Bit different when that fine print changes while you’re looking at the ad.

“Human rights grounds”
Struck Down on Human rights grounds in the WEST?
We will see Chinese democracy before that.

Point 1 – Compromised Process –

Some of perhaps many puppeteers at work here are the established rightsholder mafias and the platform spookettes. In the US for example, the former have quite thoroughly conscripted a segment of the federal government (e.g. FBI) to be their mercenaries; and jiggered the laws to extend coverage to laughable lengths. The punishments for ‘piracy’ are vastly bloated w/r/t societal seriousness and hence are likely juiced by moneyed incentives.

The platform NGOs (e.g. Giggle, Zuckbook, Beezoar-zon, TimApple) have become instruments of centralized data warehousing like unto governmental intelligence agencies. Citizens (even government and military personnel) are self-bugged with devices which can locate, listen-in and see what’s occuring on location, paw through all communications, etc. The lot will do whatever it takes to keep their catheters in the arteries of data – it’s probably the case that these data hogs are service providers to Five / Nine / Fourteen Eyes, sans legal oversight. And many of these platforms have their sights set on becoming big-time ‘content providers’ as well (YoobToob TV, Beezoar Prime, TimApple TV++.)

The influence on the political landscape is vast, sometimes blatant sometimes subtle. The direction is clearly NOT toward openness nor personal freedom however.

In the US, we also have the telecom duopolies who, like the Colossus of Rhodes, span the gulf between govermental overlordship and corporate greed. They too are similarly focused away from the good of the populace. (I don’t personally know the equivalent landscape in the EU.)

It would be important to expose the money trail between these backroom directors and the legislative processes at work.

(Was Herr Voss gifted a season pass on the Weinstein Memorial Casting Couch for his yeoman’s work here?)

Blatantly-compromised ‘representatives’ should have an appropriate symbol (e.g. the ‘one finger salute’) tattooed onto their T-zones. Many have likely already charted a path out the revolving door, so EUros could hope to ENCOURAGE them to move to wherever their masters reside. (The Hollywood phrase "will never work in this town again" comes to mind; only w/r/t EU government.)

Come to think, this might be a good beta test for the survivability of the meme in the EU: presumably these legis-critters are considered public figures, meaning that their likenesses can be used, for example, as the basis for meme. So someone with creative skills could take each of their mugshots, emblazon their foreheads, and add an appropriate caption. (EUrope’s Most Wanted?) The abovementioned ‘one finger salute’ might be grounds for censorship, so perhaps better a ‘full moon’, or maybe just an orange dot (orange being the Mark of the new Yuge Trumpkin).

Point 3 – Populace Naivety –

Clearly a global problem. The internet IS a communications medium, as revolutionary as the printing press at sub-second speed. And it panicks the established big business and governmental bodies as much as did Gutenberg’s invention to the Big Businesses of his day. Burning books and smashing presses should cause more than vague reminiscence.

I personally think it’s a mistake to consistently envision that it’s just the legal operatives alone who are uninformed. TD’s own initiative to engage and educate, while a valiant effort, can also miss the mark if it doesn’t target the general populace in tandem. And ‘trainings’ with leaders should be memorialized, so that citizens can evaluate the leaders’ understanding and work to ‘address’ the gaps.

Ever notice how, shortly before some process of legal finality (e.g. a vote) is to occur, the puppetmasters or their trusted puppets will issue missives which declare whatever falsehoods they wish to establish? Or that when a fact-finding process is forced, a meeting will occur with the ‘professional stakeholders’ before and perhaps instead of the public ones? Why is that? It is to establish the Definitive Word as a script for those who preside. At that point the decisionmaking entity is forced to the brink of a dilemma, which is: to go against the input of The Professionals in this matter? And the public loses so that moneyed interests don’t? (Plus: "Ka-ching!")

THAT naivety is what needs to be reduced.

oint 6 – Redress & Action –

We WILL have to Nerd Harder, but not as ‘they’ might imagine. Admitting defeat at the hands of those empowered by means, not mind nor morals, just isn’t the Human Way.

Free citizens need the means to CONTROL their representatives. Technology can and should facilitate a timely closing of the loop between inauguration and accountability.

It’s reasonably clear that the filtering thing is FAIL. So why not hack that? Figure out how to make them false-fail NEARLY EVERY TIME. (Like unto the feeble copy protection racket in video games, this should be spammed and damned.) Force the content owners to provide filtering and make its failures proportionally costly FOR THEM.

The internet IS fundamentally a means of communication, but it has conveniently become a means of mass-distribution of infotainment. If need be, these two functions should be bifurcated so that communication can persist, and by which freedoms can expand (survive, even).

Awaken from the fog of infotainment (duplication of bulk content), to see instead how things like mesh networks can complement distribution of information, even fostering some privacy and anonymity along the way. Vive’ journalism! Vive’ communication!

Some of the gatekeeper entities are extremely vulnerable to organized public action. The so-called ‘entertainment’ so-called ‘industries’ in particular offer largely non-essential products and services. EU citizens should now take just cause to totally boycott these money sinks, starting with those which feed monsters outside their jurisdiction. And not just a multi-day blackout – as long as it takes. Spend your time and money elsewhere, and locally.

We in the US should do likewise, in order that we can deconstruct verticalized control over communication, platform and content. For example, Comcrap, Cheater (Speculum), The Death Star (ATT), etc. are in bed with regulators in the communications arena at every level. Okaaaayyy… just don’t use any of their ‘other’ services. For Comcrap: swear-off Universal, (MS)NBC, their home security, their ‘wireless’, etc. For TDS: if you’re in their clutches for telecom, don’t watch their sports, use their wireless, etc. – if you’re not using them for communications, maybe watch their sports but don’t use them to communicate; specifically, don’t use their wireless – period. And just avoid GTE cum Vor-I-zone wireless altogether.

Push for municipal, multi-provider FTTP. Fiber is vastly harder to snoop. Broad, localized public ownership of the cable plant limits successful spook skullduggery.

Self-hosted, self-publication systems can bypass the gatekeepers’ dragons. Systems like Mastodon versus the horror that is the Anti-social Network. Self-defined ‘economies’ based on creator-minted vouchers could enable creators to sell directly.

So too the situation in the EU seems ripe for the beginnings of a new ‘collection society’, one created by the creators and whose membership embodies solidarity (think Creative Commons with remuneration). It seems that if such a society could provide registration of works, collection and distribution of royalties, et.al., the need to pay anyone else to publish one’s work is rendered non-existent yet passes muster amidst these new, misguided (and hopefully temporary) legal frameworks. Members of said society pay dues and are officially registered; whatever they publish therefrom they must own, completely. Only plagiarized work should thence be subject to legal process from without – and the plagiarist be fully-exposed thereto. The society should be able to run a tidy side business, punishing the legacy gluttons’ indiscretions based on unfair competition, fraud, misrepresentation, THEIR plagiarism, SLAPP, etc.

Work for legislation to disconnect your data from Their Data. Start with vital services such as government, banking, utilities, etc. And if a Data Hog screws up (e.g. Experian here in the US), be able to legally and fully disconnect from them (e.g. be able to tell your bank "I opt out of anything to do with Experian; if you ask or tell them anything about me, you’ve broken the law".) Data cribbing is cyber-stalking; it’s ‘casing’ you and yours for future unknown assaults.

Back the creation of standardized terms of service which are vetted through bonafide legal channels (e.g. the EFF). No more custom clickware and EULAs – clickware == trickware. Landing and login pages should simply contain designations of the standard T&Cs which apply. Just avoid everything else ’til it goes away.

Lay siege to the lot of them!!