I’m Swiss American. My fellow Swissmen are similarly sceptical.
The realistic risk isn’t someone fining everyone a billion dollars. It’s that you didn’t curry sufficient political favour with the right regulator and now get to see their capricious side. These are a legitimate concerns for anyone considering doing business in Europe.
With any website (hackernews included) the only way they can actually completely prevent there from being copyrighted content in the comments that they host and publish is to not offer the ability to comment at all.
We don't really need to link something to express an opinion
BTW HN have to check anyway, if I post a link to an obscure video sharing platform containing copyrighted material, that's an infringement
Even if the domain is whitelisted, say github.com, I could host copyrighted material there
They simply don't do it and rely on users's good faith
Web sites are already responsible for copyright infringements committed by their users
Here's a UK case where a large chain was serving beer using glasses that were too small.
That chain hasn't been shut down, nor fined huge amounts. They weren't even prosecuted. They recalled all the glasses nationwide and replaced them with the correct size.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/03/pint-scam-major-...
This kind of regulation is not unusual.
EDIT just for clarification: I think this is a lousy law, and I hope it doesn't pass in its current form.