[HN Gopher] EU DSA: Industry and government interests prevail ov...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       EU DSA: Industry and government interests prevail over citizens'
       digital rights
        
       Author : deutschepost
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2022-04-23 08:22 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.patrick-breyer.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.patrick-breyer.de)
        
       | sdoering wrote:
       | Reading the posts here I have to take a radically different point
       | of view. Maybe even an unpopular one.
       | 
       | These topics, as with most politically discussed topics just
       | aren't important. At least to most constituents. If I look around
       | and talk to people they don't care about digital privacy. On the
       | contrary. They don't want these cookie banners. They blame the
       | GDPR for those. They are pissed because online and offline they
       | need to click banners or fill out paper forms to get even basic
       | services.
       | 
       | If I think about the GDPR related things I had to fill out at
       | doctors, veterinarians and such when I (or my animals) needed
       | help I can relate. You just want help not read page after page of
       | legalese.
       | 
       | People were trained to correlate data privacy with stuff that
       | annoys them.
       | 
       | So no. It doesn't matter. Not to the majority of people I
       | believe. Especially not when it is at the EU level.
        
       | beever wrote:
       | The consumer protection aspects of this law are simply cover for
       | its real purpose: installing tighter controls on what people are
       | allowed to say and read on the internet, in the convenient guise
       | of clamping down on "disinformation" and "hate speech". The
       | ruling elite are furiously scrambling to censor, stamp out and
       | criminalize any mass communication that they perceive as a threat
       | to their entrenched power.
        
       | mrtksn wrote:
       | Pirate Party needs to start learning from the alt-right and the
       | the politicians with other totalitarian tendencies. Instead of
       | maksimalist goals that "must be achieved at once or we are
       | doomed", better find something analogous of "think of the
       | children" instrument which is used by the bureaucrats to gain
       | power and aim for gradual steps in a similar way that the alt-
       | right is doing it. Marine Le Pen in France become a credible
       | candidate by distancing herself from maximalist and extreme
       | ambitions(that she probably still holds) and aim for issues that
       | large number of people want addressed(not just elitist niches).
       | Populism is fine, up to a point.
       | 
       | Equating the "Not everything that we wanted was implemented" with
       | "We lost everything, they won" sounds toxic to me. It's also
       | arrogant t believe that you have the perfect solution for
       | everything, you are pure and all knowing when the others are
       | corrupt and stupid.
       | 
       | I like having pirate parties as a voice but the I would never
       | vote for them, they are extremist and maksimalist IMHO.
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | any powerful persuasion, even if disingenuous, is worth the
         | outcomes?
        
           | mrtksn wrote:
           | Nope, just that people who want to gain power in a democracy
           | and change something need to realize that they need to have
           | tools to make large number of people vote for them.
           | 
           | You can't write JavaScript in a C compiler and complain that
           | nothing compiles.
        
         | tangental wrote:
         | "Think of the children" is used to pre-emptively attack any
         | opposition to what is being proposed, i.e. "you are against
         | this? you don't care about children?". It is despised by
         | privacy advocates and I wouldn't support any group who used a
         | tactic like that.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | Kids' privacy seem like a very valid use-case for that.
           | Because kids and adults are not necessarily easy to
           | distinguish, bingo bango bongo, privacy for everyone by
           | default.
        
         | throwaway290 wrote:
         | You are projecting, the update is not so defeatist. It starts
         | with listing achievements, then says that overall the new
         | document does not deserve the name of 'digital constitution'
         | and an opportunity was wasted.
         | 
         | Not _the_ opportunity. More will come and I got an impression
         | that PP will keep fighting. I would vote for PP if I could.
        
         | cool_dude85 wrote:
         | I think you have mixed up the real idea behind "think of the
         | children." It can be used as a fig leaf for things the
         | politically powerful wish to do but are specifically unpopular.
         | It can be used to do things that certain politicians want to do
         | that the politically powerful are, as a class, indifferent to.
         | 
         | Where it doesn't work is to do things that are popular among
         | the electorate but that the politically powerful are opposed
         | to. No catchphrase will help you with that, unfortunately.
        
