EU wants IA to take down entire Project Gutenberg archive

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

What does that say about the people who elect these politicians???

Exactly what you imply it does. Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? It's here...

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Politician - n: an intellectually sterile cross between the morals of Peg Bundy and the intellect of Homer Simpson. . .

I think that Thai's have it right. A politician will become a human being, after they have re-incarated another million times.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by hollowpoint

What's not clear is WHY the French classified the content in question as 'terrorist.' Some examples are linked on the IA blog.

This fits the trend of trying to regulate the Internet. The Chinese have done it for years but way more extreme. The EU has already been doing it. The UK just got on board with their 'Duty of Care' regulation. They claim it's for public safety and cite easy examples of terrorist and illegal activity that nobody will disagree with. But you can already prosecute those illegal things under existing laws. The powers that the EU and UK are giving themselves to regulate online content, are almost unlimited. They won't start out that way, but in the future almost anything they want can be defined as unsafe. This kind of national-level censorship risks fragmenting the Internet into the 'splinternet.'

In the last six months, the People's Republic of China has passed laws that are much more restrictive on freedom of expression, than anything in the history of the Middle Kingdom, and its successor administrations.

[SteveEisenberg]

I do not believe the title of this thread. I wouldn't even believe it if it read "France" instead of EU. The takedown notice sounds like a programming mistake.

I realize some people think it's a symptom of something that isn't a mistake.

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

In the last six months, the People's Republic of China has passed laws that are much more restrictive on freedom of expression, than anything in the history of the Middle Kingdom, and its successor administrations.

This is reminiscent of something Mao said, although he saw unusually strong restrictions on freedom to read as a good thing:

In fact in 1958, Mao himself made the connection between himself and [ancient emperor] Qin Shi Huang.

"He buried 460 scholars alive - we have buried 46,000 scholars alive," he said in a speech to party cadres. "You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold."

True, Mao didn't claim to know the intellectual freedom record of each of the other 500+ Chinese emperors.

As I guess this post shows, I am a bit of skeptic.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I do not believe the title of this thread. I wouldn't even believe it if it read "France" instead of EU. The takedown notice sounds like a programming mistake.

The total silence from all sides after the initial flurry is a bit deafening and the lack of pickup by the mainstream media is a bit odd. But governments should be more cautious about unleashing systems that make such serious threats, and deserve every bit of ridicule they get when they don't.

[hollowpoint]

Yeah it would help to get an update on the status of this issue in official news media.

I do think this really happened, and that the the EU's new Terrorist Content Regulation and Copyright Directive, are the regulations that motivated the French to do this. Some links to news or commentary from established media outlets below; they think it's real. Several of these directly link the French action to the EU regulations. As some of the articles note, we can expect this will turn out to have been a mistake generated by faulty algorithms in filtering software. If we're fortunate, the French are quietly correcting their mistake behind the scenes. But the fact something like this happens, demonstrates the threat to the open web that's inherent in these new regulations.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47908220
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/0...rist_takedown/
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/11/1...et-archive-org
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle.../#62fe3da8aacb

[j.p.s]

Thanks.

The BBC article references a May 2018 BBC article that at least shows the basis, but the ham-handed implementation absolutely deserves the Clouseau reference in the Register article.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by hollowpoint

What's not clear is WHY the French classified the content in question as 'terrorist.' Some examples are linked on the IA blog.

There was this second rate artist, who wrote a book called My Fight, and its sequel The Second Book. The French are taking the lessons of that latter book to heart, and that is why the IA material is considered to be terrorist in nature.

[heyman]

good news!