Live data from Hacker News

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

juliareda.eu

101–110 of 125 posts

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

#101
post #79
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not yet, but if something doesn't change dramatically in the EU the countries you mentioned are on their way extremism (AfD, LePen)

The AfD has no real power in Germany. They may have swayed a few votes but in one or two legislation periods their voter base will have been quietly absorbed into the establishment (CDU and SPD) or the opposition (Greens, The Left) or the parties nobody likes (FDP). Basically none of the other parties in the government want to even consider cooperating with them, it'll fizzle out soon enough.

Is becoming the third largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election and getting 94 seats in the Bundestag suggestive of fizzling out? In the Netherlands, no one wants to cooperate with Wilders' Party either but in the recent election it became the second-largest party in the House of Representatives. 'Forget about it, they'll go away' is maybe the triumph of hope over experience.

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

#102
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AfD has no real power in Germany. They may have swayed a few votes but in one or two legislation periods their voter base will have been quietly absorbed into the establishment (CDU and SPD) or the opposition (Greens, The Left) or the parties nobody likes (FDP). Basically none of the other parties in the government want to even consider cooperating with them, it'll fizzle out soon enough.

It's cute how you classify the Greens as opposition, and how you describe a party that just got 10.75% of the national vote two months ago as being liked by nobody.

The greens always oppose anything sane, hence opposition.

I haven't yet anybody who likes the FDP, hence nobody likes them.

But I'm Bavarian so I might have a huge sampling bias thanks to us being 60%+ on the CSU.

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

#103

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. Eighty six proposals can fail, but ... This kind of thing is true in every domain of legislation and regulation. Indeed wherever officials have wielded power since the before the building of Babylon. And yet the world has not, in the large scale, been on a march towards ever more tyranny. How is that? I don't fully understand the process by which freedom has increased in most count…

I’m not trying to have a discussion about “Freedom or Tyranny” in the abstract, or thousand year trends. I’m not sure those words even mean anything.

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

#104
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AfD has no real power in Germany. They may have swayed a few votes but in one or two legislation periods their voter base will have been quietly absorbed into the establishment (CDU and SPD) or the opposition (Greens, The Left) or the parties nobody likes (FDP). Basically none of the other parties in the government want to even consider cooperating with them, it'll fizzle out soon enough.

Is becoming the third largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election and getting 94 seats in the Bundestag suggestive of fizzling out? In the Netherlands, no one wants to cooperate with Wilders' Party either but in the recent election it became the second-largest party in the House of Representatives. 'Forget about it, they'll go away' is maybe the triumph of hope over experience.

I see them being this big as positive in that it forces the remaining parties to finally figure out how to properly cooperate, as the CDU/SPD is a very unlikely coalition considering the last legislation period.

The current Jamaika Coalition has basically put everyone in panic because for the first time in forever the major parties can't just vote what they want into parliament via coalition contracts.

The AfD will be reabsorbed, don't worry about that, that's how it has worked the last couple decades. And in the meanwhile they can exert some healthy pressure on the rest of the Bundestag to get a bit of fresh air in there.

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

#105
post #20

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,…

> There is no going back. Why not. Bad laws should be repealed.

Can you name one instance where overly authoritarian laws were repealed peacefully?

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

#106
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no going back. Why not. Bad laws should be repealed.

Can you name one instance where overly authoritarian laws were repealed peacefully?

The German data retention law was quite peacefully dismantled by our supreme court equivalent.

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

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Rest…

If you don't believe in the government being worth your trust, you either need to fix the government or go off grid: at the end of the day even the internet is still just people interacting, and where you have people you will have something like a government.

I know the days when only nerds like you knew about it and society at large neither knew nor needed it seem romantic now. But today the net matters to a lot of people, and they bring with them their trusted tools for defending their interests.

Go visit irc if you want those heady days where only things you didn't like where censored.

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

#108
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 we…

I don't think the internet has been a uniquely free medium, they all start out unregulated after all. It has been the most unregulated medium recently, this is true, but also a nearly vacuous statement since its the only really new medium for mass communication recently.

And anyway posted letters are still a very free medium, with better privacy assurances than email ever had.

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

#110
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Please control your hyperbole a bit, or do you really oppose sunglasses on account of how they filter spectral information?
Post reply on HN