           | KarlKemp wrote:
           | This whole bill is things that are popular with citizen and
           | that companies opposed. They didn't have to start writing a
           | digital services act, and it's building on privacy
           | protections that were already better than anywhere else on
           | earth. The assumption that big business has all the power and
           | always gets everything it wants is prima facie disproven
           | here.
        
           | mrtksn wrote:
           | No I did not mixed it up, I'm suggesting that proponents of
           | something unpopular need to obtain a tool that works to
           | defend their positions. Not an awful lot of people are into
           | the stuff that Pirate Party advocates, maybe they should find
           | something to push for that an awful lot of people are
           | interested in. "Save the kids" so far has been a very
           | effective tool, the only time it failed as far as I remember
           | is the Apple's auto-policing for CSAM proposal. The internet
           | privacy and freedom advocates need to have something like
           | that.
        
             | jancsika wrote:
             | You've convinced me. Here's a sensible compromise I can
             | imagine:
             | 
             | 1. Make a panel of concerned parents to review abuses by
             | recommendation engines and to stop tracking abuses. Think
             | of the children!
             | 
             | 2. Give law enforcement the tools they need to deanonymize
             | the abusers and criminals who are trafficking our kids. We
             | don't want them to go dark-- think of the children!
             | 
             | What do you think? I sure hope you're the type of person
             | who _really_ cares about the children, and not the kind of
             | opportunist who would reflexively argue against #2.
             | 
             | And, scene.
             | 
             | If you've got _legitimate_ concerns about the children with
             | well-documented evidence, let 's hear it. Otherwise you're
             | going to be out of your league.
        
               | mrtksn wrote:
               | I'm confused. Did I give you the impression that I
               | believe that "save the children" is a legitimate concern
               | for controlling the internet?
        
             | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
             | I used to argue against this line of thinking, but as time
             | progressed, I have become progressively more jaded and
             | cynical. I wonder if I am effectively becoming what I
             | previously fought against ('think of the children' line of
             | argumentation), but as time have shown time and time again,
             | it simply works and I am kinda done letting technical
             | illiterates dictate my life.
             | 
             | Maybe we don't have to lower ourselves to exactly that
             | argument, but surely there are other popular takes.
        
               | mrtksn wrote:
               | IMHO, intellectual debates and making people go vote for
               | you are different things.
               | 
               | You don't need a position of power to discuss stuff and
               | come to conclusions.
        
             | photochemsyn wrote:
             | So, something like "Europe and America will turn into
             | China-style mass surveillance states if we don't demand a
             | change in direction immediately"?
             | 
             | Has the benefit of being relatively true as well. Google
             | leadership was all too eager to get in on the Chinese
             | censorship machine (Dragonfly) as I recall:
             | 
             | https://archive.thinkprogress.org/google-dragonfly-china-
             | cen...
        
         | inglor_cz wrote:
         | The Czech Pirate Party, now in government, has basically
         | abandoned its focus on digital topics and concentrates on
         | power, lawmaking and who is going to get which seat on what
         | ministry.
         | 
         | A huge disappointment. Their once-core positions are now good
         | for lip service only. Even the Pirate Party Forum (an open
         | discussion forum) is now basically concentrated on power
         | politics and discussions about such important agendas have
         | atrophied.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | mlinksva wrote:
           | Do you have a recommendation of where I could read more about
           | how the Czech Pirate Party has done in government, either
           | national or local (eg mayor of Prague)? I don't see anything
           | skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Pirate_Party and
           | very little reading the Czech version autotranslated.
           | 
           | I'm under the impression that at least one of their MEPs
           | (Marcel Kolaja; edit: indeed, quoted in the article which I
           | hadn't read before commenting, shame on me!) does substantial
           | work on digital issues, but I guess the incentives faced by
           | MEPs are very different from those in national or local
           | office. Is that right?
        
