. Right now consumers have very little ammuniti…

Do you realise what Chaos you are bringing up on us ?

Internet has always been full of shit. It's up to us to educate and teach people who are weak to this kind of behaviour.

Black List websites = Censorship.

Internet is not a product, it's our freedom.

To all people who try to "regulate" this, piss off.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#83

Post by indubitable » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:25 AM UTC

seomint wrote: post #23

Whenever I see news like this I think of John Gilmore's quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Perhaps decisions like this will hasten a move toward a decentralized and an encrypted Net where politicians and their corporate sponsors have far less influence.

The thing I find disconcerting is that the most recent numbers I could find put about 30% of people as using adblockers. Installing an adblocker takes about 10 seconds and a single click to yield a vastly improved internet experience.

The masses move like molasses.

When you build a decentralized system it's going to immediately be organically populated by the least desirable demographics in existence. And those demographics can then be used to demonize the system itself. This seems to be a major burden to uptake unless the 'main net' becomes rapidly castrated - but that will never happen. Changes happen slowly and incrementally and like the anecdote of a frog boiling in water - people just don't notice.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#84

Post by zaarn » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:27 AM UTC

choward wrote: post #48

Man am I naive. I read the title as the EU wanting to provide a way to block web sites that do things like track consumers.

Technically that could be a fallout.

With the upcoming ePrivacy/GDPR in the EU, if you as a consumer sent a DNT header or disagree with being tracked, you can notify anyone doing so and they are under EU law required to delete your data and/or stop tracking you.

If they don't... well the nearest consumer protection office will be interested and they'll probably then follow up with blocking the website EU wide.

So in conclusion; yes this can be used against anyone who tracks you on the internet against your will since the EU law will make that illegal in the future and this law is a broadside against anyone trying to ignore EU law.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#85

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:30 AM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #68

mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"risk of serious harm to the collective interests of consumers" What a weaselly term. Bet they spent months trying to come up with something that didn't sound ridiculously biased/anti-consumer and that's the best they came up with. So obviously corrupt.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims of corruption or are you just loud mouthing based on what you feel is true? I ask because the EU already has the ability to block sites infringe on copyrights. To me this law is one of the reactions taken to the fact that foreign powers are using completely faked news papers and social media pages to influence out elections. Right now consumers have very little ammuniti…

As a European, I find both the ability to force others to not distribute information, and the ability for others to restrict my access certain types of sites to be a disgusting violation of free speech. I would expect this in a certain country in Asia, not in bloody Europe. Not only does it violate free speech, the new ability to perform website takedowns bypass proper law and order, by not leaving any ability to defend oneself in a proper court of law. A copyright infringement claim may be false, for example.

The ability to block content country-wide won't help reduce misinformation, which will always have ways to spread. What are we going to do, make it illegal to be uneducated, have unpopular opinions or be a bad person? Instead, this new power can easily be abused to stop the spread of real information, and unpopular (for example, government-opposing or religious) opinions.

The original ability to delete information is absurd in a similar way, but more limited, as only the subject can request it. Yet it still bypasses a proper trial, leaving it up to you and the service provider to conclude if the information was useful to the "general public". That's definitely going to result in deletion of valuable information.

If you want to give people a way to defend themselves against harmful information, give them the right to amend it instead. Deleting it is wrong. If you want to avoid fake news like you state, educate. Controlling people by removing information is wrong.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#86

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:31 AM UTC

pawy wrote: post #82

eksemplar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims of corruption or are you just loud mouthing based on what you feel is true? I ask because the EU already has the ability to block sites infringe on copyrights. To me this law is one of the reactions taken to the fact that foreign powers are using completely faked news papers and social media pages to influence out elections. Right now consumers have very little ammuniti…

Do you realise what Chaos you are bringing up on us ? Internet has always been full of shit. It's up to us to educate and teach people who are weak to this kind of behaviour. Black List websites = Censorship. Internet is not a product, it's our freedom. To all people who try to "regulate" this, piss off.

Amen.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#87

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:36 AM UTC

seszett wrote: post #69

dalbasal wrote: post #10

This feels like a fight we're going to lose eventually. Proposals come up.. most fail. I admire those responsible for putting up resistance. But.. some succeed. Others partially succeed. Limited to stopping pedophilia, piracy, nazis... Those are bridgeheads. The direction is monodirectional. Eighty six proposals can fail, but if the eighty seventh succeeds that's just as good. There is no going back. Win, good. Lose,…

> Limited to stopping pedophilia, piracy, nazis... Those are bridgeheads. I don't know if I buy this slippery slope argument. Nazi memorabilia and glorification have been banned in France and Germany for more than 70 years now, and these countries have not yet descended into fascism and further impeding of free speech and other points that we usually hear from offended Americans who learn about this.

That's kind of a straw man, I feel. At least, somewhat unfair.

I didn't imply descent into fascism. I implied a descent into norms where the internet is more like TV or radio were. Historically, the web has been a uniquely free medium.

There is also a commercial dynamic side to this. Regulations and restrictions favour larger, stabler, more normative companies.

Also, I don't think slippery slope arguments lend too well to analogies. Some slopes are slipperier than others. ..and the overthrow of the Nazi regime was not a democratic one. It was a violent one. All the methods were not part of normative politics. Banning Nazism was a part of that overthrow. What the shelling of Berlin a slippery slope?

That said, i think the ban should have been lifted by later generations, a symbolic nod to freedom of speech and association. If even Nazis in France get free speech, it's a sign that those freedoms are strong.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#88

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:37 AM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #56

mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"risk of serious harm to the collective interests of consumers" What a weaselly term. Bet they spent months trying to come up with something that didn't sound ridiculously biased/anti-consumer and that's the best they came up with. So obviously corrupt.

> So obviously corrupt Sources please. The EU isn't perfect... But this sounds a lot like an attempt to give consumer protection agencies the powers to block scam sites. From what I could see Julia Reda (MEP - German Pirate) wasn't unhappy about the intents of this legislation. Merely concerned about: A) Website blocking without judicial oversight B) Existence of website blocking infrastructure C) Inability to force…

But who decides what an "effective means" is, and which are available? Without judicial oversight, this seems rather easy to bypass.

I personally find filtering of any sort to be fundamentally wrong. A website is nothing but information, and find censoring/filtering to be wrong on counts of violating free speech and free access to information. I believe that illegal content should be handled by going after those that operate the site, rather than touching the distribution channel.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#89

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:38 AM UTC

nezzle wrote: post #51

dalbasal wrote: post #10

This feels like a fight we're going to lose eventually. Proposals come up.. most fail. I admire those responsible for putting up resistance. But.. some succeed. Others partially succeed. Limited to stopping pedophilia, piracy, nazis... Those are bridgeheads. The direction is monodirectional. Eighty six proposals can fail, but if the eighty seventh succeeds that's just as good. There is no going back. Win, good. Lose,…

Every battle they win their battle chest grows. Every battle we win we get more complacent and tired of it all.

Exactly.

Re: New EU law prescribes website blocking in the name of consumer protection

#90

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Nov 16, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

seomint wrote: post #23

Whenever I see news like this I think of John Gilmore's quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Perhaps decisions like this will hasten a move toward a decentralized and an encrypted Net where politicians and their corporate sponsors have far less influence.

That's a nice thought, but I think we're beyond that stage. The web is a lot more centralised today. Google and FB aren't routing around government restrictions in 2019, not the EU's, Turkey's... They may actively object on certain one sided moral issues (eg anti-gay) stuff, but they'll do what's legal or advisable in most cases. They're being normative companies.

Ultimately regulations tend to favour large incumbents.