Hi Tisza,
just one thing - the definition of a competent authority that
will issue removal orders as adopted in LIBE (so still may change
in the trilogues) is defined as single designated judicial
authority or functionally independent administrative authority
in the Member State. So it may but doesn't have to be a
court and as we know in countries like Hungary and Poland (where I
am from) the independence of administration is not a given n the
current political situation. Originally that wasn't even defined
as such since it was seen as an internal affair of a Member State
("competent authorities have the necessary capability and
sufficient resources to achieve the aims and fulfill their
obligations") so let's see if that desired amendment stays
in. My point is that if these are not judicial bodies it will be
even easier to make them issue ridiculous removal orders as a
tactics to put a service in trouble.
We will definitely monitor this and reach out to you when we have
a better clarity which way the trilogue goes. But that will most
probably be happening in the fall.
Best,
Anna
On Mon, Apr 8, 2019 at 9:26 AM Anna Mazgal <anna@wikimedia.be> wrote:
But looking at the imaginative policies of Orban for example I tend not to underestimate dictator's drive to have things their way, so depending on what they consider as dissent, public threat, etc. The trouble is, that once removal orders are issues, the platforms must remove content and they do not have the option to contest them on the grounds of being absurd.
Yeah, one issue here is that the removal orders would be issued by the national courts, which can be easily subverted by a determined government. We have already seen Orbán abusing anti-terrorist legislation [1] and trying to criminalize NGOs that aid refugees [2], and while the EU has some ability to pressure local strongmen not to adopt local laws which are intended to suppress freedom of speech, it is much less able to prevent them from using existing EU law for that purpose.
_______________________________________________ Publicpolicy mailing list Publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
-- Anna Mazgal EU Policy Advisor Wikimedia anna@wikimedia.be @a2na mobile: +32 487 222 945 51 Rue du Trône BE-1050 Brussels