Thousands of people took part in a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday, against proposed copyright reforms in the European Union, that plan to institute automatic filters for posts uploaded onto major social media platforms.
Holding banners and signs with slogans such as “This robot is going to vote” and “5 million against censorship and for a free internet”, protesters marched through central Berlin towards the Brandenburg Gate.
Particularly focused on article 13 (now article 17) – which would make networks such as YouTube and Facebook accountable for copyrighted material uploaded by users, activists warned against the inability of technology to decide by itself about what should or should not be copyright protected.
“Computer sciences are very advanced but not so advanced so as to have developed a filter able to make a clear judgement if a certain content is just a copy of a movie, or certain content from it had been used artistically,” says Christian, a participant of the demonstration.