       | verisimi wrote:
       | Can we say it plainly yet?
       | 
       | We live in a fascist system (corporations + governance), where
       | the government undertakes and waves through the legislation the
       | corporations want.
       | 
       | The individual is not a 'stakeholder'.
       | 
       | And with the technology, the existing tyranny will increase -
       | that's technocracy.
       | 
       | All that's needed is to manufacture the consent of the masses.
       | They want us to want it.
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | No that's not true. The decisions in the European Parliament
         | were made by people freely elected in 2019 elections. The
         | person who wrote this piece is a member of a minor party in the
         | European Parliament[0] that is not happy with the decision.
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/197431/PATRICK_BREYER...
         | 
         | The expectation that the Pirate Party, which has quite small
         | public support, will steamroll over the politicians with large
         | public support is appalling. Governance by all knowing computer
         | elites who don't have a significant public support is the
         | actual fascism IMHO.
         | 
         | They simply need to convince the public first in orther to
         | change things.
        
           | car_analogy wrote:
           | > The decisions in the European Parliament were made by
           | people freely elected in 2019 elections.
           | 
           | Freely electing representatives does not mean those
           | representatives will faithfully execute the will of their
           | voters. The people of the US freely elect their
           | representatives, and yet:
           | 
           |  _Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and
           | organised groups representing business interests have
           | substantial independent impacts on US government policy,
           | while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have
           | little or no independent influence._ -
           | https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
           | 
           | That is not to say the same is true in the EU, but it shows
           | that free elections alone are no guarantee that voter
           | preferences influence policy.
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | > Freely electing representatives does not mean those
             | representatives will faithfully execute the will of their
             | voters.
             | 
             | That's exactly what it means - the caveat is, not being
             | hostile to businesses and work with the businesses is part
             | of the reason why people will choose them. If they fail to
             | deliver enough, they don't get elected again. That's
             | actually the core premise of a representative democracy.
             | 
             | Elite cabal from a completely different species controlling
             | the system in which we are slaves producing stuff that are
             | sent to a galaxy far way is a fantasy. The "elites" are
             | just people who manage the machinery that produces the
             | stuff that the folks want. You can argue over their
             | disproportionate compensation but when a political makes a
             | decision in favour of an interest group, let's say steel
             | production, they also make the decision in favour of the
             | people who earn their living from that business.
             | 
             | It can be argued over the long term impacts but that's part
             | of the process. For example, we are in process convincing
             | people that they need to give up some of their comforts to
             | prevent very bad things happening 50 years from now. Once
             | they get convinced, vote in people who will work for it and
             | they do the thing.
             | 
             | Most times it is a compromise because people have
             | conflicting interests and the people voted in need to come
             | to a solution that works good enough for everyone.
        
               | brigandish wrote:
               | MSPs have no power to propose legislation, the Commission
               | does that and it is not elected by the people, so it's a
               | stretch to claim that a parliament that can only rubber
               | stamp things is a representative democracy. Would the
               | Soviet system be a representative democracy? It's a very
               | similar set up.
        
               | mrtksn wrote:
               | The commission members are appointed by the elected
               | governments of the member states(one each) and need to be
               | approved by the European Parliament. Let's not portray it
               | as if they are clerks of an external organisation.
               | 
               | Anyway, if the MP's were simply rubber stamping whatever
               | the commissioners propose, what they were discussing for
               | 16 hours? Obviously, the portrayal of unelected
               | bureaucrats shovelling whatever they want down the throat
               | of the people is false.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | 'That's exactly what it means'
               | 
               | That is exactly what is doesn't mean, the poster you are
               | replying to has provided proof in the form of peer revied
               | research.
               | 
               | You don't get to dismiss that based on how something
               | should hypothetically work in an ideal world.
               | 
               | 'That's actually the core premise of a representative
               | democracy.'
               | 
               | Communism also has a core premice, that does not mean
               | it's valid and holds in a given country today
               | 
               | "Elite cabal from a completely different species
               | controlling the system in which we are slaves"
               | 
               | The same argument judtifies Feudalism
               | 
               | "when a political makes a decision in favour of an
               | interest group, let's say steel production"
               | 
               | This is literally the dictionary definition of
               | 'undemocratic'
               | 
               | And it also would justify Feudalism
        
             | dathinab wrote:
             | > The people of the US freely elect their representatives,
             | and yet:
             | 
             | Not really, due to the nature of the US political system
             | which is strongly based around dynamics which make sure
             | that the parties in power stay in power.
             | 
             | Calling elections for a (in practice) two party system free
             | is a bit of an stretch.
             | 
             | I mean sure it's better then a (in practice) one party
             | system, but still there is (in practice) no real choice to
             | vote for, nor can "you" create a new choice (in practice,
             | theoretical you could but due to the dynamics of the system
             | it doesn't work in practice EDIT: As long as not one of
             | both of the parties fully collapse and even then it might
             | not work).
        
