Information democracy
Powerful companies and governments control the way the internet and new technologies are deployed. These actors blur the lines on corporate power in ways that have tremendous impact on people and democracies. The dominant business model of ‘Big tech’ platforms is based on surveillance, polarization and power imbalances. This ‘surveillance capitalism’ has had a global impact on democracy. For example, state and private actors can use the internet and technologies to spread political disinformation, to manipulate electoral results, to attack human rights defenders and to limit civic space.
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Copyright: Franco-German tandem strikes dangerous deal on Article 13
On 7 February, it became publicly known that the blockade in the Council of the European Union on the highly controversial Article 13 of the Copyright Directive proposal nears an end. The details which had been on the heart of the disagreement between the Union’s most powerful member states, France and Germany, have now been […]
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Open letter on the Terrorism Database
On 4 February 2019, EDRi joined dozens of organisations and academics in signing an open letter. The letter criticises, in the Terrorist Content Regulation debate, the blind faith in a database to flag “terrorist content”.
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Copyright: Open Letter calling for the deletion of Articles 11 and 13
On 29 January 2019, EDRi, along with a large stakeholder coalition consisting of 87 organisations, sent a letter to the Council’s Working Party on Intellectual Property, European Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip and the European Parliament trilogue negotiators to ask for a deletion of the controversial Articles 11 and 13 in the Copyright Directive proposal. The […]
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Terrorist Content: LIBE Rapporteur’s Draft Report lacks ambition
On 23 January 2019, the Rapporteur for the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE), Daniel Dalton (ECR), published his Draft Report on the proposal for a Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. This Report by the lead Committee of the dossier follows the publishing of the Draft Opinions by the two […]
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Best of 2018: EDRi’s top articles and publications
Once again, 2018 was no resting time for digital rights defenders. Upload filters, which seem to be considered as a fit-for-all solution, have kept us particularly mobilised the entire year. Here is a throwback to our most popular articles and publications of the year.
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Terrorist Content Regulation: Document Pool
Although the fear of the general public of terrorist attacks certainly puts considerable pressure on policy makers, politicians also strategically use the climate of diffuse anxieties to increase the securitisation of the internet and present themselves as capable, tough leaders.
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CULT: Fundamental rights missing in the Terrorist Content Regulation
The European Parliament (EP) Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), published on 16 January its Draft Opinion on the proposal for a Regulation preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Julie Ward, the Rapporteur for the Opinion, has joined Rapporteur for the IMCO Committee Julia Reda MEP, and civil […]
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Copyright negotiations begin to derail
The negotiations on the EU’s highly controversial Copyright Directive proposal continue. The last trilogue meeting between Commission, Council and Parliament was originally scheduled for today, 21 January 2019. The event was, however, called off on late Friday evening 18 January by the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council. It has become increasingly clear that the manifest problems […]
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Terrorist Content: IMCO draft Opinion sets the stage right for EP
On 16 January 2019, the European Parliament Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) published its draft Opinion on the Regulation to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online. The Opinion challenges many of the issues from the original Commission proposal. The Opinion from IMCO should “inform” the main Report prepared by the the […]
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Digital rights as a security objective: Abuses and loss of trust
Violations of human rights online can pose a real threat to our societies, from election’s security to societal polarisation. In this series of blogposts, we explain how and why digital rights must be treated as a security objective. In this third and final blogpost, we discuss how digital rights violations can exacerbate breaches to the […]
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We can no longer talk about sex on Facebook in Europe
Sometime in late 2018, Facebook quietly added “Sexual Solicitation” to its list of “Objectionable Content”. Without notifying its users. This is quite remarkable, to put it mildly, as for many people sex is far from being a negligible part of life.
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Copyright Week 2019: Copyright as a tool of censorship
EDRi member Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Copyright Week is running again from 14 until 20 January 2019. We are participating in the action week with a series of blogposts.
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