Does Mojeek have an official response to the introduction of the Digital Services Act?
No, but we have been involved in several activities and coalitions during itās development. Much more of our work has been on the Digital Markets Act, which if interested I can share details of. Is there a reason for asking and any particular questions?
We have been more involved in the related UK Online Safety Bill, and beyond the post we made here in August 2021: Online Safety, Our Feedback To Government | Mojeek Blog
The blog post is helpful. And I can see how those earlier points relate to the issues raised by the Digital Services Act. I can also draw on my personal experiences to answer some of the issues raised.
In general, I thought this proposed legislation would affect Mojeek. And that would trigger a press release from the company.
Further, I imagined that if the Digital Services Act was the point at which some people were introduced to Mojeek then it would be valuable to respond directly to the points raised in the news and show where Mojeek has an advantage. A formal response would answer some basic questions and make Mojeek relevant without requiring much effort from consumers or reporters.
Yes, itās very likely both will affect Mojeek. Our concern is that it is likely to do so disproportionately. And could end up being attacks on privacy, freedom of speech, freedoms to seek and so on; the list is long. So we have been lobbying around that issue, and had some impact. Secretly I think Google welcome these things; compliance is easier for them and raises barriers of entry and competition. Meta have admitted they welcome them; and probably for the same reasons though that is not what they say, of course.
You are right we could perhaps something of more this in the press. The truth is press releases donāt get picked up. Success we have had has been through direct engagement with journalists we have connected with, or have found us.
The details of the Online Safety Bill have changed a lot since I wrote that post, and will change again. The Digital Sevices Act was supposedly settled a week ago; but the final text is not public yet and only a PR from the EU. Quite ridicuously some major changes were brought in, on the last day, about search. Iām witholding judgement about how good/bad/proportional this is until final text. Friends of Google were complaining, so thatās promising, but we have some empathy with them here. If what a journalist (who is very close to it) wrote about the changes are true then it will be an absolute mess. Generally, I engage on policy stuff on my personal twitter handle so if interested there is stuff there; @colinhayhurst.
Anyway these are Bills/Acts with massive significance, medium term. Letās see where they end up and as they move towards coming into force.
Happy to hear about your personal experiences, here or by email: colin@
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and the threats just keep on cominā
i donāt think i looked at this before - their language is scaryā¦
- Greater democratic control and oversight over systemic platforms
- Mitigation of systemic risks, such as manipulation or disinformation
- Very large online platforms pose particular risks in the dissemination of illegal content and societal harms.
in other words free speech shall not be tolerated
All online intermediaries offering their services in the single market, whether they are established in the EU or outside, will have to comply with the new rules.
Interview 1465 - Glyn Moody on the EU Copyright Directive
Writer and journalist Glyn Moody joins us today to discuss his recent TechDirt article, āEU Looking To Regulate Everything Online, And To Make Sites Proactively Remove Material.ā We discuss the recently-passed EU copyright directive, including the imposition of upload filters, and the recently-leaked working paper on the EU Digital Services Act. We also remember some of the successes that protesters have had in the wake of internet-killing copyright legislation in the past.
Bing spends a lot of time fielding DMCA takedown requests: Bing Removed 143 Million āPirateā Site URLs Last Year * TorrentFreak
Microsoftās search engine processes millions of takedown requests per week on average and these numbers add up quickly.
Remove Your Media works with various āMangaā copyright holders and sent Bing over 50 million takedown requests in the first half of 2021. In the second half, this dropped to a measly 46k.
This is an insane number of requests that would be impossible to handle without an āupload filterā. Itās no wonder sites like youtube-dl or odysee.com suddenly go missing in Bingās index now and again, even when they arenāt infringing, by the pure number of requests that Bing needs to process every week. I canāt imagine Mojeek reasonably dealing with this number of requests, either, and the DSA imposing upload filters is just exacerbating the problem by mandating platforms deal with these requests the categorically wrong way.
Rightsholders regularly make mistakes when filing DMCA takedown requests, and itās up to the platforms to verify the validity of them. Itās unfortunate that this act is poised to reduce oversight, which will inevitably result in more malformed/illegitimate takedown requests being honored. But, as TorrentFreak has reported:
However, over the past months, we have seen that both rightsholders and digital rights activists are not completely happy with the DSA, which is an indication that itās somewhat of a compromise.
I think something like the DSA being put into legislation was inevitable given our expectations regarding copyright infringement, and that future legislation will only be tighter. The shame of it is, I donāt believe any of this will effectively stop copyright infringement.