Ahead of the European Unions final vote to pass their new Copyright Directive into law in April, Anonymous hacktivists and political activists alike are teaming up together to stage a series of protests across Europe. Planned for March 23rd 2019 and officially entitled “StopACTA 2019,” protests are currently scheduled to be held across 25 countries, including Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

View Map of All Demonstrations: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1tmjhVLt_-nomkGk6Hy77JtNnum5lc_cW&ll=50.56698897867709%2C12.68248445000006&z=6

Original Release Calling for Protests:

What are They Protesting?

ACTA2 is what we call the Copyright Directive on the digital market. We call it #ACTA2 because it’s not just about helping creators circumvent copyright restrictions, its about the European Unions attempts to use copyright law as a means/excuse of seizing control over the internet – including the information you post and receive from it. The way we see it, the EU’s Copyright Directive is nothing more than the Governments way of financing censorship. We wholeheartedly believe ACTA2 is dangerous, as it will set the precedent allowing the EU to step in an censor the internet throughout the future. The way we see it, ACTA2 is the beginning of the Orwellian world and we mustn’t open the door too allow our Governments to do this, which is why we will be staging these protests on March 23rd.

Article 11

Also known as the #LinkTax, Article 11 is in essence a direct result of corporate lobbying. It gives extra protections/rights to legacy press organizations and media outlets, requiring mutually agreed upon licenses between the publisher and anyone else whom would like to use, share or republish their information. This includes pieces of information as small as SEO snippets, article titles or headlines, summary descriptions and pictures. In essence, many believe that Article 11 spells the death of small time or independent media outlets online.

Article 13

Also known as #UploadFilters the new law dumps the responsibility for posts & comments from the authors who write them to the owners of a website. It offers a tool to help owners of websites better filter their content. However, internet purists fear that this so called “filter” is merely a guise for censorship, restricting the free speech of people on the internet by flagging or blocking users based off specific key words that could be focused around religion, politics, sexuality – et cetera. Activists fear that certain groups of people could be excluded from all conversations in the EU entirely, which sets a dangerous precedent for future abuses or complications.

The Problem Explained In More Detail

Hello World, we are Anonymous With overshadowing unease we are observing the deformation of copyright coming from the EU parliament. The so-called Article 13, which was unified agreed upon by EU states, Commission and Parlament on the 13th of February, is threatening the freedom of the internet. The articles 4b and 4c contained in Article 13 could bring birth to the feared upload filter. This would lead to a massive limitation of uploads on media-sharing websites like YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. This includes the use and circulation of Memes. We already achieved the aversion of a similar problem in 2012, ACTA. We protested on the web as well as in the streets. The final decision regarding Article 13 will be made mid-April 2019. We cannot rest without showing the EU parliament what it means to steal the freedom of the internet. The loose collective Anonymous won’t be standing still, choosing to drop its cloak of the silent observer. Censorship of the free internet is one step too far. Anonymous will be supporting the protests on the web as well as the marching on the 23rd of March. The coalition ‘Save your Internet’ provides every information on the topic, including dates for demonstrations. There you will find all the representatives with whom you can share your worries about Article 13. Together we have to be loud! Together we have to fight for the freedom of the internet! Together we have to shelve Article 13! Make the demonstrations on the 23rd of March massive. As we, the internet, are the very last, strong instance to fight for our rights. All important information is found in the description. We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

Other Resources:

Save Your Internet: https://saveyourinternet.eu/

A Message To All The Creators – Artists, Bloggers, Youtube’rs: https://www.stopacta2.org/on-line-creators/

Save The Internet: https://savetheinternet.info/

This Directive is known by many hashtags on the internet – here are some of them: #stopACTA2, #CopyrightDirective, #SaveYourInternet, #SaveTheInternet, #Article11, #Article13, #UploadFilters, #LinkTax, #Filternet, #ACTA2.

Full Text of EU Copyright Directive As It Will Be Voted 04/2019:

[pdf-embedder url=”https://roguemedialabs.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/EU_Copyright_Directive.pdf”%5D

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