FASCISM New Law Went Into Effect On August 25th That Institutes Extreme Censorship Of The Internet On A Global Basis

Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
endoftheamericandream.com

A Draconian New Law Went Into Effect On August 25th That Institutes Extreme Censorship Of The Internet On A Global Basis

The Internet just changed forever, but most people living in the United States don’t even realize what just happened. A draconian new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union on Friday, and it establishes an extremely strict regime of Internet censorship...
endoftheamericandream.com
(fair use applies)


A Draconian New Law Went Into Effect On August 25th That Institutes Extreme Censorship Of The Internet On A Global Basis
by Michael Snyder
August 29, 2023

The Internet just changed forever, but most people living in the United States don’t even realize what just happened. A draconian new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union on Friday, and it establishes an extremely strict regime of Internet censorship that is far more authoritarian than anything we have ever seen before. From this point forward, hordes of European bureaucrats will be the arbiters of what is acceptable to say on the Internet. If they discover something that you have said on a large online platform that they do not like, they can force that platform to take it down, because someone in Europe might see it. So even though this is a European law, the truth is that it is going to have a tremendous impact on all of us.

From this point forward, nothing will be the same. It is being reported that the DSA literally makes large tech companies “legally accountable for the content posted to them”…

The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) has officially gone into effect. Starting on August 25th, 2023, tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more must comply with sweeping legislation that holds online platforms legally accountable for the content posted to them.​
​
Even though this new law was passed in the EU, we’ll likely see far-reaching global effects as companies adjust their policies to comply.​

Initially, there will be 19 giant online platforms that will be forced to comply with this new law…
​
Ranging from social media platforms to online marketplaces and search engines, the list so far includes: Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Amazon, Booking, AliExpress, Zalando, Google Shopping, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Google and Apple’s mobile app stores, Google’s Search, and Microsoft’s Bing.​

But starting on February 24th, 2024, the Digital Services Act will start applying to a much broader spectrum of online platforms that have fewer than 45 million monthly users.

We are being told that this new law will establish clear rules that online platforms must follow.

That will include censoring anything that is deemed “false or misleading” under the Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation...

So what kind of speech is the DSA expected to police? Last year’s Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation defines disinformation as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm.” The code has already been put to work during elections and to “respond to crises,” such as COVID and the war in Ukraine.​

And it really doesn’t matter if material that European bureaucrats consider to be “false or misleading” is actually “false of misleading” at all.

What matters is that if online platforms do not comply with what they are being told to do, they will pay dearly…

Online platforms that don’t comply with the DSA’s rules could see fines of up to 6 percent of their global turnover. According to the EU Commission, the Digital Services Coordinator and the Commission will have the power to “require immediate actions where necessary to address very serious harms.” A platform continually refusing to comply could result in a temporary suspension in the EU.​

Big tech companies will be desperate to avoid such penalties, and so they will obey.

And so that means that “hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats” will be in control of speech on the Internet now…

Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetising certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favour or disfavour certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.​

We are being told that these EU bureaucrats will also be working with “trusted flaggers” to help identify content that needs to be censored…

The DSA’s “trusted flaggers” are entities with proven expertise in flagging harmful or illegal content to platforms. The new regulation provides that their content flagging shall be prioritised by platforms when moderating content.​

You might be tempted to think that you will be able to avoid all of this censorship because you do not live in Europe.

Unfortunately, that is simply not true.

If you post something that someone in Europe might see, your content comes under the jurisdiction of this horrifying new law.

So you need to brace yourself for a level of Internet censorship that none of us have ever seen before.

In addition, most of the large tech companies that must comply with this new law are based in the United States.

And it turns out that the Federal Trade Commission actually sent officials to Europe in March to assist with the implementation of this new law on U.S. soil…

U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today sent letters to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan and the head of the European Union’s San Francisco office, demanding answers regarding the degree of coordination between the FTC and the EU to enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (“DSA”) and Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) on U.S. soil. Both foreign laws were written to weaken American tech companies, particularly in Europe. There are no corollary federal laws to the DSA and DMA, making the FTC’s efforts to conspire with foreign regulators against U.S. businesses unprecedented.​
​
The FTC announced in March that it was sending agency officials to Brussels to assist the EU in implementing these laws, while the EU opened a San Francisco office to pressure U.S tech companies to comply with them.​

From this point forward, it is going to become much more difficult to share alternative views on the Internet.

Personally, there will be certain things that I will only be able to share in my books or with the paid subscribers of my Substack newsletter.

I am going to need to be more careful about what I share from now on, because if I say something publicly on the Internet that offends the bureaucrats in Europe, I could get into really big trouble.

And that is going to apply to every other independent journalist as well.

For a long time, the Internet allowed ordinary people like you and ordinary people like me to share truth with a world that was desperate for it.

But now the gatekeepers are exerting a draconian level of control, and the Internet will never, ever be the same again.
 
end game

end game

Veteran Member
1711064_2.jpg
 
Dobbin

Dobbin

Faithful Steed
Heliobas Disciple said:
From this point forward, it is going to become much more difficult to share alternative views on the Internet.
Click to expand...
You mean like the 2020 Election was hacked?
Or Covid 19 was a joint DNC/CCP creation?
Or "inflation is under control?"
Or "Climate Change will kill us all by 2015?"
Or "Dihydrogen Monoxide is perfectly safe?"

