gian

<sarcasm>Else how can you certify you are a woman ? We don’t want a man lurking around</sarcasm>

It’s pretty far from a win. It’s backing down to a bully because you know a fight would hurt you both badly, and that you still need the help of this bully against another.

Right, the fight can hurt both sides, but capitulating today will only end with another capitulation tomorrow.

Shit sucks, but that’s where we are now.

Well, we as EU could have simply let Trump know that we are a market they cannot leave.
Put a 15% additional taxes on every penny the US tech companies make in EU… and it is not really hard to do it even without them collaborating.

Edit: German eID works on any Android btw., flawless actually. I sure hope I can use that for verification

Same in Italy… I mean, I can pay taxes with that application but I cannot be verified for my age ? Seriously EU ?

The VCs can hop on a plane and invest the money in the EU, if they think that’s what makes them a profit.

True, but I suspect that the VCs don’t like the EU rules…

I know some people that regulations should be changed so that European banks can make riskier investments and do VC funding. I don’t see why they would invest in Europe and not in the US, like anyone else. They are all chasing the same profits. European VCs can hop on a plane to Silicon Valley and dump the money there.

More than that, the real advantage that US people have is that bankruptcy is not see the same way, in US is handled almost as a normal thing if you try to build something while in EU is seen almost as a stigma.

What probably stops people in EU is that normally if you try and fail you almost never have a second chance.

I don’t know if deregulating banks is a good idea. I’m skeptical because I remember the 00s. But I don’t have the qualifications to judge.

No, it is not a good idea, I agree

It’s not prohibitive but an obstacle. Facebook can build neural networks to automate legal obligations and it can hire lawyers to minimize damage when they fail.

Yes, it is true, but I would love to see how it will work

Everybody can try though to build a new social media but nobody will.

You are right, but I suspect that you don’t understand the real reason, which is not the rules but the fact that a social media need users and it is difficult to make people leave the current ones. After all, before Facebook there was MySpace and after Facebook there will be something else.

Tighter moderation and copyright requirements can stop everything.

True, but that would be valid for everyone. So as it could stop an emerging social media it could also stop an estabilished social media, and EU historically does not go after the small fishes.
I am sure that you understand that if EU put up tighter moderation and copyright requirements the first social media to be tanked would be Facebook and not the emerging social media.

The USA had excempted platforms from holding them responsible to allow broad innovation by everybody. The EU does the opposite and ads more requirements.

Not always.
But the way the USA went create a grey area were the social media can legally say “I am not responsible for what the users post” and on the other hand the “the platform is mine and I can decide what goes on it”, which in my opinion is a worse situation since now the moderation is in the hand of a company.
We had many examples of social media that on one hand say they are excempted and on the other say that they can decide what goes on the site. Sorry but it not works this way: you are responsible for everything on your site and then you can decide what goes on it or you are not responsible and then you cannot decide what goes on it (granted that is legal). You cannot have both ways.

Nothing that kills an established company but it’s deadly for anything but the most serious startups.

I disagree. If Facebook would be held responsible for its contents like a startup, I would bet that it would be deadly for Facebook and not the startup. Look at the GDPR, there were reasons why these companies have fought tooth and nail against it.

The EU must know about the US excemption. They are not ignorant so they chose to not create competition and to leave that market to the US.

Which, again, does nothing to stop someone to try to build a new social media.

I only stated the obvious: in EU the mentality is different and it is not that easy to get money to have a company going for years without making enough money to pay its cost (infrastuctures, servers, people atc), there are not the VC’s that are present in US.
If that make me part of the industry…

One problem is that a solution isn’t obvious. The copyright industry hasn’t succeeded in making a truly effective DRM system.

I would argue that they really don’t want since they know all too well that “1 pirated copy less equal 1 more copy sold” is completely false.

An additional technical problem is that European data rights are complicated. You need to determine who has what rights in the data. AI may be very helpful here.

No, European data rights are not complicated, that is a false myth (source, someone who currently work to provide certifications about the GDPR compliance and other regulations, not myself), unless you want to do something borderline. What the GDPR say is, basically, “you need to ask only the necessary data to provide the service and keep them only the time you need to provide the service (if no other laws say otherwise) and you need to keep them secure”. And explain why you need additional data, eventually, and what do you want to do with them.
We could argue about the “you need to keep them secure” eventually.

But the real problem is not technical. The Americans build services that people want to use. European policymakers don’t care if anyone wants to use it. The only concern is to make sure that the wrong use can be stopped. It’s enshittified by design.

Maybe true, but I think that it is more a mentality problem.
All the social networks are not born from some American policymaker, they were born from some guy that build it and then become a company. Or from a company that had the idea to build it and can afford to work at a loss even for years.

Sounds like you want an E2E encrypted group chat rather than social media.

His idea yes.
But having a social network where something can be viewed by everyone and something only by your friends is not bad, think something like a federated social that is a middle ground between facebook and patreon, maybe using a public key infrastructure to decide who could see your not public post.

Here’s an unpopular opinion: This won’t happen because the policymakers don’t want it to happen.

Which is irrelevant since they cannot ban someone to build one. If you build a social media there is nothing the policy maker can do to stop you. Granted, you need to follow a series of rules, but that’s it. And they cannot tighten the rule too much, since they apply to everyone.

It’s fundamentally opposed to what they want. And I’m not spinning some conspiracy tale here. Listen…

You are right but for the wrong reason. Currently (and sometimes foolishly) EU don’t want to have one big social media like Facebook because in their view it hurts the competition and ultimately it damage the users.

