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The NO FAKES act has changed, and it's worse

(www.eff.org)
278 points miles | 2 comments | 24 Jun 25 05:34 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mschuster91 ◴[24 Jun 25 07:34 UTC] No.44363727[source]▶
> The new version of NO FAKES requires almost every internet gatekeeper to create a system that will a) take down speech upon receipt of a notice; b) keep down any recurring instance—meaning, adopt inevitably overbroad replica filters on top of the already deeply flawed copyright filters; c) take down and filter tools that might have been used to make the image; and d) unmask the user who uploaded the material based on nothing more than the say so of person who was allegedly “replicated.”

You already need point a) to be in place to comply with EU laws and directives (DSA, anti-terrorism [1]) anyway, and I think the UK has anti-terrorism laws with similar wording, and the US with CSAM laws.

Point b) is required if you operate in Germany, there have been a number of court rulings that platforms have to take down repetitive uploads of banned content [2].

Point c) is something that makes sense, it's time to crack down hard on "nudifiers" and similar apps.

Point d) is the one I have the most issues with, although that's nothing new either, unmasking users via a barely fleshed out subpoena or dragnet orders has been a thing for many many years now.

This thing impacts gatekeepers, so not your small mom-and-pop startup but billion dollar companies. They can afford to hire proper moderation staff to handle such complaints, they just don't want to because it impacts their bottom line - at the cost of everyone affected by AI slop.

[1] https://eucrim.eu/news/rules-on-removing-terrorist-content-o...

[2] https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/vizr6424-bgh-renate-k...

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marcus_holmes ◴[24 Jun 25 09:05 UTC] No.44364194[source]▶
The EU has a different approach to this kind of regulation than the USA [0]. EU regulations are more about principles and outcomes, while US regulation is more about strict rules and compliance with procedures. The EU tends to only impose fines if the regulations are deliberately being ignored, while the US imposes fines for any non-compliance with the regs.

So while you can compare the two, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. You need to squint a bit.

The DMCA has proven to be way too broad, but there's no appetite to change that because it's very useful for copyright holders, and only hurts small content producers/owners. This looks like it's heading the same way.

> This thing impacts gatekeepers, so not your small mom-and-pop startup but billion dollar companies.

I don't see any exemptions for small businesses, so how do you conclude this?

[0] https://www.grcworldforums.com/risk/bridging-global-business... mentions this but I couldn't find a better article specifically addressing the differences in approach.

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1. noirscape ◴[24 Jun 25 14:03 UTC] No.44366398[source]▶
Yeah one thing the EU as well as most local European courts care about is showing good faith, not just to the court but also to the other party. (Due to how US law works, this isn't quite the case in the US: respect for the court is enforced, respect for the other party isn't required.)

One of the big reasons why CJEU is handing out massive fines to the big tech companies is because of the blatant non-compliance to orders from local courts and DPAs by constantly demanding appeals to them and refusing to even attempt to do anything until CJEU affirms the local courts (and usually ramping up the fines a bit more at that). It's a deliberate perversion of the judicial process so that GAFAM can keep violating the law by delaying the proper final judgement. They'd not have gotten higher fines if they just complied with the local courts while the appeal was going on; that'd be a show of good faith, which European courts tend to value.

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2. mschuster91 ◴[24 Jun 25 20:09 UTC] No.44370503[source]▶
Ding ding ding. You are right on the money. Our entire legal system is based on first time offenders getting off with a slap on the wrist (if even that, you'll most likely get away with merely a warning if it's a new law or you were just incompetent or had bad luck) and only if you keep offending you'll get screwed eventually. Our aim is to have as much voluntary compliance as possible to the laws.

In contrast, American jurisdiction is "come down hard from the get-go if it's warranted, but the richer you are the better your chances are at just lawyering yourself out of trouble", and the cultural attitude is "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission". That fundamentally clashes with our attitude, and not just the general public but especially the courts don't like it when companies blatantly ignore our democratic decisions just to make short term money (e.g. Uber and AirBnB).