In the name of the fight against terrorism, a draft European regulation could kill the independent Internet







A text tabled by the European Commission in September, at the request of France and Germany on behalf of the "fight against terrorism", could be adopted quickly. Although not widely publicized, this project poses a serious threat to freedom of expression and Internet tools independent of Google, Facebook, Twitter and others. Under the pretext of blocking content considered terrorist, a power of censorship will be given to the private sector and States, even the most arbitrary ones. Some freedom advocates consider that the survival of encrypted messaging is also at stake.

In September, following a request from the German and French governments, the European Commission tabled a draft regulation on the "prevention of the dissemination of terrorist content online"[1]. "France and Germany have made the fight against the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes a priority," wrote the French - Gérard Collomb at the time - and German Interior Ministers in an April 2018 letter to the Commissioners. A modification of this legal framework in a more binding sense seems essential. "Five months later, the Commission's text is ready. This one "trivializes police or private censorship" of the Internet, denounces in September the French organization for the defence of freedoms La Quadrature du net. The Paris-based association warns of two other dangers: this regulation would strengthen the monopoly of digital multinationals (Google, Facebook, Microsoft...), and endanger the very existence of encrypted messaging services, such as Signal or ProtonMail.

"Automatic filters are censorship machines."

The Commission's proposal for a Regulation - which, if adopted, will be binding on all EU Member States - provides that "hosting service providers shall delete or block access to terrorist content within one hour of receiving the deletion order". It is the national authorities, not necessarily judges, who would decide what content to delete. In France, it would be the Office central de lutte contre la criminalité liée aux technologies de l'information et de la communication, the police service in charge of cybercrime. Suppliers should also, on their own, "detect" and "identify" "terrorist content". This is equivalent to a preventive filtering system to "censor content even before it is reported" to the authorities, according to Quadrature du net.

"Automatic filter systems are censorship machines," warns Patrick Breyer, head of the German Pirate Party's list for the 2019 European elections. Such systems have already removed completely legal content, such as documentation of human rights violations in civil wars. "» [2]. "Our freedom of opinion should not be entrusted to algorithms. »

Putting freedom of expression in the hands" of the Interior Ministries?

The member of the German Pirate Party adds that abuses are to be feared on the part of the national authorities responsible for ordering content blockades. Under the pretext of blocking terrorist content, "this could put freedom of expression and information in the hands, for example, of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior or the local Romanian police", he wrote. In Hungary, under the government of Viktor Orban, in power since 2010, a Syrian refugee can now be convicted of terrorism for the simple act of forcing a border fence. People helping migrants are also at risk of a year's imprisonment since a new law was passed in June.

According to the Quadrature du net, this regulation also threatens the very existence of independent Internet service providers. "Only a handful of hosts will be able to meet such obligations, in particular the one-hour deadline for censoring content. The other hosts - the vast majority of whom, since the beginning, have formed the Internet body - will be unable to respond to it and will systematically be exposed to sanctions," the organisation insists. Consequence: "If the text were adopted, the quasi-monopolies of the net (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter...) would be enshrined in their key role in the security policies of the Member States. They will be strengthened in their ultra-dominant positions, as all other services have had to close down, including decentralised services that respect our rights. »

Danger on encrypted messaging that protects privacy

"This European censorship regulation would apply to almost all Internet services, commercial or non-commercial, such as blogs with comment functions, forums, Wikipedia, file-sharing services, or news portals with comments," said Patrick Breyer of the Pirate Party. The regulation jeopardises the existence of many of these services, which do not have the resources to implement filtering and block content in one hour. »

Additional danger of the text: it may make it illegal up to encrypted messaging systems, such as Signal or the ProtonMail mail server. Indeed, Article 2 of the proposed Regulation states that all services that make information "available to third parties" would be concerned. This is different from "available to the public". According to the Quadrature du net, this passage means that the regulation could apply to e-mail services such as ProtonMail, and instant messaging services such as WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram..." End-to-end encryption, that is, the protection of our private exchanges, would become contrary to the obligations set out in this text and could only disappear," says La Quadrature in a recent argument.

"Internet censorship is not the right approach to counter violent extremism."

In short, in order to combat the spread of terrorist content, this draft regulation, supported and requested by France and Germany, could open the door wide to widespread surveillance and filtering of the Internet, establish digital multinationals in their monopoly position, and prevent the existence of any form of encrypted and therefore protected messaging.





For what efficiency? "It can be assumed that providers will apply geolocation techniques when they are ordered to block content. Indeed, they are not being asked to delete the content itself, but to block it for EU users, Patrick Beyer points out. However, it is technically very easy to overcome the geographical blockage, for example by using proxies[intermediate servers] based outside the EU. According to the candidate in the European elections, "Internet censorship is not the right approach to counter violent extremism. This gives Islamists arguments against the Western world, and connects sympathisers and extremists even more closely, in hiding. "The draft regulation will be discussed at the Council of the European Union - which brings together the Ministries of Interior and Justice of the Member States - in Brussels on 6 and 7 December.

Rachel Knaebel