Dobbin
 
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Knoxville's Joker

Knoxville's Joker

Has No Life - Lives on TB
all it will take is for a couple of big tech giants to say fine, we are pulling out, enjoy the vacuum.

But before that they have everything staged to have an immediate ship out of the relavent countries and backup protocols to smoke anything left.

This stuff only works if EVERYONE is onboard with it.

At this point Russia better win Ukraine to fix this...
 
end game

end game

Veteran Member
desertvet2 said:
I dont recall being given a ballot with this option on it.

I guess if someone besides myself says " this is the law, you must comply or be punished " somehow, I just have to obey?

Silly.


Rise
Stand together
Refuse
Resist
Fight!
Click to expand...
Bow down before the one you serve.....

NIN "Head like a hole" YT RT 4:31

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-Sahfy7Hg


No one can take our land from us......

Ignea "Alga"

YT RT 6:22

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KOXbzMRQHs
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Heliobas Disciple said:
I am going to need to be more careful about what I share from now on, because if I say something publicly on the Internet that offends the bureaucrats in Europe, I could get into really big trouble.
Click to expand...

For some reason my give a **** about what bureaucrats in europe think seems to be broken. My grandfather would be rolling over in his grave he knew what a communist shit hole europe has become.
 
marsh

marsh

On TB every waking moment
www.cruz.senate.gov

Sen. Cruz Blasts FTC for Colluding With EU to Target American Businesses | U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today sent...
www.cruz.senate.gov www.cruz.senate.gov

PUBLISHED:08.22.2023

SEN. CRUZ BLASTS FTC FOR COLLUDING WITH EU TO TARGET AMERICAN BUSINESSES​

Letters request answers on extraordinary effort by FTC to use foreign regulators to weaken U.S. firms’ competitiveness

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today sent letters to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan and the head of the European Union’s San Francisco office, demanding answers regarding the degree of coordination between the FTC and the EU to enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (“DSA”) and Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) on U.S. soil.

Both foreign laws were written to weaken American tech companies, particularly in Europe. There are no corollary federal laws to the DSA and DMA, making the FTC’s efforts to conspire with foreign regulators against U.S. businesses unprecedented.

The FTC announced in March that it was sending agency officials to Brussels to assist the EU in implementing these laws, while the EU opened a San Francisco office to pressure U.S tech companies to comply with them.

As Sen. Cruz wrote to Chairwoman Khan:

I write regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) use of taxpayer resources to directly coordinate with foreign lawmakers to create new regulations in overseas jurisdictions that target American businesses.

Your agency’s collusion with foreign governments not only undermines U.S. sovereignty and Congress’s constitutional lawmaking authority, but also damages the competitiveness of U.S. firms and could negatively affect the savings of millions of Americans who hold stock in those companies via retirement savings accounts and pension plans.

As you know, the European Union (“EU”) recently approved two laws expressly designed to weaken American companies and boost the EU’s revenue under the guise of consumer protection and competition.

First, the EU passed the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), which requires certain “gatekeeper” companies to comply with extremely prescriptive obligations, like sharing customer data with third parties, or else risk a fine of up to twenty percent of their annual global revenue. By virtue of how the law defines “gatekeeper” companies, the DMA targets American firms; European and Chinese companies can for the most part operate as usual, if not better, with their competition effectively weakened. Second, the EU approved the Digital Services Act (“DSA”), which imposes certain requirements on all online service platforms […] Again, non-U.S. companies are largely off the hook.

Taken together, the DMA and DSA objectively discriminate against U.S. companies by imposing enormous regulatory compliance costs and penalties on them, while handing companies from other countries—especially China—a competitive edge. These concerns are real: a recent study determined that “new compliance and operational costs” resulting from the DMA on U.S. companies could range from $22 billion to $50 billion.5 It also found that 16 percent of European companies surveyed would switch from an American tech provider to a Chinese tech provider because of those anticipated costs.

It is one thing for the EU to target U.S. businesses, however misguided such efforts may be. But it is altogether unthinkable that an agency of the U.S. government would actively help the EU do so. Even the Biden administration has “been clear” that the U.S. government “opposes efforts specifically designed to target only U.S. companies,” like the DMA and DSA.

Sen. Cruz has requested information, including a full accounting of taxpayer funds used by FTC employees to travel to Brussels and to the EU’s office in San Francisco, as well as documents and communications between FTC and EU officials.

In his letter to Gerard de Graaf, the head of the EU’s San Francisco office, Sen. Cruz wrote:

Last fall, the EU opened the San Francisco office—the only secondary office the EU has ever opened in a country where it already had a delegation—stating that it was necessary “to strengthen transatlantic technological cooperation and to drive the global digital transformation based on democratic values and standards.” The timing of the office’s establishment, however, suggests more is at play. The EU’s San Francisco office opened its doors six weeks after the European Council approved the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) and four weeks before the European Council approved the Digital Services Act (“DSA”). Those two laws will impose unprecedented, sweeping regulations on certain large technology companies—almost all of which are based in the United States. Moreover, members of the EU parliament visited nearby Silicon Valley to discuss the DMA and DSA just months before the San Francisco office opened. Evidently, before the EU recently focused its regulatory efforts on U.S. technology companies, “transatlantic technological cooperation” did not require that EU officials have an office on the West Coast.