               | car_analogy wrote:
               | You are correct, I forgot to consider they dysfunctional
               | first-past-the-post voting system. Even so, while that
               | gives the EU better chances at real democracy, there are
               | still many ways to interfere with popular will, so one
               | cannot dismiss all criticism with "well they got the
               | votes".
        
           | verisimi wrote:
           | No, you're quite right - this is great news!
           | 
           | Politicians really are executing the will of the people!
           | They're not simply passing legislation that justifies
           | unacceptable invasion of privacy and sanctions the mining of
           | the individual's information.
           | 
           | phew!
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | > We live in a fascist system (corporations + governance),
           | 
           | OK, I agreee that fascism is bad but is that fascism? I don't
           | like to see words with a precise meaning [1] being used as a
           | catch all for everything we dislike. What you describe is a
           | democracy of corporations, not one of the people which vote
           | but have far less effect on decisions than corporations have.
           | It's on a divergent axis from fascism which is dictatorship,
           | suppression of opposition and control of economy and society.
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
        
             | verisimi wrote:
             | "democracy of corporations"? Misnomer much?
             | 
             | Demos - means people. Corporations are dead entities -
             | corpses. They have a sort of life, even though they are not
             | alive.
             | 
             | Still, perhaps this is closer to the truth. The people who
             | run corporations, get to decide what those corporations do.
             | The corporations are just a buffer to actual individuals.
             | 
             | Also, its worth noting that we do not have (and never have
             | had) democracy.
             | 
             | Democracy is where people make the decisions. All the
             | decisions.
             | 
             | What we have is a system where we vote in people who
             | represent us - or so it is claimed. They politicians we
             | vote in, re-present us (read 'serve us up') and make
             | decisions on your behalf.
             | 
             | PS Wikipedia is hardly a bastion of truth. But you can see
             | a section called 'Corporatist economic system' which
             | indicates (lightly) that corporations were a part of the
             | control system. I would say that these apparent
             | distinctions are a show - especially nowadays. The
             | corporations, governance system and the media (that is
             | apparently holding someone to account, but are really about
             | mis-directing the conversation) are all part of the overall
             | governance structure.
             | 
             | PPS In the City of London, things work as you say -
             | corporations are able to vote.
        
               | spaetzleesser wrote:
               | "PPS In the City of London, things work as you say -
               | corporations are able to vote."
               | 
               | How does this work?
        
               | mrtksn wrote:
               | City of London is fascinating. They are a corporation
               | that acts like a government within a government and in
               | the elections the residents and businesses have voting
               | rights.
        
