But all coming on here and saying "ooohh, this is bad, innit!" is not very interesting, and unlikely to prevent it.
Why is the EU doing this? Which political groups are supporting and opposing it? Why now? How are vendors responding? How does it affect non-EU countries?
I disagree - this is how the internet can strengthen democracy.
Upvoting and commenting makes this post hit the top of HN and stay there. This makes it visible to many EU citizens who can reach out to their MEP's to ask them to vote against it. Seems a pretty effective strategy to me as someone living in a non-EU country.
Although agree that we should also be discussing the questions you raised.
I'll state that as an American I'm quite unhappy with this as I know the regulations will also affect me and the truth of the matter is that I have a much smaller voice in this matter due to not being a European citizen. I do have additional worry since it was not that long ago which we saw the results of authoritarianism in Europe (though it did result in the strengthening of my country). And my concern is that authoritarianism creeps, often with good intentions but poor foresight. My biggest fear is that we did not learn the great lesson from WW2, in that Germany did not in fact go from good people to the entire country being evil and back to being good people. If we can't understand this process and see how it actually happens (with the details) it will only repeat, led by people that have. But I don't know how to get people to understand subtleties, and that seems like a major issue in a world growing increasingly complex.