Bonum Certa Men Certa

Reporting That Embarrasses Powerful People Online is at Risk (Politicians Are at It Again)

Video download link | md5sum 326ca25a0add9eb3055664d6d0bc1cc5 Restrictions in Canada and EU Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Journalism online is under attack, especially through centralised "services" (especially social control media and proprietary search engines, which are veiled disservices or censorship mechanisms) and as usual this is disguised as combating piracy, protecting children, and protecting adults from "misinformation"

THE other day we added two important items under the "politics" category of Daily Links. One concerned Canada's "Liberal Party Policy Proposal" and the other concerned DSA's (Digital Services Act) Article 37 and Article 44, which is open for feedback until the start of June. The former explores options to “hold on-line information services accountable for the veracity of material published on their platforms and to limit publication only to material whose sources can be traced.” The latter "is to set out the necessary rules for the procedures, methodology and templates used for the audits of very large online platforms and very large online search engines as required under the Digital Services Act (Article 37)."



"...what the European Commission does typically gets implemented in north American countries and vice versa for political and cultural reasons."As noted in the video above, what the European Commission does typically gets implemented in north American countries and vice versa for political and cultural reasons. They habitually refer to this as harmonisation.

In recent decades we saw a whole bunch of laws put forth as "bills" and "proposals", resulting in less speech online or more censorship by large, centralised "services", including search and social control media. When in Canada they say "limit publication only to material whose sources can be traced" they basically mean only people that the oligarchs can punish for disclosing "embarrassing" information. That would hurt anonymous sources. As an associate put it, this is one "among the many other problems with that approach."

"In recent decades we saw a whole bunch of laws put forth as "bills" and "proposals", resulting in less speech online or more censorship by large, centralised "services", including search and social control media.""Among several reasons it is very relevant to Techrights because of the sources relied upon and need for protecting them from retaliation and other abuse."

In the video above I give the examples of Novell, Microsoft, and the EPO. Source protection is very immportant. In the case of the EU, they still seek/strive to control "very large online search engines" (such as Google) and it seems to be geared towards changing or controlling the narrative. They try to get those corporations to serve some political agenda.

If you live in the EU, you can read the documents listed here and provide feedback by June 2nd (someone has already submitted a comment in French). They may or may not listen, but it's the best we can do at the moment.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders