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Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#91

Post by alva »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #51
antirez wrote: post #37

The United States are a great country, but in the topic of censorship, balanced politically correctness and easy to speak about all the topics, I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say, so I'm also a bit worried that the technological leadership of US may have an effect on what is believed to be sensible to discuss / post in Europe too. I hope is the other way, that is, we european can in some…

> I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say If anything European countries are much more deeply invested into censorship than the US. The UK's incredibly short sighted libel laws for example. Or the EU's ridiculous "hate speech" laws. I find it amusing you decry US political correctness in favor or Europe's much more tough legislation. Also the EU censors items on Facebook all the time, usually…

100% agree with you regarding "hate speech", but I can't help but feel the US public have the wrong end of the stick when it comes to libel laws. Seems to be a current issue as Trump brought it up recently.

As far as I understand libel laws in the UK are as follows. Person A makes mass public claim X about person B. Person B suffers financially or in reputation by claim X. If claim X is proven to not be true, alongside some evidence that A knew this, then B is entitled to compensation and a full retraction by A.

That seems super fair to me and a great idea for other Governments.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#92

Post by r_smart »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #54

Americans are so bought into the idea that "explicit" images are bad that they can't see another viewpoint. Its become "natural". And, as the author pointed out, Americans are so blind to it that you don't even see the problem with censoring nipples but not beheadings. We literally cant see that noone should be injured by seeing a womans breast, but seeing a beheaded body - thats OK? Its interesting to see this story…

America has something like 330 million people in it. I assure you, there are a lot of us who see the basic logic around this and think we should stop worrying about the occasional nipple.

In this particular instance though, it's worse than your complaint. We're talking about censoring an iconic image captured from an important time in our history. I'd be willing to bet that even among the anti-nipple people, this image gets a pass, hands down. Clearly there are some who object, but the vast majority of people understand the message in this image isn't 'enjoy looking at a naked young girl'.

*edit: spelling typo

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#93

Post by omginternets »

weberc2 wrote: post #90
omginternets wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity From one internet stranger to another, and with all due respect: bullshit. We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice. To claim differently is to either a) appeal to an exception that does not represent the overall social norm b) be disingenuous (which I don't think is your c…

Or, you know, d) I thought we were talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS promo videos) and not theatrics.

The theatrical dimension doesn't change much. That's how strange the US is in this respect. The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent, contrary to the amount of censorship applied to sex, real or otherwise.

Do Americans censor "real" violence more than theatrical violence? Possibly. Do they censor "real" violence less than any form of nudity? Yes.

You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. At the very least, the uproar will be an order of magnitude larger for the boobs as compared to the violence.

And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#94

Post by smsm42 »

antirez wrote: post #37

The United States are a great country, but in the topic of censorship, balanced politically correctness and easy to speak about all the topics, I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say, so I'm also a bit worried that the technological leadership of US may have an effect on what is believed to be sensible to discuss / post in Europe too. I hope is the other way, that is, we european can in some…

> I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say

Like UK libel laws that are so nice that they created a phenomenon of "libel tourism" where people come into UK to sue others for libel because in other places they'd be laughed out of court?

Or like courts forcing search engines remove pages because some person feels uneasy with true public information about them being out there?

Or criminal penalties for "insulting a public servant" in France, bans on "hate speech" according to day-to-day political considerations in many countries and over EU in general [1], etc. Note that unlike Facebook, which is private company and can only manage its content, these laws would apply to every platform in EU.

Yes, it'd be terrible if something like First Amendment would have an effect in Europe too. That smacks of freedom of speech or something awful like that!

[1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-1873_en.htm

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#96

Post by JayJee »

merraksh wrote: post #67

Facebook ploughed on – before performing an embarrassing 360 and claiming that it was imposing this policy out of concern for victims. A 360 would be embarrassing as it places you back to the same road. Perhaps it was an "embarrassing 180" instead.

This entire writing style of this article is embarrassing not to mention the ads EVERYWHERE. I had to open this in links to be able to read it.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#97

Post by MBCook »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #12
shiftpgdn wrote: post #2

If you don't like Facebook's actions then don't use it. Having open speech on Facebook's platform is not an inalienable right. I don't agree with Facebook's privacy policies and thus have deleted my account and use other platforms. This isn't difficult. This article is tantamount to saying "Woe is me, NYT won't publish my op-ed." and expecting anyone to take you seriously.

I see this comment a lot. Sure, yes, I believe people should leave the platform too. But how do you get a billion people to decide to leave? By talking about problems with the platform. I believe that's what this article does. It seems like you're suggesting that the article has no purpose (with your "woe is me" characterization). I would disagree with that. And if anyone is reading this: HN readers, we are the peopl…

> But how do you get a billion people to decide to leave?

The same way they left MySpace and other services. People get annoyed enough (or something better comes along) and the network effects start to diminish and the tide flows out.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#98

Post by r_smart »

barrkel wrote: post #88
lorenzhs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3

And shortly before the internet really took off and started to standardize legal porn (meaning: harmonize to American rules), 16 and 17 year old topless girls were legal on page 3, with harder stuff elsewhere on the European continent. America effectively exported their legal standards here, mostly through credit card companies I expect. (Not saying commercializing topless schoolgirls is just fine, just that normal u…

Where in America is 16 and 17 legal for appearing in pornography? There are places with age of consent laws that low, but often times there's still a band around that age that their partner has to fall into (i.e. if you're 45, 16 is still off limits).

*edit: post I replied to had a typo that significantly changed the meaning. I'll leave this for the record, but it's no longer relevant.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#100

Post by [deleted] »

barrkel wrote: post #88
lorenzhs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3

And shortly before the internet really took off and started to standardize legal porn (meaning: harmonize to American rules), 16 and 17 year old topless girls were legal on page 3, with harder stuff elsewhere on the European continent. America effectively exported their legal standards here, mostly through credit card companies I expect. (Not saying commercializing topless schoolgirls is just fine, just that normal u…

[deleted]
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