If the US wants some content gone from the internet, they (usually) have enough might to make that happen.
Most major tech companies are registered in the US, and can be ordered by a US court to stop providing services to pirates. This notably includes most major DNS registrars, reputable ad networks and major payment processors.
There's no point in blocking a website if you can just boot it off Visa, or force it to show penis enlargement / shady gambling ads or malware popups to survive.
Even if a website miraculously has no US links to exploit, there are extradition treaties, good relations with foreign law enforcement, control over the financial system, or even international sanctions if the situation gets dire enough.
European countries are far less powerful here, especially when they act alone (as they usually do in these matters) instead of doing it under the auspices of the EU. Site blocking is often the only remedy they have.
The US has an opposite problem with scam calls. Because there are so many English speakers in India, and Indian law enforcement largely doesn't care about scammers as long as they scam foreigners, there's little the US can do about the issue. European countries whose first language is not English have it much easier, as there's often no third-world country that speaks the same language and where the scammers could be recruited from.
This is the country that banned Tiktok, inacted the DMCA. Apparently the US has blocked 1.2m websites since 2010. They sieze domains, sieze servers. They stop payment companies working for the sites.
There are plenty of states in the US that enacted age verification laws for porn sites. Every single one of the porn sites that are not hosted in the US just ignored the laws. I live in one of those states
If this was a federal law (and one that the government actually cared about enforcing), it would be a different matter entirely. Case in point, all the crypto services that make themselves unavailable to AMericans, even if they have no direct links to the traditional financial system, much less American banks.
Site blocking is the lazy solution favored by bureaucrats who don't understand technology and as an easy way out for their tech companies from having to adapt to what the people are demanding (and getting from the black market instead). If the streaming services refuse to offer what the people want, then the people will bypass them.
Both Spainish and Italian governments created laws for which these companies are going after Cloudflare. Europeans elected them and work in those governments and courts.
Expecting large companies in any country not to have lawyers figure out how to use and abuse this stuff is pretty naive. Heavy regulatory environments are very popular in Europe and just like America they almost always benefit/protect entrenched powers while being sold (and defended online) as necessary to protect the small players and upstarts.
The internet has been warning about the risks of excessive anti piracy laws being anti-open internet for as long as I remember.
What I am against is equating leader's behavior and people's behavior. It's not a nazi Germany situation where the people supported this action, it's a situation where most people don't know about it, and those who know are probably against it. It's such a minor issue that until something very big will happen and go on the news, nobody will care about it since people are mostly trying to make a living without much thought about what happens outside their garden
Um, you do know that a good chunk of the logistics involved were about hiding what was going on so that the populace wouldn't object, yes?
So in that regard no, we don't have elected leaders, since Ursula, the de-facto EU leader, makes giant trade and political deals in our name, like regarding Covid and Ukraine, but none of us here voted for her, nobody likes her, she's been incompetent as German politician, she's incompetent and corrupt as an EU politician, she's been groomed since youth for this position due to her influential family, and yet we can't vote her out if we don't like it since we didn't vote for her to begin with.
So when someone you didn't vote for has sovereignty over you and your country, I'm not sure how people can look at this and say it's a democratic arrangement. Do you think a privileged upper class politician from Germany has any clue about the impact or struggles of the average citizen in say, Bulgaria, when she makes decisions for the whole EU?
In other words, I think it is fair to say that Italy pulls shit like this because enough Italian voters want it to happen or otherwise let it happen.
You also have to add the fact that this issue goes relatively "unnoticed" compared to other issues that are perceived as much more important
Are you american? Should you be held responsible for Trumps' and Musks' actions?
I did not vote for Trump and I think he belongs in prison. I am not responsible as an individual but as an American I do accept that elections have consequences that we are all collectively responsible for. Sovereignty rests with We The People.
The Democratic Party lost a crazy contest to a crazy man and honestly I'm even more furious with the Democrats for losing an election that they had absolutely no business losing than I am with Trump right now.
Regardless, my point was more that the Europeans seem to delight in their heavy-handed regulations and obnoxious court orders rather than address the real issue of why people feel the need to go out of their way to stream sports events via the black market or rolling up their sleeves and providing compelling alternatives to all of these big bad American tech companies they love to hate but can't stop using.
because europe is pro-socialism/communism and anti-liberalism.
Operation Choke Point. MasterCard's (secret) list of banned terms. FOSTA/SESTA
The US has literally never had a free and open internet and has exported much of their toxicity.