Good question

[GreyGeek]

[Goeroeboeroe]

It's a disaster.
It will take a (very) long time before it's implemented, because now they have to start talking with 26 different countries about the exact implementation etc.
They removed the text about an upload filter, but if you read the text the only thing usable for YouTube etc. still is a filter.
Today there was also a proposition coming from the European Commission Facebook etc. have to remove 'extremist' content within an hour.

[vinnywright]

and ,,,,when our governments finally control all the information we have access to we will be controlled

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

and ,,,,when our governments finally control all the information we have access to we will be controlled

VINNY

And, as the government records in East Germany revealed after the fall of the USSR, the Stasi forced one out of 50 to spy on the other 49.
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Stasi-in-bstu.pdf
And now, former Stasi members guard their own work, so it can't be very safe and they probably conceal, or have destroyed, the work of various GDR politicians currently active in German politics.

The Stasi held 69 miles of shelves! Considering that the entire Bible contains 5MB of text, my guesstimate is that at 3" wide for the standard 81/2 X 11 sheet, both sides, would take 5MB* 4*5280*63 = 7.3 TB. So, a 10 TB HD could hold it all. That's on around 16.9 Million people. By comparison the Stasi would have needed 1,330 miles of shelves or 132 TB of HD space to keep a similar quantity of info on Americans.

[Goeroeboeroe]

I think this article gives a very good overview why this decision was really, really bad:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/0...-we-fight-back

[GreyGeek]

I think this article gives a very good overview why this decision was really, really bad:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/0...-we-fight-back

The results in non-EU countries around the world
Article 13:
Various websites will simple block access by citizens of EU states. Problem solved. Citizens if EU will use VPN's and Tor to access free sites. EU websites will collapse due to lack of visitors or business.

Article 11
Websites in non-EU countries will not link to websites in EU countries, which would be like having your FB, YouTube, Twitter or Gog account deleted. Viewship of EU websites will drop into the toilet.

Article 12a
Unable to even post photos or blogs of their own experience, EU citizens will stop using the Internet all together. Even if they use Tor or VPNs their own photos will identify them and make them liable for fines and imprisonment. Such is life in a totalitarian state.

What many people fail to realize is that that EU politicians are Marxists, and inside every Marxist is a totalitarian fighting to get out. They have no concern what so ever that their policies will kill the Internet in the EU. In fact, IMO, they are counting on that outcome to muzzle objections to convert European democracies to Socialist states reminiscent of the Eastern Block countries. First, flood their own countries with foreigners who are then promised free welfare and the vote, which will insure the continued re-election of Marxist politicians handing out the freebies, at least until honest elections are eliminated. Marxists in America are using the same strategy. Second, without a free and vibrant Internet EU citizens have no voice to redress grievances or complaints. Especially video blogs like these:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/trAyp5XXQgo/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/pPUHHkqfR_4/

These EU Internet directives will kill the Internet in the EU and assure the demise of European democracies. That was the goal all along.

[kc1di]

and ,,,,when our governments finally control all the information we have access to we will be controlled

VINNY

+1 to that, It's a sad day for internet freedom. All to protect a few. But then we should expect that Governments can never keep away for what they think is a cash cow.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Blocking access is already happening because of the GPDR (about EU-regulations on privacy, cookies, etc.). About one hundred American newspapers are blocking IP's from the EU. Among them Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, the St. Louis Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel.
(Using Tor I can still visit those sites.)

Dear GreyGeek, I had to smile about your political comments. In the past we had some discussions about climate change I really liked. (The discussions, not the climate change ) We disagreed strongly, but stayed respectful.
But now I have a problem. I AM such a horrible Marxist. (Not very active, but I really am.) And I really hate almost every European leader at the moment.
(About that leaders killing a free internet, democracy, etc. I totally agree with you.)
I don't think most of the leaders at the moment are left or right or Marxist or whatever. I think (almost) every leader in the EU at the moment is only interested in power and/or money. If they have to take 'leftish' decisions to keep power, they will. If they have to take 'rightish' decisions to keep power, they will.

(Hmmm, funny. In English you have to write Marxist, in Dutch marxist. Marxist influence in the US?)

[GreyGeek]

I remember our amicable discussions very well, and enjoyed the exchange because it didn't degenerate into ad homenim attacks.

Most politicians here in America, Left or Right, seem mainly interested in power and money. I researched the money angle and found that before being elected to congress the average Congressman was a lawyer who accumulated a net wealth of $50K-500K after 10-15 years of work. After being elected to Congress most accumulate an average of $4M by the end of their second term. They were able to amass 4X as much wealth as politicians than they did in the private sector. The average accumulation after two terms in Congress is around $4M, and grows steadily. Senators accumulate even more. The reason is simple. They excluded themselves from stock market laws that prohibited insider trading. They'd attend closed door "hearings" with business moguls and immediately after the hearings they the call their brokers. If these thieves can maintain a long career, 30 years or so, they accumulate $30M-$120M in wealth, plus the high living. Maxine Waters lives in a $7M mansion in a posh neighborhood OUTSIDE her district. My Sen, Deb Fisher, went from a farmer's wife with a few hundred thousand in net wealth to over $4M.