           | ClumsyPilot wrote:
           | "steamroll over the politicians with large public support is
           | appalling"
           | 
           | Do you really think this is about the Pirate Party? If we had
           | a referendum on this issue tomorrow, do you really think that
           | the position held by mainsteam politians wouldn't loose by a
           | landslide?
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | > do you really think that the position held by mainsteam
             | politians wouldn't loose by a landslide
             | 
             | If the referendum are not held on hackernews or reddit and
             | the mainstream politicians are given a time to defend their
             | positions, I think the results won't be much different than
             | what people voted so far.
             | 
             | The pirate party(~parties all over the EU) are bunch of
             | idealists who so far failed to gain any significant
             | traction.
             | 
             | People love the idea that the pure and freedom loving
             | societies are held hostage by fascist elites but that's
             | probably the case only if a very few countries, definitely
             | not EU, US or even Russia or Turkey. People love whatever
             | their position is, ban this mandate that is all they
             | want(it's just that different people want different things
             | to banned or mandated). Notice how people tirelessly are
             | wedging cultural wars over who should f*ck who, be called
             | what, get dressed what, eat what.
             | 
             | We have whatever we have because that's whatever the people
             | want. It slowly changes over time as new people are born
             | and the older ones die off.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | > We have whatever we have because that's whatever the
               | people want.
               | 
               | So you never heard of terms like Democratic Deficit, you
               | have never read any serious research on the subject, you
               | have not heard that USA was declared a flawed democracy.
               | You personal opinion trumps whatever Phds and proffesors
               | have come up with and published as peer reviewed
               | research?
               | 
               | > I think the results won't be much different than what
               | people voted so far.
               | 
               | The pirate party(~parties all over the EU) are bunch of
               | idealists who so far failed to gain any significant
               | traction.
               | 
               | This is a total Non-Sequitour - the facts/arguments you
               | are providing do not support the assertions/opinions you
               | are putting forward.
               | 
               | The Green Party in United Kingdom has almost no
               | representation. However polling has shown that if you
               | take any green party policy, it has like 70% support
               | across the electorate. Why do people not vote for green
               | party? That's up for debate, maybe people are stuck in
               | the old Labour/Tory mindset, maybe it's the First past
               | the Post System, maybe they debate poorly, there could be
               | a million reasons.
        
         | KarlKemp wrote:
         | And I thought I might be overdoing it with my comment about the
         | everything-is-corrupt-manufacturing-consent-soros-etc-etc-
         | crowd, (far) upthread :)
        
         | chki wrote:
         | This is an absurd position to take with regards to new
         | legislation that will in almost no way benefit corporations.
         | Sure, it might be watered down and not as effective as it could
         | have been - as alleged in the article. But it's still
         | legislation that corporations would much rather not have and be
         | able to do what they want.
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | >We live in a fascist system (corporations + governance), where
         | the government undertakes and waves through the legislation the
         | corporations want.
         | 
         | That's not what fascism means.
         | 
         | >Fascism (/'faeSIz@m/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian
         | ultranationalism[1] characterized by dictatorial power,
         | forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of
         | society and the economy
         | 
         | It's sad that "fascist" became one of those words that are
         | thrown around for anything (ie. politicians/parties/system of
         | governance) that one doesn't like.
        
           | DaedPsyker wrote:
           | To be fair, I think they are referring to the fascist form of
           | corporatism[1]. Which although that isn't quite its meaning
           | (corporations + governance), it's a lot closer to using a
           | correct aspect of fascism than most people who use the term
           | do. I suppose Plutocracy or the less common, Corporatocracy,
           | would suit better.
           | 
           | 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
        
       | throwaway290 wrote:
       | > Cross-border removal orders issued by illiberal member states
       | without a court order can take down media reports and information
       | that is perfectly legal in the country of publication.
       | 
       | It is bad, but what's worse is that this is not even all that
       | consequential. Remember the case with Leica advert featuring the
       | famous Tiananmen shot taken with one of their cameras? After
       | CCP's outrage, Leica took it down at its own initiative (and
       | nearly apologized to boot).
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | Well, this behaviour is now the law. Not just a choice of
         | corporations, but they're now compelled by EU to continue
         | taking down content.
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | Which means, people in liberal member states will no longer be
         | indifferent towards the actions of the illiberal ones. Maybe if
         | the illiberal states don't share the values of the liberal
         | ones, they shouldn't be in the same union? The thoughts an
         | prayers being with the democrats of Hungary is not enough,
         | Hungarians might better choose if they want to be a part of the
         | society that tolerates stuff or go live in a system where
         | Putin-like governance is the way to go.
         | 
         | I'm kind of hoping for a similar thing happening globally. The
         | actions of states like Saudi Arabia are well tolerated only
         | because their actions don't have any real impact in EU or USA.
        
           | otherotherchris wrote:
           | I think this is going to expose the core problem in Europe,
           | that the political classes of the "liberal" member states are
           | just giving lip service to the "fraternity equality liberty"
           | crap and care no more for free speech or free association
           | than their "authoritarian" neighbours.
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | Sounds good to me. If they are proven to fail to deliver on
             | "fraternity equality liberty", a political movement that
             | demands it can catch fire.
        
