Today the European Union just approved a proposal that will allow it to go forward with Europe’s first implementation of mandatory social media restrictions. The ruling was part of amendments to the EU’s “Audiovisual Media Services Directive,” issued last year to curb hate speech online. These restrictions will censor and block videos that incite hatred or promote terrorism. However, before these regulations become official legislation, the European Parliament still needs to approve them.

If these regulations get passed, it would mark the first time Europe is taking an active step in social media censorship. These regulations would apply to record videos and content. For those that relish free speech on the internet, this could be a bad precedent, even if the initial reasoning seems sound.

We’ve seen similar censorship laws enacted in Russia and China to prevent “terrorism on the internet” which has resulted in entire websites and services blocked and restricted. Some would argue that a large majority of the internet is a thriving cesspool of hate speech and terrorist-like acts, so what limits will these new regulations have?

In addition to censoring videos, the new proposals also affect video streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. These new regulations require that these streaming platforms hit a content quota of 30 percent that consist of European films and TV shows.

The laws would also require that streaming companies be forced to fund the production of shows and movies in the EU countries they operate in. These laws seem a bit scary, when you consider the implications. In China, a lot of content is strictly “Chinese”–making it void of international ideas and beliefs held to be “controversial or dangerous”. Could the EU be going down the same path?

A lot of platforms like Facebook,YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft are already regulating “fake news” and hateful content. However, the EU wants to step up the game by imposing fines if these platforms don’t comply. The trouble is that these platforms and user bases are so large it’s hard to effectively moderate and control the users on them–which in some countries, has just led to site wide bans altogether.