[Humorist2290]

  (6) Online child sexual abuse frequently involves the misuse of information society services offered in the Union by providers established in third countries. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the rules laid down in this Regulation and a level playing field within the internal market, those rules should apply to all providers, irrespective of their place of establishment or residence, that offer services in the Union, as evidenced by a substantial connection to the Union.

The article links to the text of the revised proposal. It reads like they're openly planning to push it again, and soon, and worldwide. The UK and EU seem to be setting aside their differences at least.

[btown]

From https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/council-presidency-lewp-csa-r... pp 35:

(f) ‘relevant information society services’ means all of the following services: (i) a hosting service; (ii) an interpersonal communications service; (iii) a software applications store; (iv) an internet access service; (v) online search engines.

And via https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE... pp 8:

(2) ‘internet access service’ means a publicly available electronic communications service that provides access to the internet, and thereby connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet, irrespective of the network technology and terminal equipment used

===

Calling it Chat Control is itself an understatement, one that evokes "well I'm not putting anything sensitive on WhatsApp" sentiments - and that's incredibly dangerous.

This bill may very well be read to impose mandatory global backdoors on VPNs, public cloud providers, and even your home router or your laptop network card!

(Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. But it doesn't take a lawyer to see how broadly scoped this is.)

[chimeracoder]

> (6) Online child sexual abuse frequently involves the misuse of information society services offered in the Union by providers established in third countries.

It's quite wild to see child sexual abuse continue to be cited as a justification for far-reaching, privacy-invading proposals, allegedly to empower government actors to combat child sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, we have copious and ever-increasing evidence of actual child sexual abuse being perpetrated by people with the most power in these very institutions, and they generally face few (if any) consequences.

[layer8]

> worldwide

Laws targeting service providers usually always apply to all providers providing services in the respective jurisdiction. It would be unusual if it was any different.

[josteink]

So they’re asking American companies to repeal the first amendment rights of American citizens on all websites accessible in the EU.

How this not a declaration of war?

[latchup]

I am going to assume your question is genuine and not rethorical hyperbole.

Every sovereign nation has legal supremacy over its own territory. Any company doing business in the EU, no matter its origin, must follow EU laws inside the EU. However, these laws do not apply anywhere else (unless specified by some sort of treaty), so they are not forced to comply with them in the US when dealing with US customers.

If they still abide by EU law elsewhere, that is their choice, just like you can just choose to abide by Chinese law in the US — so long as it does not conflict with US law. If these rules do conflict with the first amendment, enforcing them in the US is simply not legal, and it's up to the company to figure out how to resolve this. In the worst case, they will have to give up business in the EU, or in this case, prohibit chat between US and EU customers, segregating their platform.

[SunshineTheCat]

I mean this (mostly) as a joke, however, I kinda wish US businesses would just firewall off the EU at this point (yes, I know this would mean losing some customers/marketshare and thus would never happen).

But the near daily proposals getting tossed out in their desperate attempt to turn their countries into daycare centers is just annoying to people trying to build things for other adults.

[disgruntledphd2]

> I kinda wish US businesses would just firewall off the EU at this point (yes, I know this would mean losing some customers/marketshare and thus would never happen).

This would involve them taking about a 30% hit to revenue (or more, depending on the company), so yeah, entirely implausible.

But, it's also worth noting that the US constantly does stuff like this. Like, the entire financial services panopticon of tracking is driven almost entirely by the US, and has been around since the 70s. Should the EU then wall off the US?

Personally, (as an EU citizen), that would really hurt if they did, but getting completely off the dollar based financial system would remove a lot of the US's control (and as a bonus/detriment reveal to the US how much of their vaunted market is propped up by EU money).

Most governments are bad, and these kinds of laws are international, so I'm not sure walling off the EU would make your life much better.

And let's be honest, you should expect the tech industry to end up as regulated as the financial industry over time, the only difference will be how long it takes to get there.

[eptcyka]

I was under the impression that the strong and independent Americans had thicker skin than this.

[sitzkrieg]

luckily, this is a sample size of one (1)

[progval]

Neither the EU nor American companies are Congress, so they are not bound by the 1st amendment.

[pksebben]

Wait, Congress is bound by the first amendment?

Someone should tell Congress.

[petcat]

"First Amendment Rights" only applies to the State, not private companies.

For example, Hacker News has no obligation to preserve your "First Amendment Rights" on this website. They are free to mute you, ban you, or even just surreptitiously change what you say without you knowing.

[josteink]

That’s just semantics.

If a website which otherwise wouldn’t censor you begins to censor you because of threats from foreign nations, that’s a foreign nation pressuring an American company into suppressing rights of American citizens.

That’s a foreign nation imposing on your rights. In the past that used to require an invasion, so it was a bit more obvious what was happening, but the result is still the same.

Yes it’s through a website, which is owned by a company, which technically speaking owes you nothing.

In the digital age though, where are you going to use your speech, if not on a website?

What you (and others) are doing is trying to reduce the significance of a major transgression over a minor technicality. Way to miss the forest for trees.

The EU can stuff it on this one. And I supported (still support!) the GDPR.

[petcat]

Semantics are important when talking about matters of law. Very important, in fact.

[ghurtado]

Semantics are literally the only reason we write laws down and argue endlessly about exactly which words to use

Outside of law, I have never once heard "that's just semantics" in a context that made sense, or said by an intelligent person. Not once. Maybe it turns out semantics are never "just semantics", and instead it's something that always matters.

[josteink]

So you’re just going to accept a digital invasion happening and not care, because of some semantics and details somewhere in a document which was penned 200 years prior to the internet being invented?

I don’t know about you, but to me that seems kind of naive and short sighted.

[rstat1]

You can still care about forthcoming invasions of one's privacy and while still understanding that the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is only intended to prevent state and federal governments from censoring you. Not corporations.

Semantics are very important when it comes to legal matters.

[macintux]

You can object to the "digital invasion", but using the phrase "freedom of speech" as some sort of magical shield is pointless.

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The U.S. federal or state governments, courtesy of that amendment, have very limited authority to control your speech. That's where the legal authority ends.

[ghurtado]

> accept a digital invasion

It looks like the possibilities are endless once you throw semantics out of the window, so I could see why you're so fond of doing so.

[saubeidl]

It isn't your right to comment on somebody else's website. Your argument makes no sense.