Additional facts indicate that the EU likely opened the San Francisco office to ensure that U.S. businesses comply with its new draconian regulations. Most obvious is your selection as the head of the EU San Francisco office and “Senior Envoy for Digital to the U.S.” given your previous roles as the DMA’s and DSA’s chief architect and head cheerleader. And although the EU’s press team has repeatedly claimed the office will “reinforce the EU’s cooperation with the United States on digital diplomacy,” this office will be staffed not with experienced diplomats, but rather young Europeans who are “passionate about digital policies and tech regulation.” At the least, the office is serving its announced purpose of “promot[ing] EU standards and technologies, digital policies and regulations and governance models” on foreign soil. For example, less than two months after opening, the office hosted a “briefing” on the DMA. What is more, members of the EU’s San Francisco office are reportedly having policy meetings with lawmakers from liberal, regulation-happy states like California and Washington, because they recognize that the U.S. Congress does not support replicating Europe’s misguided policies.

But as the head of the EU San Francisco office, you may have let the cat out of the bag—as we say in the U.S.—before the office even opened. In July 2022, in response to the European Council’s announcement of the forthcoming San Francisco office, you explained that the EU’s “role is to try and facilitate the implementation and the compliance” with European regulations of U.S. companies, like the DMA and DSA.
Sen. Cruz is seeking information regarding the actions taken by the EU to implement its laws on U.S. soil, including an account of visits to the EU’s San Francisco office by representatives of government entities or companies based in the U.S., as well as communications between the office and Americans pertaining to the EU’s new laws.

The full text of the letter to the FTC is available HERE. The full text of the letter to the EU’s San Francisco office is available HERE.
 
Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
packyderms_wife said:
For some reason my give a **** about what bureaucrats in europe think seems to be broken. My grandfather would be rolling over in his grave he knew what a communist shit hole europe has become.
Click to expand...

It's more than Europe. It's any thing posted on the internet from anywhere in the world that shows up on a computer in Europe. Making this worldwide, being RUN out of Europe. When Musk took over twitter/x he stopped the intelligence agencies from running twitter. Outrage from disclosure stopped the intelligence agencies from running Facebook. No problem, now Europe will run them instead. No mess, no fuss, no US constitution to get in the way.


Heliobas Disciple said:
Initially, there will be 19 giant online platforms that will be forced to comply with this new law…
​
Ranging from social media platforms to online marketplaces and search engines, the list so far includes: Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Amazon, Booking, AliExpress, Zalando, Google Shopping, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Google and Apple’s mobile app stores, Google’s Search, and Microsoft’s Bing.​

But starting on February 24th, 2024, the Digital Services Act will start applying to a much broader spectrum of online platforms that have fewer than 45 million monthly users.
Click to expand...

These companies (AMERICAN COMPANIES) must comply with the law: FACEBOOK, TWITTER (X), YOU TUBE, LINKEDIN, AMAZON, GOOGLE SEARCH, WIKIPEDIA. In Feb 2024, the list expands.


Heliobas Disciple said:
What matters is that if online platforms do not comply with what they are being told to do, they will pay dearly…

Online platforms that don’t comply with the DSA’s rules could see fines of up to 6 percent of their global turnover. According to the EU Commission, the Digital Services Coordinator and the Commission will have the power to “require immediate actions where necessary to address very serious harms.” A platform continually refusing to comply could result in a temporary suspension in the EU.​

Big tech companies will be desperate to avoid such penalties, and so they will obey.
Click to expand...

IF THEY DON'T COMPLY, THEY PAY A FINE AND CAN BE KICKED OUT OF DOING BUSINESS IN COUNTRIES IN THE EU.

They will of course comply.

Heliobas Disciple said:
You might be tempted to think that you will be able to avoid all of this censorship because you do not live in Europe.

Unfortunately, that is simply not true.

If you post something that someone in Europe might see, your content comes under the jurisdiction of this horrifying new law.

So you need to brace yourself for a level of Internet censorship that none of us have ever seen before.
Click to expand...

The law applies to posts made in any country OUTSIDE the EU that show up on a computer INSIDE the EU - ie: the entire world.

Heliobas Disciple said:
And it turns out that the Federal Trade Commission actually sent officials to Europe in March to assist with the implementation of this new law on U.S. soil…

U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today sent letters to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan and the head of the European Union’s San Francisco office, demanding answers regarding the degree of coordination between the FTC and the EU to enforce the EU’s Digital Services Act (“DSA”) and Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) on U.S. soil. Both foreign laws were written to weaken American tech companies, particularly in Europe. There are no corollary federal laws to the DSA and DMA, making the FTC’s efforts to conspire with foreign regulators against U.S. businesses unprecedented.​
​
The FTC announced in March that it was sending agency officials to Brussels to assist the EU in implementing these laws, while the EU opened a San Francisco office to pressure U.S tech companies to comply with them.​
Click to expand...

THE USA is working in coordination with the EU to coordinate our internet companies' cooperation. They are allowing the EU to do the censorship our constitution prohibits them from doing themselves.

