Rights Groups Push Back Against The EU’s Upcoming Censorship Law, Demand Clarification On Internet Shutdowns

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A group of nearly 70 rights organizations from around the world have penned a letter to EU Internal Commissioner Thierry Breton, concerned that the EU’s new legislation might lead to internet shutdowns. In the letter, they are urging Breton to clarify his recent statements and reassure the public that the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will not be turned into a tool to coerce online platforms into deleting “hateful content,” under threat of blocking them as punishment. If the DSA is designed to, as the signatories put it, arbitrarily block major social networks which the EU finds are not immediately complying with “hate speech” takedown rules – then they view that as a violation of human rights protections found in international law. Breton’s comments which upset the EFF, Access Now, ARTICLE 19, and over 60 other groups, were made in the context of recent mass civil unrest in France (the EU commissioner is a French politician). And one of the “solutions” to the social crisis the country was experiencing, Breton suggested, was to use the DSA to limit access to social sites. But those behind the letter believe that shutting down access to the web as an essentially real-world policing measure, under the pretext of needing to silence what’s defined as hate speech, is disproportionate to the situation, and could easily worsen it by putting people at risk, including exposure to more actual disinformation….Rights Groups Push Back Against The EU’s Upcoming Censorship Law, Demand Clarification On Internet Shutdowns