I'm in Strasbourg, lobbying hard. Updates soon, but was able to talk to Axel Voss, the main guy behind the current (bad) versions of #Art11 and #Art13. Doing my best to #SaveYourInternet.
Lessons from today:
- Pro-Art11/Art13 MEPs do not know how copyright law works (no surprises there, the copyright law is a mess!)
- Wikimedia Commons is a very good example of a service that could suffer very much.
- As during #ACTA, MEPs are not entirely against sitting down and discussing the issues.
Another important take-away from my meetings already: calling MEPs is way more effective than e-mailing them.
E-mailing MEPs with a standard e-mail from a template can actually be counter-productive.
If you can, please *call* your MEPs. You can find your MEP here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html
If you'd rather e-mail, please write two-three paragraphs in your own words, from your e-mail address. Even if it's not as slick as the template, it will work way better!
@rysiek SO MUCH EXACTLY THIS
But I guess that the basics need to be taught and discussed over and over and over, because otherwise they become forgotten and, surprisingly, stop being basic in turn.
History likes going in circles.
@rysiek It doesn't really matter it was almost the same. People don't learn that well. And the ones who are taught often disappear and go do other things, and new ones are elected instead of them, who do not remember, do not know, and need to be taught again and anew.
@rysiek any chance you have some numbers to quantify that?
Also, how could emailing a template be worse than doing nothing?
@kitdarko I've had two meetings with MEPs so far, one leaning our way, and Voss.
Both complained about the template e-mails. The one leaning our way said specifically they are an annoyance, and that they make it hard to find actually important e-mails in the deluge of such (what he called) spam.
I asked them what would work better and that's what they gave me: calls. or at least e-mails actaully written by the sender.
I trust them. These are the people we try to reach, after all.
@rysiek I imagine physical letters still have a lot of impact too?
I'm also basically assuming what's true for you in Europe is true for me in Australia
Really interesting about the leaning MEP, thank you.
So if we share posts about this, we should tell people to call or at least write in their own words?
It could also have an impact on how people conduct campaigns in the future on other topics.
@switchingsocial
>or at least write in their own words?
I believe it's also usefull to make the message personalized for the specific target.
@rysiek
@rysiek @kitdarko I guess this is an important point.
On one hand, templates help people (like me) who struggle with writing E-Mails. Without them, there possibly wouldn't be such a great amount of people who participate.
On the other hand, if people only use the template without writing anything on their own, we get the situation you mentioned.
Maybe future campaigns should offer only some "guides" what one could write, and avoid ready-made templates?
@uvok @rysiek @kitdarko
I used https://www.saveyourinternet.eu
They offer you a template but also a few points that you could write yourself instead of the template. I translated those points into my own words and language and sent that email through their service to my MEPs.
(I also tried calling but I started to panic when the answering machine called back, so that fell through. :( I'll try again tomorrow.)
@rysiek I always wondered if those standard template mails where a good thing (instead of as you say, using your own words).
Thanks for sharing this insight!
@Ilja sometimes they might be. But it's tricky.
It's *always* better to just send an e-mail with your own text.
@hollyjahangiri @Ilja I don't get the question?..
@rysiek
But you said before that it can't do any harm...
@Wolf480pl I said e-mailing your MEP can't do any harm, that's true. Apparently I was wrong, and in some circumstances e-mailing your MEP with a template e-mail coming from an automated service might actually be a bit harmful.
We all learn.
EDPS position on #Art13: filters need way more assessment; careful with them:
https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-work/publications/comments/edps-comments-proposal-directive-copyright_en
People like Julia Reda could be fixing the underlying problems of copyright law in EU. I could be focusing on helping journalists stay safe and uncover corruption and organized crime.
Many other people could be spending their time way more productively.
Instead, we need to focus on this bullcrap so that people who can't even into Internets don't break our main creative outlet, communication channel, our main knowledge base.
Because Axel Springer told them to.
#Art11 #Art13 #SaveYourInternet