Notes about today’s Vent
Bryan Preston

First, it should be obvious that the EU, through its “Television Without Frontiers,” is attempting to stifle free speech. Video bloggers and our audiences, regardless of our politics, should see the EU’s move as a threat to our own free speech. But I can anticipate a few arguments against our stand so I’d like to deal with them. ...

***

EUroweenies vs. videobloggers
Michelle Malkin

I'm continuing to track the EU's move to regulate Internet videobloggers via the "Television without Frontiers (TVwF)" regulatory plan. Help fight back.

Bryan Preston:

[Same quote I linked above]

CNET rounds up Internet reaction. Patrick Ross at the Progress and Freedom Foundation points out:

...[A]nything less restrictive than the current proposal is preferable to the current proposal being adopted by the Parliament and implemented by EU member states. The time is now, however, as numerous EU committees are examining the proposed directive and will begin releasing proposals soon.

Modern Europe has embraced to a large extent the nanny state that Hayek warned against in "The Road to Serfdom" (although his target audience for that book was the UK intelligentsia, and it appears that nation has resisted nannyism better than its continental compatriots). But the irony here is that TVwF is part of the EU's Lisbon agenda, a goal to catch up to the US in productivity by 2010 through embracing the digital world. Imposing burdensome regulations on new media in Europe will only serve to retard economic growth and productivity, continuing the stagnation that continent has endured throughout this decade.

As I note today at Hot Air, which might one day be required to obtain a license to broadcast, the price of Internet freedom is eternal vigilance. Stay informed. ...