HD
​
 
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Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
Knoxville's Joker said:
all it will take is for a couple of big tech giants to say fine, we are pulling out, enjoy the vacuum.

But before that they have everything staged to have an immediate ship out of the relavent countries and backup protocols to smoke anything left.

This stuff only works if EVERYONE is onboard with it.

At this point Russia better win Ukraine to fix this...
Click to expand...

Ogre said:
All the big tech giants will be happy to comply.
Click to expand...

What he said...
 
Ractivist

Ractivist

Pride comes before the fall.....Pride month ended.
It's getting dicey folks... they know they must stop us from seeing the truth. The truth is only found on the net, hence they must stop us from using the net.
 
end game

end game

Veteran Member
pauldingbabe said:
Miranda....

Aiming at misbehaving?

:D
Click to expand...
In the movie the fruity oaty bar commercial had alliance code in it specifically to target one person namely River to action so that they could find her. So the European (alliance) weasels want to control and sensor the internet, huh.......

a-scanner-darkly.jpg

Wonder what author basically got the concept of all this nonsense right back in 1977?
 
Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
europeanconservative.com

The EU’s Orwellian Internet Censorship Regime

The technocratic crusade against so-called disinformation is in fact nakedly political and anti-democratic.
europeanconservative.com europeanconservative.com
(fair use applies)



The EU’s Orwellian Internet Censorship Regime
The technocratic crusade against so-called disinformation is in fact nakedly political and anti-democratic.
Laurie Wastell
August 24, 2023

The Internet is about to become a whole lot less free.

This Friday, August 25th, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which it passed last year, comes into force. Among many other things, the DSA obliges large online platforms to swiftly take down illegal content, hate speech, and so-called disinformation—aiming, in the words of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, to “ensure that the online environment remains a safe space.” Very large online platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45 million monthly active users must abide by the rules from Friday; smaller platforms have until February to comply. Designated by the Commission back in April, the 19 VLOPs include all the big names—Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube and Amazon—as well as smaller fries like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.

The EU stands ready with an aggressive enforcement regime. VLOPs will fund a permanent European Commission taskforce on disinformation of some 230 staff, paying an annual ‘supervisory fee’ of up to 0.05% of their revenue. The taskforce will ensure that VLOPs abide by the EU’s hitherto voluntary disinformation Code of Practice. VLOPs must also publish an annual risk assessment, due on Friday, and act “diligently” to remove unapproved content. And if VLOPs fail to comply with these dictates, they can be fined up to 6% of their annual global revenue. Or they can be subjected to an investigation by the Commission and potentially even be prevented from operating in the EU altogether.

In June, EU digital commissioner Thierry Breton, who has dubbed himself “the enforcer,” travelled to Silicon Valley to ram the point home. He met with Twitter/X owner Elon Musk to stress test its DSA compliance, as well as other tech bosses, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, smaller platforms are to be regulated by individual EU member states, who must establish national Digital Services Coordinators by February, as part of a “pan-European supervisory architecture.”

On top of this day-to-day censorship, the DSA also has a built in “crisis-management mechanism,” whereby in times of “extraordinary crisis,” the Commission can immediately oblige platforms to remove content. A “crisis” is defined as “an objective risk of serious prejudice to public security or public health in the Union or significant parts thereof.” Whether this standard has been met is determined not by an independent body, or even by the toothless European Parliament, but by the Commission itself.

So what kind of speech is the DSA expected to police? Last year’s Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation defines disinformation as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm.” The code has already been put to work during elections and to “respond to crises,” such as COVID and the war in Ukraine.

Such measures are often billed as innocent and apolitical, merely steering users away from mad talk of 5G towers causing COVID, or cancelling out deliberate foreign interference. But the reality is not so rosy. To see why, consider the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an EU-funded fact-checking hub which aims to “identify disinformation, uproot its sources or dilute its impact.” This downright sinister organisation, which naturally claims to be “independent” and “impartial,” is essentially the EU’s answer to Big Brother. Launched by the Commission in June 2020 with a budget of €13.5 million, it compiles reports on internet discourse across the EU. These include regular “fact-checking briefs,” “disinformation reports” for specific countries, and “early warnings” on predicted disinformation trends, the better to “prebunk” them. “Prebunking,” one EDMO presentation explains, is “the process of exposing lies … before they strike.”

The EDMO’s output demonstrates how cynically the spectre of ‘disinformation’ is deployed by such bureaucratic entities. Take its 2023 briefing on disinformation in Ireland. The EDMO, we learn, monitors 12 online platforms in the EU member state on a regular basis, both mainstream platforms like Twitter/X, WhatsApp, and YouTube, and their less restricted alternatives, like Gettr, Telegram, and Odysee. The briefing lists numerous “disinformation trends” it has observed in Ireland which are said to cause “harm.” These include:
  • “nativist narratives” which oppose migration, such as the hashtag “Ireland is full,” the slogan “make Ireland safe,” or prominent use of the Irish tricolour.
  • “Gender and sexuality narratives” about drag queens and trans issues—these being “part of a wider ‘anti-woke’ narrative that mocks social justice campaigns,” and
  • “environment narratives” like criticising climate-change policies and Greta Thunberg, which apparently “feed into wider anti-elite and ‘rural Ireland versus Dublin’ narratives.”
Clearly, what is common to such narratives is not that they represent ‘disinformation’—that is, “false information intended to mislead.” Rather, these are the expression of political opinions dissenting against the EU establishment. They represent opposition by the European public to unpopular policies favoured by European elites—in this case, mass migration, transgender ideology, and Net Zero eco-austerity. This startling document reveals how the technocratic crusade against so-called disinformation is in fact nakedly political and anti-democratic. What is labelled ‘disinformation’ is really just any political narrative that the globalist EU establishment dislikes (indeed, even the term “globalists” is branded as wrongthink).

