The most contentious issue in the Directive is Article 13, which makes online communities, services, and platforms liable if their users post any infringing materials, even if these materials are promptly removed. Though Article 13 no longer explicitly calls for automated filters, there is no conceivable way that every word, image, video, audio clip, etc could be vetted for its copyright status without automated systems (there literally haven’t been enough trained copyright lawyers in the history of the human race to accomplish even a tenth of a percent of this task).
Obviously, this will kill off every service that lacks the hundreds of millions of euros it will cost to build and maintain these filters. The final language contains an absurdly, unusably narrow exemption for small companies with less than ten million euros/year in revenues: they don’t need filters, but only for their first three years of existence, and then they do.
It’s not clear that even the US-based Big Tech companies could afford this, but as the media companies have repeatedly said, they don’t want Big Tech to follow the rules in Article 13: they want a rule that’s impossible to follow, so that Big Tech will have to pay virtually unlimited sums for “licenses” that immunise it from prosecution under the rules.
This is Internet As Cable Television: millions of sites and services collapsed down to hundreds, each a mere distribution arm for media companies, with the public relegated to “viewer” status, unable even to communicate with one another.
This isn’t over.
The vote on whether to make this law will happen in late March, just weeks before the next EU election. The petition against it the largest in European history and is on track to be the largest petition in the history of the human race (it’s already within spitting distance of that title).
If there’s one moment at which Members of the European Parliament are attuned to public sentiments, it’s this moment, just before contentious elections where there is a real possibility that eurosceptic, insurgent parties will score big victories. If MEPs care about the future of the EU, they can’t afford to confirm the accusation that they are arrogant and unresponsive to public opinion.
There’s an EU-wide day of action coming on March 23. Watch this space.
What is it?: Fëanorian Week is a full seven days to celebrate and appreciate some of our fan faves, the Fëanorians, and their parents, Nerdanel and Fëanor. When is it?: March 18th, 2019—March 24th, 2019
Day 7- Nerdanel and Feanor-> Mahtan, Marriage, Reunion, Traveling, Creation, Healing
Rules: You are allowed to post anything fan related on the days. If the prompts are not to your liking, you can do your own thing. The tracktag is #feanorianweek. Tag your work accordingly! Have fun and be nice to others. Disrespect towards others will not be tolerated.
The ask box is open if you have any questions!
Also, special thanks to Lizzie for the wonderful theme!
Washington State is in a state of emergency due to the measles outbreak which is now at 31 cases. Measles has been confirmed in 3 other states. Measles has an R-0 of 12 to 18. Measles is incredibly easy to transmit and can stay alive in the air for 2 hours and has an R-0 of 12-18(honestly terrifying).
you know what happens with measles? permanent hearing loss due to ear infection or brain swelling, pneumonia, and intellectual difficulty again due to brain swelling. 1.5 in 1,000 will die. and again, even if you get away relatively unharmed, the infection rate is massively high and plenty others wont be as lucky.
one final note: there is precedent of multiple courts ruling that not vaccinating children is a form of medical neglect.
good job you insufferable, delusional fuckwads.
And the only people who suffer are the unvaccinated.
As for the general fearmongering this post has implied, keep in mind that measles was fairly common and often parents would bring their kids over to a house that had mumps, measles or chicken pox and while unpleasant, we generally recovered.
Now, I’m al for vaccines, but honestly, why are we so afraid of getting sick? It’s not the end of the world.
And the unvaccinated are mostly babies that are too young, the immunocompromised who will never be able to get vaccinated and people whose immune systems were wiped out by severe illnesses like cancer. Measles is the end of the world for those people. It’s not just “getting sick”. Measles is nothing like the common cold.
Severe Complications
Some people may suffer from severe complications, such as pneumonia (infection of the lungs) and encephalitis (swelling of the brain). They may need to be hospitalized and could die.
As many as one out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.
About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability.
For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it.
Measles may cause pregnant woman to give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby.
The Measles chapter of the Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (Pink Book) describes measles complications in more depth.
Long-term Complications
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a very rare, but fatal disease of the central nervous system that results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life. SSPE generally develops 7 to 10 years after a person has measles, even though the person seems to have fully recovered from the illness. Since measles was eliminated in 2000, SSPE is rarely reported in the United States.