       | izacus wrote:
       | So the result here is going to be even more content/account bans
       | without possibility of complaint on all digital platforms? And
       | inability for Google competitors to enter the market because they
       | can't afford a massive AI autibanning system to comply with
       | requirement.
       | 
       | Our EU seriously seems to try to regulate competition out of
       | existence :/
        
         | DethNinja wrote:
         | I'm a small business owner with an online digital platform.
         | 
         | I'm going through the DSA now and it looks like they exempted
         | most of the hard to implement requirements for micro/small
         | businesses.
         | 
         | You can find the full regulation here: https://eur-
         | lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=16081171...
         | 
         | So long as you don't have millions of users, you are exempt
         | from "Section 3" requirements. If you got millions of users,
         | I'm sure such companies can afford implementing the mentioned
         | regulations.
         | 
         | Honestly, it currently doesn't look extremely bad for
         | small/micro businesses but we will see.
        
         | otherotherchris wrote:
         | Oh it's far worse than that. The next fundamentalist quasi-
         | dictatorship in Romania, Poland or Hungary gets to decide
         | what's illegal and immoral and therefore censored in Belgium
         | and Sweden.
        
           | DoItToMe81 wrote:
           | I agree with regulation, but some of this is very concerning.
           | By the Polish government's actions, pointing out the very
           | real Polish pogroms and Polish informants who turned in Jews
           | could be considered misinformation. This will be abused by
           | some the increasingly illiberal and nationalist states in the
           | EU.
        
           | InCityDreams wrote:
           | Just like the Brits...there can always be a Belgone and a
           | Swedone.
           | 
           | Oh....here we go, then: Germano Italeave sPain Portugallivant
           | The Neverlands
           | 
           | Cont. on p94.
        
         | Zenst wrote:
         | The phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
         | comes to mind.
         | 
         | Whilst they are focused upon the larger outlets and targeting
         | that, the lesser, future platforms will be burdened with an
         | entry cost far higher than before; Pushing that opertunity of
         | inivation further from the reaches of those on the otherside of
         | wealth.
         | 
         | Just ironic that the intentions of the EU upon this only fuel
         | anticomepative divides via that entry cost barrier to compete.
        
           | dmitriid wrote:
           | > lesser, future platforms will be burdened with an entry
           | cost far higher than before; Pushing that opertunity of
           | inivation further from the reaches of those on the otherside
           | of wealth
           | 
           | Yet again, HN doesn't even bother to read before commenting.
           | 
           | The law applies to platforms with more than 45 million users.
           | By the time you have that many, you're not a "lesser platform
           | that's hurting".
        
             | kmlx wrote:
             | pewdiepie, a youtuber, has 111 million subscribers. europe
             | is underestimating the web.
        
               | iso1210 wrote:
               | pewdiepie isn't a platform. It's also a major business
               | with plenty of turnover and the ability to obey the laws
               | of the juristiction the company operates in.
        
             | buzer wrote:
             | > The law applies to platforms with more than 45 million
             | users. By the time you have that many, you're not a "lesser
             | platform that's hurting".
             | 
             | There are only some parts on regulation that affects those
             | with more than 45 million active users.
             | https://ec.europa.eu/info/digital-services-act-ensuring-
             | safe...
             | 
             | [edit] Reading the actual regulation text a bit closer, it
             | looks like there are additional categories than those
             | presented in EC's overview page. Some of the elements do
             | not apply certain small companies defined "a small
             | enterprise is defined as an enterprise which employs fewer
             | than 50 persons and whose annual turnover and/or annual
             | balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 10 million" (+some
             | additional restrictions on things like ownership.
             | https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
             | content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...)
        
       | Vespasian wrote:
       | I recommend this article
       | https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-institution...
       | with additional factual reporting on what the DSA contains.
       | 
       | Patrick Breyer is a member of the Pirate party which holds a
       | minority position and isn't quite happy with the results. While
       | their views are, of course, a valuable part of the discussion,
       | they portray the DSA in a deliberately bad light.
        