Which brings us back to the DSA. Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetising certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favour or disfavour certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.

What’s more, European regulations themselves have a habit of going global, in a process known as the ‘Brussels Effect.’ For instance, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a digital privacy law implemented in 2018, has now become the global standard. Many countries have adopted equivalent legislation, including Japan, Brazil, and post-Brexit Britain, as well as multiple U.S. states and tech firms. That the same could now happen with the DSA should worry us all.

Though the scope of the DSA censorship regime is chilling, it is less a reflection of the EU’s power than its growing instability. The German economy, industrial powerhouse of Europe and central to the strength of the Euro, is nosediving amid sky-high energy costs, the only G7 economy expected to shrink this year. This has prompted the rise of the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland, now polling at 20 per cent and Germany’s second most popular party—and which the fragile German government coalition is considering banning. Meanwhile, insurgent populist parties across the bloc, from Sweden to Austria to the Netherlands, have made huge gains in recent elections by opposing green policies and migration. EU elites have also been mired in Qatargate, a sordid corruption scandal in which top EU officials stand accused of taking cash bribes from the Qatari government. So with next year’s European Parliament elections looming, the EU political class is rightly fretting about a coming populist surge—indeed, even the centre-right European People’s Party is moving further to the right.

The bold and shamelessly authoritarian DSA, then, is the product of an embattled and increasingly unpopular EU establishment. This may be welcome news to the EU’s critics. Nevertheless, it seems that the more the EU’s legitimacy erodes, the more brazenly it will cling to power.
 
Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


What the E.U.’s sweeping rules for Big Tech mean for your life online
The Digital Services Act has now taken effect, imposing new requirements on some of the tech industry’s biggest names
By Chris Velazco
August 30, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

New rules meant to safeguard people from illegal content, targeted ads, unwanted algorithmic feeds and disinformation online are finally in force, thanks to new regulation in the European Union that took effect this month.

That’s great for consumers in France, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg and the rest of Europe. But what about us here in the United States? What do these new rules mean for the way we will interact online?

Here’s what you should know.

What is the Digital Services Act?

Approved by the European Parliament in 2022, the Digital Services Act (DSA) is a regulation meant to keep consumers safe online as they interact with the platforms and marketplaces that make up the modern web.

How? By forcing the companies behind those platforms and marketplaces to be more transparent about how content or products are algorithmically recommended, and ensuring they “mitigate” the spread of disinformation, offer ways for users to flag “illegal” content and more.

But to some researchers, there’s one thing regular users should especially be aware of.

“The big picture I think internet users should care about is that it’s a law about how platforms moderate online speech, and it puts a whole lot of new procedural protections in place for users when platforms remove or demote their posts,” said Daphne Keller, director of the platform regulation program at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.

Also part of the DSA rules: Companies affected have to commission an independent audit to check for compliance once a year. Should any of them fail to live up to the DSA’s many requirements, they could be made to shell out fines equivalent to 6 percent of their global revenue.


Who has to comply with it?

For now, mostly “very large online platforms” with more than 45 million users in the European Union.

The full list of platforms and search engines required to comply with the DSA includes 19 names, many of which are usual suspects: Amazon, Apple’s App Store, Bing, Google Search, LinkedIn, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)

But also on the list are more regional names like Zalando, an online retailer based in Berlin that filed a legal action against the European Commission earlier this summer contesting the “very large online platform” label.

Either way, those names are just the start.

Smaller companies — including “intermediaries” like internet access providers and web-hosting services — will have to abide by the DSA, too, but they have a shorter list of requirements to contend with and more time to meet them.


What do users in Europe get from all of this?

For one, they will get access to features and settings that — at least for now — are nowhere to be found in the United States.

Consider your social media experience: Companies such as Meta and TikTok have started to offer European users the option of a non-customized feed, rather than one based on what the platform thinks you want to see.

“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, wrote last week. “They will also be able to view search results based only on the words they enter.”

They will also get additional tools across different platforms for reporting fraudulent items for sale online, as well as to flag “illegal” content.

In some cases, what’s more important is what consumers in Europe won’t get. Snapchat and TikTok users under the age of 18, for example, will no longer receive personalized advertisements inside the apps.


What does this mean for you?

If you live in the United States, probably not much — at first, anyway. This legislation is, after all, designed to benefit consumers across the pond.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be trickle-down effects.

Many of the companies affected are based in the United States, and among the many provisions of the DSA are rules mandating heightened transparency from the companies that shape the way we use the web. Between annual external audits and a mandate to grant vetted researchers access to platform data, Keller said there are quite a few methods to “get previously secret information out into public hands or the hands of regulators.”