To a copyright person, this would mean functioning DRM. It means complete control over what happens to their content, regardless of where and how it is stored. They have the law on their side and the policymakers. Mind that the media is part of the copyright industry and they have outsize influence over public opinion. As far as they are concerned, the problem with Big Tech is that they are not paid enough for their rights.

I would consider that the perfect solution.
I mean, media companies get absolute control over their content by default (given the protocol) ? Cool that means that also the user get absolute control over his content by default given the protocol. So, maybe we would not be able anymore to pirate a movie but on the other hand a new OpenAi would not be able to freely train their model on our contents and make money with it. (and as benefit, this would set the long discussion about how many money media companies loses to piracy)

The ideal European internet is one that has DRM built-in from the bottom so that everyone can exercise their legal rights under copyright law, the GDPR, the data act, and possibly others.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. I decide what to publish on a social media and I would like to be able to stop someone from stealing it.

I think you confuse “published” with “public domain”

A freewheeling federated network is legally problematic. Even insofar that it is legal, it is fundamentally opposed to what policymakers and much of the public want. Free speech is an American value and emphatically not European.

No, it is not legally problematic, unless you consider legally problematic to not be able to steal something I published and deal as yours.

What could be legally problematic is to track the **responsability **of something published (that could be illegal somewhere) because you should unhinging the mindset that the platform must do something, which is accepted everywere else, instead of holding the **author **responsible for what **he **publish.

European attitudes towards vehicle speed stun me. 30mph is fast?!

In the city yes, we have places that are older than your country, build when car were not even an idea. It is a necessity.

Guess the difference is that American streets are built for cars; straighter, wider and wider open on the sides. Even if you meander off a residential street, all you’re going to hit is a mailbox. That open space also gives pedestrians and bikers ample room to get out of Dodge.

Wait, European street are built for car too, just only were is possible. We don’t destroy something old and valuable just to make room for the last Dodge.

LOL, 800 Watt power would be equivalent to a 49cc moped around here. Americans would laugh if anyone called that a “light motorcycle”.

Here a 49cc scooter is the entry point for riding a motorcyle and you can do it at 14 years old. It would make no sense to allow a 13 years old to be able to drive an ebike more powerfull than a scooter he cannot yet drive.

It’s not suddenly a scooter, it’s the same vehicle.

Not according to the road code, evidentely

Have you ever ridden an eBike?

Yes.

It’s totally easy to reach 25km/h by pedalling. It’s also possible to reach that speed (and to go over that) on a normal bicycle without a motor

I didn’t ask if it is possible but how many times you reach that speed while pedaling versus how many time you reach it using the throttle.

The same used for a scooter since it was a scooter. But it is no longer produced :-(

Not really - I’m going 25km/h if I’m pedaling and I would go 25km/h with a throttle.

And how many time you reach 25 km/h while pedaling and how many time you reach 25 km/h with a throttle ?

And bike manufacturers fitting underpowered brakes on eBikes is an issue for another regulation?

If they become a danger to the others then yes.

But is there really a fundamental difference?

I would point out that an ebike with a throttle are more like this one (sorry, only find in Italian) than a normal bicycle from a road code point of view.

There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation. We can slap electro motors on wheels and bicycles are not the only vehicles you can build with that tech. Many EU countries are e.g. banning throttles on eBikes, but why are we forcing all those delivery drivers to pedal the whole day?

Fine by me, just say them to obtain a driver’s license and insurance for a scooter, since basicaly it is what they would drive. Or drop the need of the license for the scooters and light bike.

The point is that a ebike with a throttles is basically a scooter (or bike) and then it is a different things, with differnt rules.

The problem is that a licence is expensive as fuck here in Germany. If I wanted to upgrade my drivers licence to those 125 motorcycles, that will be around 800€. A full motorcycle licence is several thousands of Euros.

Damn, and I was thinking that in Italy licences are expensive…

So a young person can just hop on a bicycle with a motor for free or “simply buy a small bike” with costs of several thousands of Euros. It would make sense if we bring the cost of thoses licences down.

The problem is that this way you would have a young person on what is basically a bike but without even the smallest knowlegde of how to behave on a public road.

Yeah and that is exactly what I wanted to say: Why is a motor assisted thing that can go 25km/h a different thing from a motor assisted thing that can go 25km/h?

Probably they follow different rules to be approved to be on the street.

I’m not talking about full motorcycles, but to give you an exemple: I own an eBike. There is a throttle available that would let me cruise at up to 25km/h without pedaling. That is totally illegal to install here, because that would make it a legally totally different thing and that would e.g. also prevent me from using my current brakes or to install the current tires. Which makes no sense - the risks are the same, brakes and tires are of course normal bicycling components which are totally fine to use at 25km/h, but the regulation is crap.

This way you basically made out a scooter out of your bike, that is what the regulation probably want to avoid.

There’s a whole class of electric vehicles being held back by regulation. We can slap electro motors on wheels and bicycles are not the only vehicles you can build with that tech. Many EU countries are e.g. banning throttles on eBikes, but why are we forcing all those delivery drivers to pedal the whole day? Just give them a gas throttle. For many eBikes uses it really doesn’t make sense to include the whole bicycle complexity of gears, chains, shifting and so on. Just give them a motor and a throttle.

Then they could simply buy a small bike, with all the attached rules, like driver’s license and so on.

The point is that a ebike and a bike are two separated things that follow different rules.

Killing the eBike with additional rules, insurance, mandatory inspections and so on would be absolutely idiotic and a good business model for insurances, car companies and so on, so I’m really afraid that this could happen

Rules are imposed as consequences.

https://pwnies.com/systemd-bugs/