Ed: We’ve already mentioned on UKIP Daily (see here, and read the pertinent letter) that we, the editors of UKIP-affiliated news sites – Darrell Goodliffe and Reece Coombes of Kipper Central, Jordan James of Politicalite, Luke Nash-Jones of MBGA News and myself for UKIP Daily – are going to kickstart a campaign on this EU Directive which will indeed kill the internet as we know it stone dead. Just as with the GDPR directive which had us all scramble to fulfil an unnecessary directive aimed at Big Tech firms but of course applicable to us all, so will this new Directive make all of us scramble – only this time, it will indeed be us, the little people, who will be closed down because we are, in the view of our ‘betters’, purveyors of ‘fake news’ whenever we point out their lies. From blog sites to youtube videos, from official twitter accounts to facebook pages: we’ll be deprived of our right to Free Speech – in the guise of ‘only protecting copyright and fair use. That’s the future – and our benighted Government, which in spite of Brexit has already assured Brussels that even after we leave we will comply with their GDPR Directive, is bound to cave in and follow Brussels Diktat.

We cannot, will not let this happen – so in the coming days and weeks you’ll find more articles on this, more videos, and we’re working on sample letters which can be sent to MEPs and MPs. UKIP is the Party standing for Free Speech – this is our fight. Moreover – this fight shows yet again that our fight for Brexit is not, cannot be over. If our government strives to keep us under the Brussels boots, then we all can say good-bye to the most important right without which there can be no democracy, the Right of Freedom of Speech.

Here is Luke Nash-Jones firing the starting shot with his article which was first published in MBGA News and which we re-publish with his kind permission:

EU KILLS the Internet: Memes are BANNED

For centuries, we just had newspapers owned by rich businesses. Then the BBC owned by the government. Just like in the movie the Matrix, they controlled what we see and think. Then along came the Internet! An open forum, where people can share what they think. Memes (see here for the internet-relevant explanation). Rightwing articles. Blogging. Videos. Brexit vote. Trump wins. Now the globalists are striking back!

EU’s Legislative Committee voted to adopt two controversial new rules – known as Article 11 and Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive – kill the Internet as we know it.

Until now, the so-called E-Commerce Directive has given online platforms broad protection from being subject to copyright penalties when they simply acted as a conduit for user uploads. So if you upload something that is copyrighted, like if you take an image off Google and stick it on Facebook, it’s not their fault. Now, they will be liable. Hence automated systems will delete anything that is copyrighted.

As we see all the time, algorithms by the richest companies in the world are terrible at doing their jobs. This week, we saw YouTube blocking educational videos from MIT and the Blender Foundation because they were erroneously flagged by its piracy filters. In the past, we’ve seen bullshit piracy claims over white noise and birds chirping.

Why are they doing this? Aside from the potential of individual countries in the EU to decide what is and isn’t news, copyright claims could be used to suppress material for political purposes. If they don’t like a story, it’s no issue to submit a bogus copyright claim.

Users will find that their contributions—including video, audio, text, and even source code—will be monitored and potentially blocked if the automated system detects what it believes to be a copyright infringement. This is going to kill web development! Engineers usually take others’ code and improve on it. That’s how we advance as a society! Innovation!

There is no way for an automated system to reliably determine when the use of a copyright work falls within a copyright limitation or exception under European law, such as quotation or parody.

For example, the “take my money” meme uses an image of Fry from Futurama. He is the copyright of artist Matt Groening. This is legal because it is parody, but no filter will realise. Any “take my money” memes will be deleted. This is mental!

No “fair use” clause means you’ll have to go shoot your own photo to caption and make it clear that anyone is allowed to further caption it in the pursuit of creating a meme.

Internet big guys are objecting. Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Mitchell Baker (Mozilla), Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive) and Tim Berners-Lee (the whole freakin’ WW flippin’ W):

“By requiring Internet platforms to perform automatic filtering all of the content that their users upload, Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet, from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.”

The EU is trying to force many more companies to deputise a bunch of sleuths, human and algorithmic, expand this shadow surveillance state that monitors everything we post on these platforms.

It’s thought that many sites will move outside the EU to comply. RedPill Factory is considering relocating our servers to some cave deep in the Siberian mountains!

Article 11 has been variously called the link tax or the snippet tax. Basically, you will have to pay to link to another website. Yes, to share a news article from another website. That thing you do every day on Facebook!

This is being done to stop major alternative forces such as Politicalite, The Red Pill Factory/MBGA News, Kipper Central and UKIP Daily from sharing true news, because we are all meant to be quiet and swallow whatever sh*t the BBC pumps out!

 

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