{"id":38523,"date":"2018-10-01T05:34:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T10:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38523"},"modified":"2018-10-01T05:34:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T10:34:58","slug":"eu-politicizing-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38523","title":{"rendered":"EU: Politicizing the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"print_content\">\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/13042\/eu-internet-censorship\">EU: Politicizing the Internet<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"print_content_3\">\n<div>\n<ul class=\"content_preface_bullets\">\n<li>Even before such EU-wide legislation, similar ostensible &#8220;anti-terror legislation&#8221; in France, for example, is being used as a political tool against political opponents and to limit unwanted free speech.<\/li>\n<li>In France, simply spreading information about ISIS atrocities is now considered &#8220;incitement to terrorism&#8221;. It is this kind of legislation, it seems, that the European Commission now wishes to impose on all of the European Union.<\/li>\n<li>Social media giants &#8212; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Google+ and Instagram &#8212; act as voluntary censors on behalf of the European Union.<\/li>\n<li>The European Commission states that it is specifically interested in funding projects that focus on the &#8220;development of technology and innovative web tools preventing and countering illegal hate speech online and supporting data collection&#8221;, and studies that analyze &#8220;the spread of racist and xenophobic hate speech in different Member States&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article_body itemprop_articlebody\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/pics\/3535.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/>The European Union seems fixated, at least for the internet, on killing free speech. And social media giants &#8212; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Google+ and Instagram &#8212; act as voluntary censors on behalf of the EU. (Image source: iStock)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In March, the European Commission &#8212; the unelected executive branch of the European Union &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/commissioners\/2014-2019\/king\/announcements\/commissioner-kings-remarks-press-conference-draft-commission-recommendation-measures-effectively_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> social media companies to remove illegal online terrorist content within an hour &#8212; or risk facing EU-wide legislation on the topic. This ultimatum was part of a <a href=\"http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/newsroom\/dae\/document.cfm?doc_id=50096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new set of recommendations<\/a> that applies to all forms of supposedly &#8220;illegal content&#8221; online. This content ranges &#8220;from terrorist content, incitement to hatred and violence, child sexual abuse material, counterfeit products and copyright infringement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While the one-hour ultimatum was ostensibly only about terrorist content, the following is how the European Commission <a href=\"http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/newsroom\/dae\/document.cfm?doc_id=50096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">presented<\/a> the new recommendations at the time:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230; The Commission has taken a number of actions to protect Europeans online \u2013 be it from terrorist content, illegal hate speech or fake news&#8230; we are continuously looking into ways we can improve our fight against illegal content online.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EU: Politicizing the Internet Even before such EU-wide legislation, similar ostensible &#8220;anti-terror legislation&#8221; in France, for example, is being used as a political tool against political opponents and to limit unwanted free speech. In France, simply spreading information about ISIS atrocities is now considered &#8220;incitement to terrorism&#8221;. It is this kind of legislation, it seems, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120,279,2535,284,13721,1339,14997,1169],"class_list":["post-38523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-censorship","tag-eu","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-gatestone-institute","tag-internet","tag-judith-bergman","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38524,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38523\/revisions\/38524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}