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In a similar letter, YouTube put forth an even more explicit condemnation, stating that “Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European creators, businesses, artists and everyone they employ,” because its passage would turn hosting regular people’s content into a bottomless abyss of risks.

“The proposal could force platforms, like YouTube, to allow only content from a small number of large companies,” wrote YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. “It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators, because the platforms would now be directly liable for that content.”

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Twitch, YouTube, and other companies like Google are framing this as an attack on creators, and these companies, as the self-anointed stewards of an open internet, now seem like protectors of the people. But, really, this is about money. Article 13 is a threat to these tech companies’ bottom lines. Luckily for them, it’s also a threat to their large, professionally vocal user bases, which these companies can now marshal to their cause. I’ve seen a handful of small streamers express hope that Twitch will just pay the licensing fees because it cares so much about its community. That seems unlikely, but I’d love to be wrong.

The version of the Copyright Directive that passed today mentions “safeguards on freedom of expression” in the form of exceptions for memes and gifs as well as less stringent rules for start-up platforms. Still, Article 13 has streamers worried. Popular streamer (whose face is a possibly even more popular emote) DansGaming said on Twitter that “Twitch’s future in EU is now uncertain,” and Swedish streamer (and edgelord-in-chief of Twitch’s biggest troll community) Forsen said during a stream today that Article 13 has him considering a move to the United States.

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Article 13 won’t kick in right away. The countries that comprise the EU must now accept Article 13 and its associated articles and directives, leaving room for amendments and other changes. It won’t officially go into effect until 2021.