DailyPost 718
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Govts. felt no need to control the internet / social media or were ignorant about the proportions it would take, undermining every single institution built up after centuries of hard work & toil. This is not a comment on the humungous benefits that freely fell in our laps, across the globe. Technical framework & logistics apart, it has been a jungle growth. Unregulated by national governments, the growth and sustenance of internet & it’s giants is the ultimate enigma of our times. Today, they dictate the world!
It’s still too early to take a call on GDPR, implemented on 25th May 2018. Close on it’s heels, the copyright law passed by the European Parliament on Wednesday, seems to as scathing as it’s predecessor, could impact far beyond Europe. The IT majors & minors all had made a mockery of existing national laws. It’s seemed as if the copyright laws are not applicable to the digital world. How ironical can it be; we followed their terms & conditions even beyond words & spirit – money spinners & they did not follow the democratically enacted laws. A perverse variant of democracy where governments became bystanders. User happy with freebies, the IT companies had a kill.
Undeniably, it’s a great day for democracy & independent press. It’s important to protect artists, whose hard work is being pirated online. Newspapers have numbered days. It would also protect newspapers and journalists “at the risk of having their business models undermined by social media giants.” It was passed with 438 to 226 votes is believed to with some cosmetic changes to the previous version rejected in July. Forthright & futuristic democratic legislation.
Now it’s technological implementation by the companies & enforcement by EU. It would mean “upload filters” similar to YouTube, to stop uploading copyrighted works. Small companies may find it more difficult. Costing and high likelihood of false positives can be an issue initially. It would become the global norm as in GDPR. Even the best filtering systems are not perfect, that cannot be a reason to kill the returns on creativity. It has to start. Machine learning & AI would throw up better solutions.
LAWLESS & RUDDERLESS CYBER EXISTENCE SHOULD END.
Sanjay Sahay