The big problem was identified by another Senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, at the Kavenaugh hearings. Congress has abandon their role as lawmakers, handing that power over to the President and Federal bureaucrats. Congress passes a single "omnibus bill" of several thousand pages that NONE of the read, which palms off their responsibilities to the bureaucrats and then the Congressmen spend their time raising "campaign funds" and campaigning, 24/7/365. Their purpose: to get re-elected for the power and perks. Those that have been in Congress for the longest period of time are Democrats or RHINOS (Republicans who campaign as conservatives but vote as Democrats) occupying leadership roles. Most of them, from both parties are Marxists. 88 of them are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The term "progressive" (and "Liberal" and "socialist") is an invisibility cloak they used to hide their intent - replacing "that little book" (Constitution) with a Manifesto. The Democrat Party platform is an almost word for word copy of the platform of the CPA (Communist Party of America), which makes no attempt to conceal that they are Marxists.

Sasse identifies the problem but he is a finger in the air Republican and votes Trump on minor or trivial matters but votes Democrat on critical issues. His vote stopped the attempt to repeal ObamaCare.

[Goeroeboeroe]

I don't know for other countries, but here in the Netherlands 90% of the politicians have almost exactly the same ideas about every major subject. Only on the (far) right and left there are politicians with different views. Of course we have a totally different political system here: 13 parties in the House of Representatives. In 2017 there were 33 (thirty-three!) parties participating in the elections for the House. (Actually there were a whole lot more, but not every idiot, pardon, party had enough money and/or signatures. You have to pay some money and collect signatures, before you are allowed to participate in elections.)

Most of the politicians here come from businesses. And lots of them go back, after some time in the House. They don't earn a lot of money as a politician, but after their political career they can.

But apart from some differences, I think a lot of problems are more or less the same. The House of Representatives hardly controls the government any more. Everything is decided in all kind of 'secret' meetings behind closed doors between representatives from the parties forming the government, and the government itself.
Till 20-30 years ago there were political leaders with ideas. You could agree with them or not, but you knew more or less what kind of ideas they had.
Now we have a prime minister who has said several times he is proud he has no vision at all.

I have been politically active, years ago. I never had any problem cooperating with right-winged people. I preferred working with a honest right-winged person above working with a left-winged person with a secret agenda. If somebody more right-winged was honest, you could openly disagree and work something out.

But I still wonder what you mean with 'Marxist'. I guess there may also be a difference between Americans and Europeans using this name. I myself consider myself to be a Marxist, because I can approve with most of the ideas of Marx. (Not all, but time changed, and I guess Marx himself would have adjusted some of his ideas).
And that doesn't mean I ever had any sympathy for dictators like Lenin, or Stalin, or Maduro. Right or left: a dictator is a dictator.
(I'm lying. When I was 15 I wrote a piece in the school newspaper Mao was fantastic and some countries needed a dictator. When you're 15 you do stupid things, I guess.)

[GreyGeek]

Marxists are easy to identify. They favor or institute laws which result in this

[Goeroeboeroe]

Hahaha: your link gives this:

451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact online@fltimes.com or call 315-789-3333.

Nice illustration of some things we wrote about. But using Tor I could read it.
(Offtopic iInteresting legal question: if I use Tor and enter that site apparently via some IP outside the EU, does that side comply with the GDPR? I still live in the EU. Something for lawyers, grin.)

I think your definition from Marxist (and the definition a lot of people use) is different than mine. I think Maduro is a dangerous lunatic maniac, who has nothing to do with Marx or Marxism. Marx himself hardly wrote about how the state should be organized. Lenin already did horrible things. (A lot of people think Stalin was the first 'bad boy' in the USSR, but Lenin already was a brute dictator).
One of the few things Marx wrote about the state: every state per definition suppresses. In the end the state should disappear. So every 'Marxist' like Maduro that makes a state stronger and stronger (and has no plan to let the state disappear in the end) can be anything, but not a Marxist. Because Marx himself would disagree.

So I can still call myself a Marxist, because I hate dicators like Maduro maybe even more then you do. They give everything I believe in a bad name. That's one of the reasons I'm not active anymore (and my age): I can't deny that every leader that started more or less like a Marxist in the end was a horrible dictator and often a mass murderer (Mao, Castro, Lenin, an almost endless list.

