The Internet in Europe is undergoing Change

Potentially coming to state near you – we are already seeing a lot of effort in heading there.

First, the European Parliament voted using a very arcane rule to allow tech companies to legally scan your messages to hunt for content they don’t think you should have access to. The law is designed to detect child pornography, so the Parliament has cover, but once you scan for one thing, it is a short hill to scan for something else. It is voluntary, supposedly, and it doesn’t require messages that are end to end encrypted to be scanned, so it probably will only detect stupid people, but the lawyers in Parliament can say look at the wonderful thing we did for you. Credit: The Record

Next, The European Commission wants to implement an outright ban on social media for kids under 13 who are not under the supervision of a caregiver, whatever that word salad means.

The commission president said it is up to parents as to when their kids get a smartphone, but she wants to determine when they can actually use it, I guess. In fairness a few EU countries have implemented their own but likely different bans or are working on one.

She called on platforms to prove that their services cause no harm. Her comparison was that car makers have to provide seatbelts and airbags, but I don’t think car makers have to prove that you won’t die if you wear a seatbelt.

Some countries want to ban for kids under 16, so it is not clear whether this proposal will make everyone happy.

Also I don’t know what under the supervision of a caregiver means and probably neither do the lawyers. That is likely on purpose because that knife cuts both ways.

Also, it is unclear what the enforcement mechanism would be. Are we talking about laws like Utah and Texas? Is someone going to be liable? How is it going to be enforced?

It is clear that bad stuff happens online, but do they really think this will actually solve the problem rather than having parents acting responsibly?

Credit: The Record

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