[BeefWellington]

No. You have misunderstood.

For starters, it'd be hard to argue that RT is "operating" within the EU if the only way to access their content was via TOR. It's not; you can still just view their website as far as my colleagues are telling me.

The thing that's being denied here is their ability to operating business and broadcast - already a very highly regulated thing in most (all?) countries, within EU borders. In practical terms this means having to access RT servers probably outside of the EU, broadcast signals can't be sent within it for that channel, etc.

The internet is not broadcasting.

Were this intended to stop people from viewing it online as well, it would specifically call out RT as Illegal content in some way, so as to invoke one of the possible reasons to actually block their website.[1]

   EU rules on open internet give you the right as a user to access and/or distribute any online content and services you choose. Your internet provider cannot block, slow down or discriminate against any online content, applications or services, except in 3 specific cases:

   - to comply with legal obligations, such as a court order blocking specific illegal content
   - to preserve the security and integrity of the network, for example to combat viruses or malware
   - to manage exceptional or temporary network congestion

Relevant bit is in [2] (13); I couldn't find the more up-to-date post-review regulation.

[1]: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/internet-tel...

[2]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

[shkkmo]

You seem overly focused on the term "broadcast" while the text of the law seems to pretty explicitly include any means of distribution, including video hosting sites, video watching apps (including P2P?) And ISPs:

> transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.

Since this is a legal obligation, I fail so see how EU protections against ISP censorship would apply. The "court order blocking illegal content" is an example, not an exhaustive list of the ways a legal obligation to censorship could pertain.

[BeefWellington]

I specifically wasn't solely focused on that, in fact that's pretty clear from what you're responding to regarding ISPs and freedom of access.

    > transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.

    Since this is a legal obligation, I fail so see how EU protections against ISP censorship would apply.

It really hinges on whether you believe the law is saying "transmission or distribution" here means that you cannot under any circumstances allow a user to access the content. This language is specific and I don't believe has ever been used in the EU to mean that.

My read on this is that this is designed to prevent situations where ISP, cable, satellite, et. al. providers have more direct involvement in its transmission or distribution. Consider cases where companies offer a streaming service that sometimes includes news channels (e.g.: Netflix), or ISPs that offer their own streaming services doing the same. In those cases, those companies are taking an active role in deploying the content, so they would fall under the umbrella of transmitting or distributing it.

     The "court order blocking illegal content" is an example, not an exhaustive list of the ways a legal obligation to censorship could pertain. 

This is why I linked the regulatory article itself.

This is also in the context of a blog post wondering if TOR is now illegal because of this. Would that make VPNs illegal as well? How would the EU even consider shutting down VPN service providers in other countries?

I will gladly stand corrected on this if I'm wrong and the ultimate result here is that RT becomes inaccessible to the EU based on this law.

However, it will not affect TOR any more than it would affect VPN providers, anyone offering VPS services, etc.

[shkkmo]

You didn't use the term "distribution" in your original comment and included phrases like "The internet is not broadcasting." that made it seem like you were portraying that as a critical distinction.

> However, it will not affect TOR any more than it would affect VPN providers, anyone offering VPS services, etc.

I agree it is almost certainly true that TOR and VPN usage won't be banned, if simply for practical reasons. It seems somewhat more likely that VPNs that are subject to EU jurisdiction will be requited to block RT as well given the language about "activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent prohibitions in this Regulation".

However, I am not very convinced that this won't including ISPs blocking access to RT and possibly sites that host RT videos. It's possible that this is just to force YouTube, et al, to block this content in the EU, but leaving RT itself easily accessible seems to defeat the goals of this legislation so I am a bit skeptical here.