I know a country like China says it's communist. But if you look what they do, it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Marxism. If Marx himself would live in China today, they would give him a life sentence.

I understand you (and a lot of people) call that Marxism, but that's not my kind of Marxism. As soon as you start suppressing free speech (except direct calling for violence), putting opponents in jail, etc., you make the state stronger. And I don't think people like Maduro have plans to ever let the state weaken. You can call that Marxism, but it goes against what Marx himself wrote.

[GreyGeek]

Hahaha: your link gives this:

451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact online@fltimes.com or call 315-789-3333.

Nice illustration of some things we wrote about. But using Tor I could read it.
(Offtopic iInteresting legal question: if I use Tor and enter that site apparently via some IP outside the EU, does that side comply with the GDPR? I still live in the EU. Something for lawyers, grin.)

An outcome I did not suspect, but as you say it does illustrate the censorship problem that the EU dictators imposes on its citizens. As a citizen of the EU just how would you appeal this citizenship? Notice that they didn't give you a phone number or address of a GDPR official, but "for any issues" they want you to email or phone the Finger Lake Times in 218 Genesee St., Geneva, New York 14456 Just what do they think the FLTimes would or could do about a connection problem the EU bureaucracy enforcing the GDPR created in the first place? The odds are the anyone you contact at the FLTimes wouldn't have a clue as to what you are talking about.

I am curious: nslookup for fltimes.com gives
:~$ nslookup fltimes.com
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: fltimes.com
Address: 192.104.182.209
Name: fltimes.com
Address: 192.104.182.109

Test something for me. Add the following lines to the bottom of your /etc/hosts file and then enter fltimes.com in the URL and press enter.
192.104.182.209 fltimes.com
192.104.182.109 fltimes.com

If they are using a DNS server to block you your hosts file should supply the IP address for connection. If you get a 404 then they are using another method, probably because of the appearance of the words "Maduro" or "Venezuela" in the html packets.


The ONLY things on that page besides the news article itself, which the FLTimes posted as a news article to be read by the general public, are ads placed by the FLTImes and other corporations themselves, tracking cookies, and other means of spying on YOU. YOU haven't added a single word so copyright violations do not apply since the corporations themselves added the ads and related text. IOW, you are NOT guilty of copyright violations.

It is OBVIOUS that the only objections the EU dictators have is that the article is derogatory to Marxism. Only a Marxist following Marx's 10 points and bent on destruction of private property and enterprise would raise the minimum wage 65X and FORBID business owners to raise their prices to cover the increased costs of doing business. The ONLY outcome is that most, if not all, of the small shop owners will close their businesses because the new laws will force them out anyway, The owner's next action will be to follow their countrymen out of Venezuela and into nearby countries with more personal and economic freedoms than Maduro allows.

That Maduro is a Marxist is beyond debate, even using the "No True Scotsman" argument. He himself claims to be:

Karl Marx was born 200 years ago. Thanks to him, history took a new path. He did not settle for interpreting reality, he tried to transform it. That is also what the Revolution is about. Happy birthday Marx. Socialism greets you.

Chavez dodged the question of being a communist just like Castro did, but after gaining power he took off his invisibility cloak and declared outright that he was:

When Hugo Chávez was running in his first successful presidential campaign, back in 1998, he was asked point blank in several television interviews whether or not he was a communist. His reply was identical to the one given by Fidel Castro to Princeton University students during his visit to the United States in 1959: “I am a humanist.” Years later, on consolidating total power in his own hands, Chávez again emulated Fidel and confessed to being “a convinced follower of Marxist-Leninist ideology.”

Now that the catastrophic results have arrived—shortages, poverty, misery, unemployment, hyperinflation, emigration, corruption, hunger, lawlessness, and conflict—suddenly everything that happened is no longer the results of following socialism based on Marx's 10 points. It's all the fault of the US. Strange how that works! It must have been the US military that masqueraded as Chavez's civilian armed forces and gunned down Venezuelans protesting. The Marxist Voice believes that every problem in the world is the result of "US Imperialist meddling".

When Chávez died in 2013, he had 32 government ministries. Maduro has expanded that to 40, including the ministries of Communes, Food Sovereignty, Water and Ecosocialism, and Supreme Social Happiness. Chavez and Maduro have 1) confiscated and naitionalized industries. They have 2) set price and rent controls, and 3) created utopian projects that ended up collapsing their economy, 4) demonized business owners, both large and small, 5) made anti-capitalist Marxist alliances, and the hallmark of Socialist utopias around the world - 6) rationing.

These two graphs sum up the disaster that is Venezuela:
https://bit.ly/2MD1M6J



https://bit.ly/2D234Z9


BTW, this post made me a massive violator of the GDPR and worthy of a life sentence in prison ... IF I lived in the EU.

