Europe is set to vote on a controversial copyright law on July 5 that will magically require them to 'prevent copyrighted works' from being posted on their platforms before it happens, and Wikipedia is not happy.

In Italy, Wikipedia set all pages to redirect to a statement about the copyright law and how it'll damage the internet:

On July 5, 2018, The Plenary of the European Parliament will vote whether to proceed with a copyright directive proposal which, if approved, will significantly harm the openness of the Internet. The directive instead of updating the copyright laws in Europe and promoting the participation of all the citizens to the society of information, threatens online freedom and creates obstacles to accessing the Web, imposing new barriers, filters and restrictions. If the proposal would be approved in its current form, it could be impossible to share a news article on social networks, or find it through a search engine; Wikipedia itself would be at risk.

We've discussed this law previously, which is often thrown around as the 'link tax' or the 'meme killer' and it appears to be steaming ahead. If you still need a quick primer, Gizmodo has it here.

As others have pointed out on Twitter today, the EU seems to misunderstand the role of technology fundamentally and bluntly puts laws into place like this one, the cookie law before it and EU VAT before that. 

If the continent wants to attract technology companies, vague rules that leave much to the imagination are a problem, and it seems increasingly clear EU Parliament needs a CTO-type adviser who can weigh in on these issues about the realities of technology. 

If platforms could magically block copyrighted content, they already would have! Facebook, the world's biggest social network, is barely able to wrangle machine learning to block hate speech. The idea that somehow even the small players could detect and block content is laughable, when the likely outcome is more along the lines of just blocking Europeans instead.

What can be hard to understand while living here is what anyone can actually do as an individual to influence the outcome of this. The Save Your Internet campaign says it's time to contact representatives ahead of the vote, as it's one of the few ways to raise attention for the realities of implementing such laws.

Amazon plans second 'Go' store without staff in Seattle

US ban on ZTE partially lifted for a month
Let's get the timeline here straight: Trump blocks ZTE from interacting with US businesses, ZTE essentially implodes overnight as a result along with other US businesses that rely on it and announces it'll shut down. Two months later, the US backs up a bit, makes ZTE pay a $1 billion fine and says it can work with existing clients in the US to offer support/deliver patches until August. 

I have no idea how this company will be able to revive operations beyond here. ZTE fired its entire board and chairman last week, to comply with US demands, and still can't get access to phone chips or US software but Bloomberg thinks it can get back on its feet.

Google cloud's COO left after less than a year
Related to the US military scandal, perhaps, but Bryant is also a clear candidate for Intel CEO as the search for a replacement kicks off.

Facebook’s Political Rule Blocks Ads for Bush’s Beans, Singers Named Clinton