Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
Which is irrelevant since they cannot ban someone to build one. If you build a social media there is nothing the policy maker can do to stop you. Granted, you need to follow a series of rules, but that's it. And they cannot tighten the rule too much, since they apply to everyone.
You are right but for the wrong reason. Currently (and sometimes foolishly) EU don't want to have one big social media like Facebook because in their view it hurts the competition and ultimately it damage the users.
I would consider that the perfect solution.
I mean, media companies get absolute control over their content by default (given the protocol) ? Cool that means that also the user get absolute control over his content by default given the protocol. So, maybe we would not be able anymore to pirate a movie but on the other hand a new OpenAi would not be able to freely train their model on our contents and make money with it. (and as benefit, this would set the long discussion about how many money media companies loses to piracy)
I don't see this as a bad thing. I decide what to publish on a social media and I would like to be able to stop someone from stealing it.
I think you confuse "published" with "public domain"
No, it is not legally problematic, unless you consider legally problematic to not be able to steal something I published and deal as yours.
What could be legally problematic is to track the **responsability **of something published (that could be illegal somewhere) because you should unhinging the mindset that the platform must do something, which is accepted everywere else, instead of holding the **author **responsible for what **he **publish.
Tighter moderation and copyright requirements can stop everything. The USA had excempted platforms from holding them responsible to allow broad innovation by everybody. The EU does the opposite and ads more requirements. Nothing that kills an established company but it's deadly for anything but the most serious startups.
The EU must know about the US excemption. They are not ignorant so they chose to not create competition and to leave that market to the US.
True, but that would be valid for everyone. So as it could stop an emerging social media it could also stop an estabilished social media, and EU historically does not go after the small fishes.
I am sure that you understand that if EU put up tighter moderation and copyright requirements the first social media to be tanked would be Facebook and not the emerging social media.
Not always.
But the way the USA went create a grey area were the social media can legally say "I am not responsible for what the users post" and on the other hand the "the platform is mine and I can decide what goes on it", which in my opinion is a worse situation since now the moderation is in the hand of a company.
We had many examples of social media that on one hand say they are excempted and on the other say that they can decide what goes on the site. Sorry but it not works this way: you are responsible for everything on your site and then you can decide what goes on it or you are not responsible and then you cannot decide what goes on it (granted that is legal). You cannot have both ways.
I disagree. If Facebook would be held responsible for its contents like a startup, I would bet that it would be deadly for Facebook and not the startup. Look at the GDPR, there were reasons why these companies have fought tooth and nail against it.
Which, again, does nothing to stop someone to try to build a new social media.
It's not prohibitive but an obstacle. Facebook can build neural networks to automate legal obligations and it can hire lawyers to minimize damage when they fail. Everybody can try though to build a new social media but nobody will.
Thanks for the reply. One thing that baffles me about Lemmy communities is how some contradictory opinions exist side by side without argument. Some praise the open nature of the Fediverse, while others call for the strictest rules on data sharing. Actually, I'm not really sure what the latter group does here.
One problem is that a solution isn't obvious. The copyright industry hasn't succeeded in making a truly effective DRM system. The missing link is lots of surveillance. You need to look for signs of tampering and then arrest people. It's like with a burglary. Locked doors and windows can't even stop an amateur for more than a few seconds. But maybe someone notices a window being broken. The world and Europe are moving in that direction but we are not nearly there.
An additional technical problem is that European data rights are complicated. You need to determine who has what rights in the data. AI may be very helpful here.
But the real problem is not technical. The Americans build services that people want to use. European policymakers don't care if anyone wants to use it. The only concern is to make sure that the wrong use can be stopped. It's enshittified by design.
I would argue that they really don't want since they know all too well that "1 pirated copy less equal 1 more copy sold" is completely false.
No, European data rights are not complicated, that is a false myth (source, someone who currently work to provide certifications about the GDPR compliance and other regulations, not myself), unless you want to do something borderline. What the GDPR say is, basically, "you need to ask only the necessary data to provide the service and keep them only the time you need to provide the service (if no other laws say otherwise) and you need to keep them secure". And explain why you need additional data, eventually, and what do you want to do with them.
We could argue about the "you need to keep them secure" eventually.
Maybe true, but I think that it is more a mentality problem.
All the social networks are not born from some American policymaker, they were born from some guy that build it and then become a company. Or from a company that had the idea to build it and can afford to work at a loss even for years.
Ahh. That's how you're part of the industry. People without a financial interest aren't quite so keen on embracing cyberpunk dystopias.
I only stated the obvious: in EU the mentality is different and it is not that easy to get money to have a company going for years without making enough money to pay its cost (infrastuctures, servers, people atc), there are not the VC's that are present in US.
If that make me part of the industry...
The VCs can hop on a plane and invest the money in the EU, if they think that's what makes them a profit.
I know some people that regulations should be changed so that European banks can make riskier investments and do VC funding. I don't see why they would invest in Europe and not in the US, like anyone else. They are all chasing the same profits. European VCs can hop on a plane to Silicon Valley and dump the money there.
I don't know if deregulating banks is a good idea. I'm skeptical because I remember the 00s. But I don't have the qualifications to judge.