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Portuguese ISPs ignore telecom regulator’s recommendations
In 2018, the Portuguese telecom regulator ANACOM told the three major Portuguese mobile Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to change offers that were in breach of EU net neutrality rules. Among other things, the regulator recommended that ISPs publish their terms and conditions, and increase the data volume of their mobile data packs in order to […]
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Hate speech online: Lessons for protecting free expression
On 21 October, David Kaye – UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression – released the preliminary findings of his sixth report on information and communication technology. They include tangible suggestions to internet companies and states whose current efforts to control hate speech online are […]
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EU Commissioners candidates spoke: State of play for digital rights
On 1 November 2019, the new College of European Commissioners – comprising 27 representatives (one from each EU Member State), rather than the usual 28, thanks to Brexit – are scheduled to take their seats for the next five years, led by incoming President-elect, Ursula von der Leyen.
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#PrivacyCamp20: Technology and Activism
The 8th annual Privacy Camp will take place in Brussels on 21 January 2020. With the focus on “Technology and Activism”, Privacy Camp 2020 will explore the significant role digital technology plays in activism, enabling people to bypass traditional power structures and fostering new forms of civil disobedience, but also enhancing the surveillance power of […]
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Net neutrality overhaul: 5G, zero-rating, parental control, DPI
The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) is currently in the process of overhauling their guidelines on the implementation of the Regulation (EU) 2015/2120, which forms the legal basis of the EU’s net neutrality rules. At its most recent plenary, BEREC produced new draft guidelines and opened a public consultation on this draft. […]
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EU copyright dialogues: The next battleground to prevent upload filters
On 15 October, the European Commission held the first of the stakeholder dialogues, mandated by Article 17 of the EU copyright Directive, inviting 65 organisations to help map current practices, and opening the door for deeper collaboration in the future.
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Trilogues on terrorist content: Upload or re-upload filters? Eachy peachy.
On 17 October 2019, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission started closed-door negotiations, trilogues, with a view to reaching an early agreement on the Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. The European Parliament improved the text proposed by the European Commission by addressing its […]
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Content regulation – what’s the (online) harm?
In recent years, the national legislators in EU Member States have been pushing for new laws to combat negative societal phenomena such as hateful or terrorist content online. These regulatory efforts have one common denominator: they shift the focus from conditional intermediary liability to holding intermediaries directly responsible for the dissemination of illegal content on their platforms.
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Right a wrong: ePrivacy now!
When the European Commission proposed to replace the outdated and improperly enforced 2002 ePrivacy Directive with a new ePrivacy Regulation in January 2017, it marked a cautiously hopeful moment for digital rights advocates across Europe. With the backdrop of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted in May 2018, Europe took a giant leap ahead […]
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Why weak encryption is everybody’s problem
Representatives of the UK Home Department, US Attorney General, US Homeland Security and Australian Home Affairs have joined forces to issue an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. In their letter of 4 October, they urge Facebook to halt plans for end-to-end (aka strong) encryption across Facebook’s messaging platforms, unless such plans include “a means for […]
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Mozilla Fellow Petra Molnar joins us to work on AI & discrimination
Starting on 1 October, Petra Molnar will join our team as a Mozilla Fellow. She is a lawyer specialising in migration, human rights, and technology, and has a Masters of Social Anthropology from York University, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M in International Law from the University of Cambridge. Mozilla […]
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Facebook users blocked simply for mentioning a name?
Merely writing or including two words, in this case “Tommy Robinson”, in a Facebook post or link is enough to get the post removed and the writer blocked. At least it seems so in Denmark and Sweden.
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