Today, article 13 got accepted. In case you don’t know what it is about, it’s a reform to help the internet with its obvious copy right problem. They want to achieve that by using upload filters, so people can’t steal others content. Although I didn’t want to talk about it in the first place, I feel like I should ramble about stuff once again.
The main idea behind this reform is to protect content creators from getting their content stolen. But we all know that this argument isn’t entirely true. You can’t exactly steal something on the internet when you don’t sell the content. Is me using a picture from google pictures on another platform considered stealing? It sure does when I try to get money off it. But this isn’t the case most of the time. Most people just use things they find on the internet for enjoyment without even trying to get money by doing so. The problem consists that we don’t exactly know what “theft” on the internet means.
One thing which really upsets me is how the EU went through with this plan. First of all, censoring stuff on the internet isn’t easy. There is so much data that gets uploaded every second and you can’t decide if something is indeed “stolen” or original content just like that. Even upload filters will face a huge problem by trying to detect “theft”. Secondly, the EU obviously had no idea how the internet works. This isn’t some sort of company or a small society. The internet is such a huge place, and we even don’t know most of it. Aside from the normal web, there exist things like the dark web which isn’t bound to any kind of rules. You can’t control the internet, no matter what you do. But the thing I hate the most is how the EU faced critique. When people started to criticize article 13, they just ignored it. Although this is supposed to be a democracy, the EU went through with it just like that. I even saw petitions against article 13, but the EU simply doesn’t care.
Will there be a huge change from now? Not really. I mean, they can try to use those upload filters, but they will run into two giant problems. The upload filters won’t work like they intended and if the censorship gets to strong, people will not only fight back against the EU, but they will also find a way around it. The chance that article 13 will destroy the internet is just too low. Maybe there will be smaller chance, but no reform will stop the internet just like that.
As always, thanks for reading!
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