“I think that will affect the whole world,” she added. “We’ll all just understand more about what’s going on, and lawmakers will be able to make better choices, and plaintiffs will be able to bring better claims.”

It’s also possible that companies that have developed specific tools and features to comply with the DSA in Europe could make them available elsewhere. That’s not as outlandish as it sounds: When working to make its products and services compliant with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Microsoft decided to also extend those protections and tools to all of its customers.

“The key is that the DSA may well change the expectations of U.S. users and regulators,” said Anu Bradford, co-director of the European Legal Studies Center at Columbia University Law School. “That may force U.S. tech companies — in the medium to long term — to extend the new protections they offer in the E.U. also to U.S. users.”

More than that, though, researchers think the DSA could help back up U.S. lawmakers as they attempt to impose tighter controls on Big Tech firms domestically.

“The E.U. law also offers a clear template for Congress and advocates for regulation: Tech companies can be regulated and are being regulated elsewhere,” Bradford said.

Whether lawmakers will put aside partisan differences to follow that template is another story.

“Democrats want platforms to take down more speech, and Republicans want them to take down less speech,” Keller said. But even though lawmakers on both sides of the aisle “can’t agree on what they want,” Keller said she believes the DSA could offer them ways to find common ground.

“The DSA isn’t about restricting new speech; it leaves the exact same legal rules and platform rules that were there all along,” she said. “It’s just about creating transparency and appeals and processes so the rules get enforced fairly and consistently. So if they wanted something to find common ground on, they could emulate these user procedural rights.”
 
Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)


Europe takes its fight against Big Tech to CEOs’ turf: San Francisco
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton will “stress test” Elon Musk’s Twitter and meet with top CEOs about AI, as Europe’s influence on tech regulation expands
By Cat Zakrzewski
Updated June 22, 2023 at 11:38 p.m. EDT | Published June 22, 2023 at 9:06 a.m. EDT


SAN FRANCISCO — Shortly after buying Twitter, Elon Musk fired the company’s top trust and safety executive and posted a late-night proclamation to his more than 100 million followers: “The bird is freed.”

Within hours, a powerful European Union commissioner responded with a warning to the billionaire about his free-wheeling plans for the site.

“In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules,” tweeted Thierry Breton, including the hashtag #DSA — a reference to the bloc’s landmark social media law, which will soon carry potential fines for tech companies like Twitter.

Almost nine months later, Breton is making good on that promise. On Thursday, he traveled to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters to conduct a “stress test” to analyze how the company responds to tweets that European regulators deem problematic. Breton said he had a “very good” meeting with Musk and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, and that he observed a strong willingness for Twitter to comply with the DSA. But he noted that the test showed the company still has work to do before the E.U. begins enforcing the law in late August.

“Technology has been ‘stress testing’ our society,” said Breton during a speech Thursday evening. “It is now time to turn the tables.”

Breton’s trip to the West Coast reflects the rapid expansion of the European Union’s influence. As Congress has dithered for years in its attempts to regulate Big Tech, the European Union is advancing a robust artificial intelligence bill and preparing to enforce the DSA and the Digital Markets Act, a pair of laws that could have far-reaching consequences for the future of the internet.

These breakthrough efforts are forcing American tech titans like Musk to train their attention on Europe — and to cater to officials like Breton.

Twitter voluntarily participated in the test, which was conducted at its headquarters by a team of about ten E.U. technologists. Breton did not publicly release the results of the test, and his spokesman Terence Zakka told reporters that Twitter could decide whether to publicize them.

The European Union will soon have the most expansive tool kit of any Western government to check some of American tech titans’ alleged abuses. The bloc has opened an office in downtown San Francisco, signaling their focus on West Coast companies. Despite this flurry of activity, Brussels has a checkered history of enforcement, and it’s unclear if they have the resources or speed to oversee some of the world’s most powerful companies.

The E.U.'s General Data Protection Regulation, a provision hailed by some privacy advocates as an international benchmark for protecting citizens’ data from surveillance, celebrated its five-year anniversary last month. But in practice, cases under GDPR often move slowly and are resource intensive, relying on data regulators in individual European countries. Some companies argue the rules result in burdensome and expensive compliance practices.

Now the European Union’s reputation as Silicon Valley’s top cop faces a new test, as enforcement of both the DSA and DMA are scheduled to begin by the end of this summer, while European officials expect to reach a deal on AI legislation by the end of the year.

Europe’s focus on business practices of American tech titans is evident in the agenda for Breton’s trip. The morning after the stress test, he will host a launch event for the European Union’s San Francisco office, a physical foothold for regulators in the tech industry’s backyard. He’ll also meet with a host of tech executives shaping the future of AI, including Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, chip maker Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. During those meetings, he plans to discuss a new “AI Pact,” a voluntary pledge to ensure the responsible development of AI until the AI Act takes effect. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai agreed to take the pledge recently, Breton said.

The European Union’s activity stands in stark contrast to the United States, where efforts to pass new laws governing tech platforms have often fallen behind other priorities, amid intense corporate lobbying campaigns and at-times partisan political fights.

This week, President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted to signal a different posture. Biden traveled to Silicon Valley, where he huddled on Tuesday with prominent consumer advocates and researchers to discuss the risks associated with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. The next day, Schumer gave a speech across the country at a think tank in Washington, where he outlined how he plans to lead Congress’s response to the “AI revolution.”