[Goeroeboeroe]

That's the problem: a lot of people call themselves Marxists, but aren't (in my opinion). But that's a problem I guess (almost) every ideology, religion, etc. has.
But if you really believe dictators like Maduro are true Marxists, I hope you don't see ME like such a kind of Marxist

About that page: it can't have something to do with the new directive, because that's only a plan. They first have to start negotiations with all 28 member states etc. (I thouht there were 26 members, but they multiply like rabbits.)

What I've read a lot of sites (probably not only in the US) find it to difficult to comply with the GDPR.

I added that line to my hosts file, but I got the same result. Of cource: it's not the EU blocking fltimes, it's fltimes blocking EU. What I've read a lot of sites are afraid to get into trouble not following the GDPR. That could lead to huge fines. If they have to spend a lot of money, or mabye it's even impossible, to comply they choose to simply block visitors from the EU.
If you search for something like 'newspapers blocking visitors from EU' you'll find links like https://econsultancy.com/gdpr-which-...from-the-eu-2/

If you really believe the EU itself is blocking those sites, can you give some proof?

(I certainly don't blindly believe everything the EU says. And I've seen enough strange things I know 'complots' extist. But I'd like to see some arguments.)

[GreyGeek]

That's the problem: a lot of people call themselves Marxists, but aren't (in my opinion). But that's a problem I guess (almost) every ideology, religion, etc. has.

That's for sure. There are posers everywhere.

But if you really believe dictators like Maduro are true Marxists, I hope you don't see ME like such a kind of Marxist

You aren't the fire-breathing, send'm to re-education camps (a.k.a. gulags) type The thing about Marx was that he had no idea of the depravity to which humans can sink when push comes to shove. I've investigated several homicide at the request of local LEO's and some people are pretty sick. The smartest, most violent and most psychopathic types rise to the top of any political system, and those are the types that want to eliminate the Bill of Rights to prevent people from voting them out of office or shooting them out of office. Sometimes, people have had to resort to the ammo box when the ballot box wasn't available or fair. The 2nd Amendment isn't about preserving duck hunting, it is about preserving freedom.

About that page: it can't have something to do with the new directive, because that's only a plan. They first have to start negotiations with all 28 member states etc. (I thought there were 26 members, but they multiply like rabbits.)

About who is guilty of filtering your fltimes connection: I'm doubtful that the fltimes.com is filtering you. The Netherlands has a huge amount of IPv4 addresses assigned to it:
http://lite.ip2location.com/netherla...address-ranges
and I doubt that the fltimes.com has got filters in place for all those Netherlandic IPv4 addresses, and those do not even include the IPv6 addresses. Netherlands is the eighth largest of the 28 EU members states and fltimes.com isn't going to run each ACK request through that big a filter before they decide to complete the handshake or not. I believe you are correct, the fltimes.com may be doing the filtering. I've proposed another experiment below.

What I've read a lot of sites (probably not only in the US) find it to difficult to comply with the GDPR.

Most countries outside of the EU will ignore the GDPR and let the EU citizens censor themselves. They certainly won't succumb to EU extortion attempts to extract "fines". Individual corporations within those countries outside the EU may have necessary business dependencies with EU states and thus comply or got out of business, but most won't.

I added that line to my hosts file, but I got the same result. Of cource: it's not the EU blocking fltimes, it's fltimes blocking EU. What I've read a lot of sites are afraid to get into trouble not following the GDPR. That could lead to huge fines. If they have to spend a lot of money, or mabye it's even impossible, to comply they choose to simply block visitors from the EU.
If you search for something like 'newspapers blocking visitors from EU' you'll find links like https://econsultancy.com/gdpr-which-...from-the-eu-2/

If you really believe the EU itself is blocking those sites, can you give some proof?

I do not know for a fact that the EU is blocking those sites. That's why I asked you to do that little experiment. Since your host file supplied the IP address but you were blocked anyway it appears that, as you say, the fltimes is blocking EU residents. I doubt any local programmer has the tools or skills to do that so they must be using an application installed on their website or sending their web through an outsourced vendor that does such stuff.

Your link is very informative, but the author glosses over some facts. First, how does the EU plan to enforce THEIR laws in other countries? It would be like the US Congress passing a law forbidding anyone in the world from doing X. And, how do they plan to collect their fines against citizens doing X in other countries that are NOT bound by their laws? And, what if their laws run counter to the Rights guaranteed, or not specifically denied, to citizens in the USA? Do they actually believe that the output of their political assemblies supersede those of other sovereign countries?

Another curious question: what does
traceroute 192.104.182.109
give you?
Mine had 30 hops but no site could be characterized as a filter site. Unless the fltimes.com has purchased a software package that is installed on their web server I'm looking for an intermediate website that filters links based on country of origin.