The World Should Be Up in Arms About the EU's Looming Internet Catastrophe
We have just days until the European Parliament debates and votes on the new Copyright Directive, with its dangerous censorship machine and link tax measures.
Under the censorship machine proposal, Article 13, websites with user-generated content would have to automatically filter out anything that rightsholders designate – giving rise to the wrongful blocking, false assertions of copyright, and disregard for free speech that we’ve seen with censorship machines elsewhere.
The link tax, Article 11, would stop you from from linking to news articles on sites that generate previews unless you're on a site that's negotiated a license with the publisher you're linking to. The proposal aims to shrink protections for quotation that help readers decide whether to visit the linked site.
Together, these extreme, unworkable proposals represent a grave danger to the Internet, and they won't just affect Europeans.
If you’re in the EU, get in touch with your MEP by visiting Save Your Internet, and help us stop Article 11 and Article 13 from wrecking the Internet for everyone.
Everyone else: Share this with your European friends and family and let them know that this is a red alert. We have just days until the vote.
Together, we stopped the MEPs from fast-tracking the link tax and censorship machine proposals over the summer. Now, it's time to convince them to reject these measures entirely.