Among people who contracted measles during the resurgence in the United States in 1989 to 1991, 4 to 11 out of every 100,000 were estimated to be at risk for developing SSPE. The risk of developing SSPE may be higher for a person who gets measles before they are two years of age. For more information, see Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE): MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.
And it’s spreading into Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.
Anyone who doesn’t vaccinate their kids should be moved onto an island away from society.
VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN
Having been born in a developing nation, we fought tooth and nail to get vaccinated. I am still in shock that people in developed nations turn their noses up at vaccines.
I got chicken pox before I could be vaccinated and it’s only luck and my parent’s diligence that kept me from dying.
Vaccinate your kids!!
Something else to think about: “Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.But something else happened.Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted.”
So scientists studied it and discovered that “The measles virus may erase immune memory, leaving patients vulnerable to other infections.” FOR UP TO 3 YEARS
Want to know why there used to be chicken pox and measles parties? It’s because there were no vaccines and if your kids got it at a certain age (i.e. after 6 but before puberty) than they were more likely to survive without long term effects (i.e. sterility and/or death).
OP above thinking ‘falling ill is nothing to worry about’ - those parties were all about playing statistics on making sure your children didn’t die. So yeah, fuck off you nitwit..
Also, that sounds like “attempting to mitigate the virus’s effects by controlled exposure to a less dangerous version” which… why does that logic smell kinda familiar?
I have a shit ton of asks from people that I never answered wtf?? Like? A ton more than I ever remember getting or leaving unanswered?? I want to answer a lot of them even though some are literally a year+ old aHHH
send for an aesthetic of yourmuse send ️ for a friendlyaesthetic of our muses send for a romanticaesthetic of our muses send for an antagonisticaesthetic of our muses send for a randomly themed aesthetic of our muses
every time someone talks about how “capitalism breeds innovation”, i think about the fact that capitalism killed the streaming service in less than ten years
like…the entire point of netflix when it started was that you could log into one service and you could find thousands of different tv shows and movies in one place, for one price, AND you didn’t have to wait for several weeks to watch the conclusion of a tv show AND you didn’t have to worry about your favorite new show getting cancelled half-way through a season for lack of viewership.
and then every single other channel out there thought “hm. why are we using a third party site to do what WE could do ourselves?” except not a single one of them had enough material in their libraries to do what netflix was doing. but they still pulled all their content out of netflix anyway and tried to do what netflix was doing. and then disney decided to do it as well, which… essentially just killed netflix.
but not only did they kill netflix, they just restarted cable! the whole point of a streaming service was being able to watch one show in one go, over a weekend or something. but bc these services don’t have enough material to keep people invested on paying every month, they have… to…. release shows one episode at a time, so that by the time one show ends they can roll out a new one and keep the subscriptions. which just? defeats the point?
and now we’re all just. back to torrenting one episode at a time, because nobody is paying for “cable…but on the internet”. all because capitalism breeds innovation
Today, Amazon announced the imminent launch of its newest endeavor, Kindle Worlds, a publishing platform for fanfiction. When I read the announcement, I was horrified, then angry, then sad. I want to take a moment to explain why this is such a tragedy.
it worries me so much that there’s been this (mostly unintentional) culture built up around coming out, to where young lgbt kids are putting themselves in danger at school and at home because they don’t want to “live a lie.” i just want to say, i came out when i was 15 and it created a lot of difficulties in my life that i could have avoided by waiting until i was older. it isolated me socially, it exposed me to homophobia from my parents, my family, my teachers, and my classmates at the most important developmental stages of my own confidence and sense of self… closeted people are not living a lie. closeted people are surviving. don’t let anyone pressure you to come out before you’re ready. don’t put yourself at risk when you don’t have to.
Announcing Back to Middle-earth Month 2021 and the 2021 theme: The Silmarillion (March 1 - March 30, 2021) Call for artists and volunteers for this and a little something more this year can be found here: https://spring-into-arda.weebly.com/b2mem.html
//I am woefully inactive and maybe will be less scared to actually use my account now that I bought my own laptop, but in other news: I’m in college now and I plan to compile old writing and things.
