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Opposition to Article 13 Dominated by Astroturfing

Accepted submission by PiMuNu at 2018-09-12 12:14:15
Digital Liberty

I thought this article from theregister was interesting; making out that the opposition to article 13 is dominated by astroturfing led principally by google.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/12/youtube_article13_special_report [theregister.co.uk]

FTFA:

Today's vote on Article 13 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in European Parliament has turned into a knife-edge referendum on whether European institutions can deal with Californian exceptionalism.

...

The tweaks to copyright liability in Article 13 before MEPs this week have narrowed after months of horsetrading in Brussels – and they don't name names, but they're really about one company and the unique legal benefits it enjoys. That company is Google, and the perks arise from the special conditions attached to UGC [User Generated Comments] that YouTube hosts, which were originally designed for services such as cloud storage.

...

The battle of Article 13 is remarkable for revealing two things: the extent of US technology lobbying networks in Europe, and the use of tools of automated consensus generation ... Around 60,000 emails were received by each MEP in the build up to the June vote, while Twitter engagement appeared to be high. But "What looked like grassroots movement from the outside was in fact a classic form of astroturfing – designed to create the appearance of a popular movement," Reick said.


Original Submission