Internet Pioneers Warn New EU Rules Would Turn Web Into "Tool for Automated Surveillance and Control"

The European Union (EU) on Wednesday took a step toward enacting new internet copyright rules that experts warn pose “an imminent threat to the future of this global network” and threaten to create a “censorship machine.”

The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) passed the Copyright Directive, which could now move to negotiations with EU member states ahead of a full vote by the European Parliament. Internet pioneers and digital rights activists are raising alarms about two aspects of the legislation, as The Verge explains:

Article 11, also called the snippet tax, isn’t expected to significantly affect major corporations such as Google, which can afford such licenses, but the impacts of the provision will likely be felt by smallers organizations. Additionally, critics say its language is too vague—as Gizmodo notes, “Article 11 doesn’t bother to even define what constitutes a link”—which could enable governments to censor content for politically-motivated reasons.

Article 13 would replace the Ecommerce Directive, which generally protects online platforms from copyright penalties so long as the content was upoaded by a user. Web exerpts say running all content through a copyright filter before it is uploaded would be immensely burdonsome and expensive, especially for smaller platforms.

In terms of the directive’s sweeping consequences, as Gizmodo put it, “Memes, news, Wikipedia, art, privacy, and the creative side of fandom are all at risk of being destroyed or kneecapped.”