         | anfogoat wrote:
         | I know Breyer's agenda while ascertaining what EURACTIV's
         | agenda is seems like year long endeavor. Plus their About page
         | actually has the phrase _EURACTIV content is produced in full
         | impartiality_ , a phrase whose laugability is a major BS
         | marker. EURACTIV is not impartial and then refuse to clearly
         | state their bias; they're dishonest from the very beginning.
         | 
         | Unsurprisingly, the article simply repeats EU marketing speak
         | and the facts in it are in the vein of _bathing in nuclear
         | waste will kill cancer cells_.
        
           | KarlKemp wrote:
           | The article lists everything the law does. It doesn't list
           | everything they wanted and didn't get because, as
           | Journalists, they arent suppose to want anything and
           | therefore cannot list their disappointments.
           | 
           | Yes, the article is a bit sterile. Maybe politico.eu will
           | have a better writeup for people interested in the politics
           | more than the law. But to not see that the guy you're
           | agreeing with is drowning in opinion is almost comically
           | lacking in self-reflection.
           | 
           | FWIW, on the merits, this is 100 % good for the
           | consumer/citizen. There is nothing in it for companies,
           | except that it maybe could have ended worse. It isn't a
           | compromise where each side got a bit of what they wanted. It
           | started out with ideas of completely fucking over tech
           | companies, now it graciously settled on just mildly tying
           | them down and setting a bit of their clothes on fire.
           | 
           | But I'm sure that will be entirely lost on the ,,yet-again-
           | these-corrupt-sellout-manufactured-consent-soros-etc-etc-
           | crowd"
        
             | anfogoat wrote:
             | > _But to not see that the guy you're agreeing with is
             | drowning in opinion is almost comically lacking in self-
             | reflection._
             | 
             | While I find Breyer's text infinitely more valuable than
             | that of the suggested supposedly impartial Fact Reciter,
             | I'm not in lockstep with his position, and most
             | importantly, I have no trouble separating his opinions from
             | facts. On lack of self-reflection, I don't feel like I'm
             | particularly guilty of it but then again I guess I
             | wouldn't. I did read the EURACTIV About page and it
             | wouldn't surprise me if something rubbed off of there.
             | Whether it did or not, as far as lack of self-reflection
             | goes it's a prime exhibition.
             | 
             | An impartial publication is a work of fiction. Claim you
             | are one? You cosplay one.
             | 
             | > _FWIW, on the merits, this is 100 % good for the consumer
             | /citizen. There is nothing in it for companies, except that
             | it maybe could have ended worse. It isn't a compromise
             | where each side got a bit of what they wanted. It started
             | out with ideas of completely fucking over tech companies,
             | now it graciously settled on just mildly tying them down
             | and setting a bit of their clothes on fire._
             | 
             | It's the EU once again fiddling with the Internet. It
             | doesn't really matter what the marginal benefits are in the
             | short term if you don't trust them with that power to begin
             | with and believe their unending need to make use of it will
             | eventually ruin the Internet. Drop the _citizen_ and I 'm
             | with you.
        
         | deutschepost wrote:
         | I agree, that the results are not as bad as stated in the
         | article. But it is still way less, than initially drafted. And
         | it would not have come to this, if the affected companies
         | didn't heavily lobbied to water it down.[1]
         | 
         | [1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/22/google-facebook-apple-
         | eu-l...
        
           | KarlKemp wrote:
           | Yes, but: industry avoided worse. This is a pro-consumer bill
           | in its entirety. The headline here just feeds into mindless
           | cynicism.
        
           | Vespasian wrote:
           | True and it's very important to have that discussion.
           | 
           | However, whenever a law gets passed at least one side is less
           | than enthusiastic and, at least for me, it's helpful to get a
           | first impression from a (more) neutral source which didn't
           | take part in the drafting process.
           | 
           | After that I take a look at what the involved parties are
           | saying about the new legislation and how it came to be.
        
             | deutschepost wrote:
             | Yeah, thats fair.
        
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