“In many ways, we’re starting from scratch,” said Schumer. “But I believe Congress is up to the challenge.”

As Washington debates how to mount its response, Europe has entered a new regulatory phase. Already the tech rules on the books are shaping the business practices of companies’ AI products. Google has had to delay its launch of chatbot Bard in Europe amid requests from the Irish data regulator, and Italy temporarily banned ChatGPT from operating due to concerns it violated GDPR.

The bloc is simultaneously speeding ahead on rules that will govern transparency of popular tech products and digital competition rules, which will have immediate implications for social networks, app stores and online marketplaces, and over time could impact chatbots and other AI-powered products.

Last year, the E.U. Commission opened an office in San Francisco, nestled in the downtown Irish consulate, to serve effectively as an embassy among the world’s most powerful companies. The office launches this week, but its work began when its leader Gerard de Graaf first moved to San Francisco last year.

Since moving to California, de Graaf has donned a virtual reality headset to explore the Metaverse while visiting Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters and met with California lawmakers to discuss how they could craft state laws that mirror the legislation in Europe. He frequently meets with company executives to ensure that they’re prepared for the coming impact of the DSA and the DMA.

“A lot of the experiences and digital transformations that we’re going through have their origins here on the West Coast of the United States,” said de Graaf, who wore a blazer in famously casual San Francisco, but assimilates by pairing his formal attire with sneakers. “There is a lot we can learn.”

Companies can face fines of up to 6 percent of their global revenue if they are found to be violating the rules. Repeated violators can be banned from operating in Europe.

The law has special requirements for “very large platforms,” services such as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube that are used by more than 45 million monthly active users in Europe, requiring they conduct annual risk assessments about illegal content on their sites and submit to independent audits.

The DSA, like other European tech laws, is being closely watched by American policymakers interested in regulating social media companies.

Biden administration officials and their E.U. counterparts hold regular meetings to ensure they’re aligned on tech policy issues, through a Trade and Technology Council established in 2021. Yet much of the DSA would be challenging to enact in the United States, where the First Amendment ensures broad speech protections and conservative politicians regularly express worries about censorship of social media.

Twitter is the only company that will undergo a stress test on this trip. Breton announced in his speech Thursday that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, would also participate in a test later this summer.

E.U. technologists began the test of Twitter on Wednesday, pressing Twitter’s staff on how it would handle tweets or explain viral elements that would be unlawful under E.U. law, Zakka said. They measured how long it would take the company to respond to violative tweets.

The E.U. technologists evaluated the results of company’s tool Community Notes, which is part of Musk’s strategy to address falsehoods on the platform, Zakka said. The tool is not yet available in all the languages of E.U. member countries, and the technologists discussed the company’s plan to roll those languages out. They also had technical discussions about how it would develop tools for people to flag illegal content on Twitter, as well as appeal decisions the company makes, in order to be in compliance with the E.U. law.

Musk agreed to participate following a November meeting with Breton, where he also promised to comply with the DSA.

Since then, Musk has continued to slash Twitter’s staff, cutting critical content moderation personnel and unwinding years-long programs intended to promote platform transparency and safety. Key staffers, including the company’s trust and safety chief Ella Irwin, departed the company this month. The company has begun charging $500,000 annually for access to its API, which has hampered war crimes and disinformation research, experts say. The practices appear to conflict with the goals of the DSA, which aims to expand researcher access to social media companies’ often opaque systems.

Late last month, the company withdrew from the voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation, a set of standards to fight misinformation and disinformation followed by more than 20 companies.

“You can run but you can’t hide,” Breton wrote in a May tweet, warning that fighting disinformation would become a legal requirement as of Aug. 25. “Our teams will be ready for enforcement.”
 
Heliobas Disciple

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TB Fanatic

Commissioner Breton Officially Opens EU Office in San Francisco | EEAS

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton cut the ribbon to commemorate the official launch of the European Union’s San Francisco office on Thursday, June 22.
www.eeas.europa.eu www.eeas.europa.eu
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EMPHASIS MINE


Commissioner Breton Officially Opens EU Office in San Francisco
Administration Team of the EU Delegation to the United States
28.06.2023

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton cut the ribbon to commemorate the official launch of the European Union’s San Francisco office on Thursday, June 22, alongside Lieutenant Governor of California Eleni Kounalakis, California State Senator Scott Wiener, and Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs Adrian Vazquez.

“I am very glad to be here today in Silicon Valley, a global centre for digital technology and innovation, to officially inaugurate the new European Union office in San Francisco,” Commissioner Breton said in his keynote address to an audience of business and technology sector leaders. “As like-minded partners who strive for reciprocity and common principles, all while respecting our respective democratic processes, our transatlantic ties are more relevant than ever in the area of technology.”

European Union Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidis also underscored the close ties between Europe and the San Francisco region.

“Europe and the Bay Area may seem far, but our values, objectives, and challenges are very similar,” Ambassador Lambrinidis said in speech via videoconference from Washington, D.C. “And in the city of San Francisco, we couldn’t pick a better metaphor for our mission. We are here to build bridges. Having a presence in San Francisco allows the EU to be close to the action in Silicon Valley – the global nerve center of so much digital technology and innovation. But also to be close to California – the state policy nerve center when it comes to privacy and everything else digital.”

