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Comment by dkiebd | Hacker News Reader

> Your internet provider can’t block or throttle websites. The open web stays open

That’s so false it’s not even funny. I live in Spain and there are a TON of blocked websites.

Blocked by court or state. Private ISPs can't block sites.

And this is true for almost all these legislations. They remove power from individuals and companies, while avoiding to limit EU and state power in any meaningful way.

But the government is much more of an enemy to me than my ISP, not to mention I can switch ISPs but I can’t switch governments.

>but I can’t switch governments.

Maybe use the time machine to move out of Franco's Spain?

What percentage of citizens do you think support the blocking of websites for reasons of copyright? We have as much choice in the matter as we would have under Franco.

If the people don't agree with something they can always do three things in a democratic country:

* start a party to push for legislative changes that resonate with what the people want

* vote for a party that propose to change certain legislation to something more adjacent to what the people want

* people can lobby the government via interest groups or as a collective to influence politicians or if the constitution allows for it try and hold a popular vote on the issue(s)

That doesn’t work for small issues like this, as well as you know. And the proof is that wildly unpopular things like this keep occurring. We don’t live in a democracy if it’s not like in Switzerland with their direct democracy where we can vote on all issues one by one. What we have is a joke.

There's been countless of small concerns that had been able to be propelled to becoming law or do you think that banning plastic straws is a genuine big movement?

It came from within the party that pushed for it.

> but I can’t switch governments.

But you can though.

All countries in the EU are democratic plus there's freedom to move between them. You can definitely switch governments.

You have the freedom to move to another country that is also ruled by the EU and where the same regulations apply? That doesn't matter in this discussion. In practice EU residents cannot easily leave.

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