The Upload Filter

The EU Parliament just voted to break the internet. Article 13. Upload filters. From now on every platform has to scan everything you upload—check it against some database for copyright hits. If there’s a match, it disappears. The filters can’t tell the difference between fair use and theft, between a parody and the real thing. They just delete. But that’s kind of the point.

Julia Reda, who actually gets it, warned the vote would destroy an entire generation’s faith that government represents them. The CDU’s Axel Voss, who pushed this through, says it’s about protecting creators from theft. Maybe he’s right about that. But the trade-off is the entire open internet—the weird, permissive, you-can-make-anything-and-share-it internet I’ve known since the nineties. That’s dead now.

Even some of the conservatives who voted for it seemed uncomfortable about it. A Polish MEP named Michal Boni actually pointed out—as if it wasn’t obvious—that filters can’t tell the difference between legal and illegal use. They’re just dangerous. The Greens split on it. But 348 to 274. It passed.

Edward Snowden tweeted about it in German. He said remember who did this. Don’t vote for them again. The CDU.

I’ve been building on the internet for decades now. Watched it go from something completely weird and anarchic to something essential. Made careers on it, friends on it, built things. And right when I finally understood what it was actually good for—a place where anyone could make anything and share it with the whole world—they’re shutting it down. Filtering it. Making it safe and corporate.

I don’t know what comes next. Someone will fight it. But today that version of the internet is gone.