23 November 2017 — OpenMedia

Great news! On Monday the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee voted NO to censorship machines!^[1] .

This is a fantastic moment, and it wouldn’t have been possible without your tireless support. Thank you for all the hard work you’ve done. Over 135,000 people have spoken up against Censorship Machines and the Link Tax. Despite heavy lobbying from media conglomerates, Monday’s vote shows that your voices are being heard.^[2]

The European Commission’s draft proposal (specifically Article 13) would have far-reaching consequences for our human rights online: for free expression, access to information and privacy.

Their plan would require every website that involves users, like you, creating the content, to install algorithms which would block creative works from being uploaded if it detects a snippet of copyrighted content.^[3]

It cost Google $60 million to develop the hugely complex ContentID system this is modeled on, which often results in false positives and unwarranted censorship.^[4] These bots won’t be able to understand parody, public interest exceptions, or fair use.

Together, we’ve made a big difference to stop this censorship.

The momentum is on our side, and we have the chance to fully defeat Article 13.Now that several committees have rejected the censorship machines proposals — we hope they’ll take this decision as a sign to make the necessary big changes you’ve been asking for, removing both content filtering and the link tax from the draft law.

Unfortunately, the vote today left a couple of loopholes that could be exploited by companies, and we’ll need to keep working to make the final version even better.^[5]

With the lead committee voting in the new year, we’ll be working to make sure that MEPs from all parties cannot ignore citizen voices.

We’re going to be revamping our advocacy as this fight moves to its next phase. If you’d like to support us this campaign, and to ensure we can win the last few votes in the new year, please consider sending us a donation. We were able to build our successful MEP tool thanks to your support, can you help us again

Thanks for making this victory possible!

Best wishes,
Ruth

Footnotes

[1] Civil Liberties Committee joins the opposition against automated censorship machines. Source: Julia Reda
[2] European Parliament Civil Liberties committee is second EP committee to reject mandatory upload filters. Source: Communia Association
[3] Your FAQs on ‘Censorship Machines’. Source: OpenMedia
[4] YouTube’s Content ID (C)ensorship Problem Illustrated. Source: EFF
[5] Censorship machines out at last. Source: OpenMedia