The EU office in San Francisco seeks to promote EU standards and technologies, digital policies and regulations and governance models, and to strengthen cooperation with US stakeholders, including by advancing the work of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.

The opening of the office is a result of the 2021 EU-U.S. Summit shared commitment to strengthen transatlantic technological cooperation and is a core part of the Conclusions on Digital Diplomacy, adopted by EU Foreign Affairs Council in July of 2022.
 
Heliobas Disciple

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
Follow up from same source as the OP:


theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here

Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level. On August 25th, a new law known as
theeconomiccollapseblog.com
(fair use applies)


Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here
by Michael Snyder
August 31, 2023

Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level. On August 25th, a new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union. Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be “illegal”, “disinformation” or “hate speech”. That includes content that is posted by users outside of the European Union, because someone that lives in the European Union might see it. I wrote about this a few days ago, but I don’t think that people are really understanding the implications of this new law. In the past, there have been times when governments have requested that big tech companies take down certain material, but now this new law will give government officials the power to force big tech companies to take down any content that they do not like. Any big tech companies that choose not to comply will be hit with extremely harsh penalties.

Of course mainstream news outlets such as the Washington Post are attempting to put a positive spin on this new law. We are being told that it will “safeguard” us from “illegal content” and “disinformation”…

New rules meant to safeguard people from illegal content, targeted ads, unwanted algorithmic feeds and disinformation online are finally in force, thanks to new regulation in the European Union that took effect this month.​

Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

When this new law was first approved, NPR admitted that it will enable European governments to “take down a wide range of content”…

Under the EU law, governments would be able to ask companies take down a wide range of content that would be deemed illegal, including material that promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams.​

In addition to “illegal content” and “hate speech”, the Digital Services Act also applies to “hoaxes” and any material that is considered to be “disinformation”. The following comes from the official website of the European Commission…

At the same time, the DSA regulates very large online platforms’ and very large online search engines responsibilities when it comes to systemic issues such as disinformation, hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics, harms to vulnerable groups and other emerging societal harms.​

These new content rules are so vague that they could apply to just about anything.

And that is precisely what they want.

From this point forward, if you post something that they do not like, they will have the power to have it taken down.

Even if you don’t live in the European Union, they can have your content taken down, because someone in the European Union might see it.

So who will be doing the censoring?

Well, it is being reported that “hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it”…

Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetising certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favour or disfavour certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.​

In addition, the official website of the European Commission is telling us that big tech companies must “react with priority” to any content that has been reported by “trusted flaggers”…

A priority channel will be created for trusted flaggers – entities which have demonstrated particular expertise and competence – to report illegal content to which platforms will have to react with priority.​

This means that far left organizations that have been set up to police content online will now be given extraordinary power to restrict speech on the Internet.

Needless to say, the Internet is never going to be the same after this.

Initially, this new law will apply to 19 very large online platforms…

The online platforms affected are Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X (listed as Twitter), Wikipedia, YouTube, the European clothing retailer Zalando, Bing and Google Search.​

If any of those large online platforms choose not to comply with the new law, the penalties could be extremely severe…

A firm that does not comply with the law could face a complete ban in Europe or fines running up to 6% of its global revenue.​
​
Last month, X/Twitter said it was on track to generate $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue. A fine of 6% would be the equivalent of £144m.​

Once we get to February 24th, 2024, the Digital Services Act will also apply to a vast multitude of smaller platforms.

At that point, it will be very difficult to escape the reach of this new law.

And just to make sure that they can keep a very close eye on things, the EU just established a brand new office in San Francisco on June 22nd…

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton cut the ribbon to commemorate the official launch of the European Union’s San Francisco office on Thursday, June 22, alongside Lieutenant Governor of California Eleni Kounalakis, California State Senator Scott Wiener, and Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs Adrian Vazquez.​

“I am very glad to be here today in Silicon Valley, a global centre for digital technology and innovation, to officially inaugurate the new European Union office in San Francisco,” Commissioner Breton said in his keynote address to an audience of business and technology sector leaders. “As like-minded partners who strive for reciprocity and common principles, all while respecting our respective democratic processes, our transatlantic ties are more relevant than ever in the area of technology.”​

For many years, the Internet was one of the last bastions for free speech.

But now everything has changed.

From this point forward, far left European bureaucrats will get to determine what is acceptable and what is not acceptable on our large online platforms.

Direct government censorship of the Internet is here, and that is going to make it much more difficult to share the truth with a world that desperately needs it.

These are such dark times, and they are getting darker with each passing day.
 
P

Publius

TB Fanatic
Its been said most of the servers are here in the United States so how can a law passed anywhere in Europe affect anyone thats operating a internet server here in the United States as they will not have to comply with the demands of a corrupt political system in Europe.
 
Zagdid

Zagdid

Veteran Member
This sickness will become the cure. My browser is so much less interesting these days and the search engines are nothing but paid advertising. Funny that they still refer to their product as 'results'. A bunch of 6th grade mentalities and last place trophy recipients are crafting my home page. Alas, it was good while it lasted.
 
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