Russia. The first bill was passed around 2012. There is one key difference, though. As Russian government generally lacks influence on Western tech companies, they chose to target ISPs, while the EU law in question goes after hosting providers.
It is significant because while network-level filtering is potentially more destructive, the agency in charge of enforcement of the russian law (Roskomnadzor) stumbled upon cryptography (who could have thought!). Their IP-level filters don't work for TLS, so the only option they are left with is all-or-nothing block by IP. This kind of censorship lacks subtlety, therefore big companies have some room for negotiation (small ones get banned without any questions asked).
The EU law doesn't even bother with networks, it threatens companies directly. And the EU market is large, so tech giants won't just shrug, they'll probably choose to comply.
Russian Federation was never like western democracies. It began long time before 2012 in Russia. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003, because he wanted to oppose current status-quo in politics. State media are propaganda machines for the state a lot longer too. You can't really compare EU bill to Russia situation, they are at totally different level. The bill you are mentioning was just introduced to keep up with modern media censorship in Russia. Papers and TV were censored a long time ago.
Western countries indeed have functional democracies, but freedom of speech is not sacred here either. Consider Britain for an extreme example. And you're only talking about the current situation, while I am making a pessimistic prediction based on the current attitude towards freedom of information exchange and some past experience.
> And you're only talking about the current situation, while I am making a pessimistic prediction based on the current attitude towards freedom of information exchange and some past experience.
It's indeed a pessimistic opinion but I understand where it's coming from based on where you live. I was born in authoritarian country also and lived in it when I was a kid, I am living now in western democracy in EU and based on my experience, knowledge and after reading most of the legislation myself I am more optimistic.
If it was just censorship maybe, but this is also trying to tax them on essentially all content they link to. No way is google taking this one sitting down, if it actually goes into effect expect first google, then probably others (Facebook almost certainly) to slap blanket bans on all of EU with a nice little landing page helpfully explaining exactly what everyone should complain about to their local EU representative.
It is significant because while network-level filtering is potentially more destructive, the agency in charge of enforcement of the russian law (Roskomnadzor) stumbled upon cryptography (who could have thought!). Their IP-level filters don't work for TLS, so the only option they are left with is all-or-nothing block by IP. This kind of censorship lacks subtlety, therefore big companies have some room for negotiation (small ones get banned without any questions asked).
The EU law doesn't even bother with networks, it threatens companies directly. And the EU market is large, so tech giants won't just shrug, they'll probably choose to comply.