EU says it will enforce digital rules irrespective of CEO and location

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/eu-says-it-will-enforce-digital-rules-irrespective-ceo-location-2025-04-21/

46•cruzcampo•9mo ago

Comments

mdhb•9mo ago

As they should. Now more so than ever. It has become EXTREMELY clear that everyone who tried to make themselves small in order to not be targets for this new US admin has gotten the worst of it. There’s no need to add another data point to prove that strategy doesn’t work, we can already be sure of it.

Enforce your own laws and sovereignty and don’t think twice about it.

LinuxBender•9mo ago

Small sites will probably move to Tor .onion domains.

immibis•9mo ago

If they're not outright illegal, they'll be outcompeted by sites that don't require you to install special software to visit them. Those sites will have a marginally higher chance of being subpoenaed than before. They'll have to tell their host who they are (which is already the case for non-onion sites) and if they publish Nazi propaganda the police may knock on their door.

You know, exactly how it was 25ish years ago before the regulated Internet era. We had an internet back then, and people were slightly more constrained with what they do on it.

Over time, people tested the boundaries of what they could get away with, found they could get away with a lot, and then got away with a lot. Now we generally agree it's gone too far and the boundaries need to be set tighter. This is the cost of that.

LinuxBender•9mo ago

A couple of browsers can connect to Tor without installing anything extra so maybe as the internet is tightened down more browsers will add this ability. To your point though it is still slower and people despise latency so the faster sites will likely win out.

In terms of legality it is not clear to me that countries will enforce the laws of other countries even if they are allies. Global trade is changing and I suspect that could affect international enforcement as dependencies shift, maybe. Time will tell.

raxxorraxor•9mo ago

I believe that heavily warps what happened with content or opinions on the internet. Today the net is far more constrained. And we need less of that instead of more.

linotype•9mo ago

Seems like a great way for people to break laws they didn’t even know they were, only to be surprised when getting arrested on a trip to Germany, for instance. Different countries don’t legislate speech in the same way. (Obviously not a fan of Nazi or their propaganda)

immibis•9mo ago

It already works that way offline. You can build a reputation of praising Hitler in public all the time, then get arrested when you go to Germany. (Should have praised Netanyahu instead)

And you can do the exact same thing online.

YetAnotherNick•9mo ago

One thing that I hate about these rules is the fine. The fines over time had been massive over weird and tame cases like promoting their store in Google search, but for the more obvious cases like misleading consent banner, they have been few and far in between. Also the rules are vague and there is no warning.

Not to mention fines create bad incentive for the government. Specially if control of fine money is given to the same people who are fining the companies.

bcye•9mo ago

Not entirely sure what you're referring to, but it seems to me that its DMA/DSA and GDPR for the latter. It is my understanding the fines for DMA/DSA were set high with great enforcement because of the lessons learned from GDPR

apatheticonion•9mo ago

More rules please.

I'd love to see more competition in the OS space. I feel that a big reason there isn't more competition is the gatekeeping of drivers by hardware vendors and the locking of bootloaders.

Why can't I install Linux on a Snapdragon laptop? Why can't I install OpenWRT on my router? Why can't I install Linux on my Pixel? It's certainly not because they are not capable - it's just that the vendors don't want you to (for one reason or another) or decide not to support a platform without giving users the ability to support it themselves.

With the liability that is an over-reliance on American core software (OS, firmware, etc) - I believe the EU should mandate unlocked bootloaders on electronic devices and force vendors to either distribute driver sources or provide enough documentation for bootleggers to write drivers.

This is simply "the right to repair" extended to the software component of hardware.

antifa•9mo ago

Although for Europeans this is probably more like "the right to not have (potentially hostile) foreign countries backdoor all your devices". Whether it's Microsoft spying on you or Samsung preinstalling unremovable spamware, I'm all about making the world a better place.

mianos•9mo ago

This reminds me of eKaren in Australia ordering X to block some content world wide. The Australia judge ruled that she is not the world wide arbiter and has neither the rights or power to issue a world wide edict.

Doxin•9mo ago

Importantly the EU here is not trying to dictate how X behaves outside the EU. Only how it interacts with people in the EU.

Seems fair enough to me that if you open a store front somewhere the local government gets to lay down the law on how to run that store front.

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