Content Censorship and Council Carelessness Why the Parliament Must Safeguard the Open, Participative Web 2.0

Abstract

On 25 May 2018, the EU Council adopted its position regarding the Proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (“DSM Directive”). This negotiating mandate will have a deep impact on the further legislative process. If the Council position finally prevails, the proposed new rules will affect a wide variety of modern forms of using copyrighted content in the digital environment. In particular, the Council proposes to sharpen the rules on platform liability for user-generated content (“UGC”). As a result, the current participative web 2.0 – with unprecedented user involvement and information diversity – will hardly survive in the EU. To avoid this loss of freedom of expression and information, the time has come for the Parliament to counter the proposed content filtering systems and ensure that EU citizens retain access to the wide variety of views and cultural expressions that are currently available.