Europe's internet to make China's look like a marketplace of free expression.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...pass-controversial-digital-copyright-law.html

Oi, mate, got a loicense for that link?

I've been watching this shitshow for a while now, and it looks like the EU is coming ever closer to a collapse. They gave this a trial run in Spain, i believe, and the goog simply pulled out. I wonder if there will even be a European equivalent to QQ?

Do tech companies even have the means to filter out copyrighted material?

QQ is shit but WeChat works quite well, FYI.

If they do, i don't think it will be reliable, and it will certainly grind anything to a halt as it's run through the isp's filter.

The technology to automatically filter for copyrighted material is, unfortunately, pretty good and fast. What it can't detect is the difference between fair use and an actual copyright violation; and this new law, among many other mistakes, creates a world in which it is up to the fair use uploader to prove their innocence.

Yeah, this is a really, really bad law. The link tax was indeed tried in Spain and Germany and failed horrendously in both places. But note that it would be a frighteningly bad idea even if it worked.

Bad day all around.

The link tax was just old fashioned rent seeking behavior. People wanting to take money from other people without doing anything; hell, the link actually drives traffic to their website so they do get views and additional advertising revenue so they already are making money without demanding everyone else give them more if they provide a link driving traffic to their website.

Hey, everyone! @Dinner and I agree on something!

And all it needed was a devastating blow to freedom of speech in Europe.