(This blog post was sponsored by “OH HOLY SHIT, PLEASE DON’T LET THIS BE A THING!!”)
The original title to this blog post was “The EU could take over the Internet, starting with Youtube’s Content ID System”. And I’m not joking with this troubling news given via a Pretty Good Gaming video (which I highly recommend you to watch).
First off, there’s the flawed Content ID system of YouTube. Not being a content creator, I don’t know much about this. All I do know is this checks every video for copyrighted content, however it’s not mandatory.
But if the EU has its way, it will be. Not only that, but they’ll be demanding Google (who runs Youtube) to alter their bots. The EU would also be able to legally spy through using these bots.
Why is this bad (and why should you care even if you’re living in America)? It’s bad for people who are supporting British and European content creators (as this would mean more videos would be removed for absolutely no reason). It’s bad for content creators themselves (even people who do Let’s Plays). These bots won’t be able to tell the difference between a review, and a Let’s Play. If it sees a lot of long content that is flagged as copyrighted, the video(s) will go down without warning.
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What’s worse is this won’t just affect YouTube, but all large media content hubs (such as GitHub, Wikipedia, ..even Steam) just to see if there’s any copyrighted content.
Let me give you an idea how this is going to work, and how this is eerily similar to what I’m about to say. There’s been several forms where I start an account and make out my first post (usually in the form of a question). When submitting, it tells me the post is ‘placed on hold’ for a moderator to verify that it’s not breaking the rules.
…Folks, THIS is the future of the Internet if this passes. Instead of this being for forums, it will affect any website that shares a lot of media-based content.
Now I doubt this pathetic excuse of a website would be affected by this. Then again, who knows how far down the rabbit hole this is going to go.
So now it’s time for my thoughts of this. To call this ‘ridiculous’ would be an understatement. We don’t need the EU to be the ‘parents of the Internet’ (just like these other attempts to spy using the internet by the US(that thankfully got shot down)).
Hopefully this will be as well. The EU has forgotten, that there are several instances where piracy actually helped with sales of goods (by the power of distribution, something a person who barely has any money to do it theirself).