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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

#281

Post by jimmytidey »

mason240 wrote: post #258
jimmytidey wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case why do we have laws for television stations or print media? Why do we have libel or defamation law, even? Because we can see it's essential for democracy for public discourse to be structured in a certain way, specifically that it not disproportionately represent one person or organisations views. I can see that in principle people can choose not to use Facebook, but in practice we see that it is very do…

>In that case why do we have laws for television stations or The amount of bandwith for tv stations is limited, the internet is effectivly limitless. >print media We don't really. Print media is extremely off limits because it's protected by the First Amendment. Try passing regulation requiring a newspaper to print an image just because you deem it worthy. >Why do we have libel or defamation law, even? We don't reall…

What I'm saying is legislation of media (most obviously here, common carrier laws), exists, is widely accepted and often seen as essential for many mediums.

As a consequence, I'm arguing, it would be a good idea to apply a similar approach to Facebook. I'm saying the lightest touch would be to make moving your social network off Facebook easier. Maybe there are other better ideas.

On the topic of print media being off limits... not so. I'm from the UK, I'm not sure exactly about media laws in the US, but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes. Having just Googled I see that there are indeed cross-ownership laws for newspapers in the US. I expect there are many other regulations on print media.

Just as I'm arguing for Facebook, these are not laws about what might ultimately be said - either online or in print - they are laws about how much power a single company can have over the discourse.

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

#282

Post by joesmo »

r_smart wrote: post #237
joesmo wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing wrong with supporting the troops." That depends on what you mean by "supporting the troops." I actually have no definition or even a clear idea of what this means and I'm certain no one else does either. It's just a generic motto used for brainwashing. Does it mean that I support the individuals not dying? Because if so, then yes, I support the troops very much and I hope none of them die. Does it mean that…

>They are murdering and raping people. >I would never utter such an ambiguous and clearly manipulative phrase. Pick one.

I don't need to. Most of my readers can process more than once sentence at a time.

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

#283

Post by wiz21 »

kinkdr wrote: post #274
pixl97 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past when talking about free speech, it commonly meant talking on the street corners. Since the roads were public property the government could not censor you there. What we have occurring in the modern world would be the same if a city sold all of it's roads to a private company and told its citizens their are no longer public spaces.

It is more like people wanting to live in that city because it is hip. They moved there although they knew it is privately owned and they had to put up with the owners rules(which includes in spying on them for his own profit). I cannot feel any sympathy for them.

100% agree with you.

If one loves the facebook world, then he has to understand the facebook rules. Ignoring them is a mistake on the user side, not FB.

And it follows that when 99% percent of the billion users will have just ignored the rules, then they will soon understand what it means. So they'll scream and ask governemnt to help them. Then the government will regulate 50% of facebook activities, and well, FB rules will be weakened a bit but officially enforced. People like me will say that society has one more problem, others will say that it's progress... And I'll be sad once again.

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

#284

Post by Oletros »

weberc2 wrote: post #78
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…

I'm an American, and as far as I can tell, beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity. I wouldn't put much stock in the LA Times either; lots of very biased reporting. EDIT: There seems to be some confusion as to whether we're talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS videos) or theatrical violence. My previous statement pertains to the former context; I don't dispute that fictitious violence in America is…

> beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity.

Really, really astonished that in some circumstances someone compares a beheading with nudity

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

#285

Post by sp332 »

tdkl wrote: post #244
nonce42 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some random thoughts on the US movie situation: For teens, it sort of makes sense in a way to restrict portrayals of sex more than violence. The average teen isn't going to decide to murder someone after watching a movie, but very possibly could decide to have sex. It seems like movies have a monopoly on socially acceptable portrayals of nudity. Nobody raises an eyebrow if you go to a mainstream movie with a nude sce…

> but very possibly could decide to have sex. Oh the horror. Perhaps if sane sex ed was wide spread[1], that would be a non issue. Like in EU. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requi...

Sex in movies is usually not "sane sex ed", and that's GP's argument for not showing it.

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

#286

Post by RaleyField »

BlackFly wrote: post #126
smsm42 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 penaltie…

Very solid whataboutism. Yes, Europe is not perfect and has some serious problems with freedom. That being said, the first amendment (jurisprudence) in the USA suffers from two serious flaws not necessarily suffered by freedom of expression legislation in other countries: 1. The first amendment has the egregious exception for obscenity with an absurdly subjective community standards test. 2. The first amendment is on…

> Because of the 2nd defect

It's not a defect.

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

#287

Post by mason240 »

jimmytidey wrote: post #281
mason240 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In that case why do we have laws for television stations or The amount of bandwith for tv stations is limited, the internet is effectivly limitless. >print media We don't really. Print media is extremely off limits because it's protected by the First Amendment. Try passing regulation requiring a newspaper to print an image just because you deem it worthy. >Why do we have libel or defamation law, even? We don't reall…

What I'm saying is legislation of media (most obviously here, common carrier laws), exists, is widely accepted and often seen as essential for many mediums. As a consequence, I'm arguing, it would be a good idea to apply a similar approach to Facebook. I'm saying the lightest touch would be to make moving your social network off Facebook easier. Maybe there are other better ideas. On the topic of print media being of…

>but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes.

It literally does. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that government can not make any impositions on print media, save for extreme cases of national security and libel, which also has a very high bar.

Cross ownership is only a thing because they can apply it to the TV half, which again, regulations on TV are made on the justification of their scarcity.

There simply is no equivalent in the US to placing such draconian rules on websites.

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

#288

Post by Thlom »

dragonwriter wrote: post #182
nommm-nommm wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not besides the point because we as a society don't allow children to be admitted to violent movies by themselves. That's our societal values and pretty much everyone agrees with age restrictions in theaters, nobody is protesting in the streets to remove them. Where the hell do you live?

> Not besides the point because we as a society don't allow children to be admitted to violent movies by themselves. You are confusing "violent movies" with "R-rated movies". The we don't admit children to R-rated movies, but we do admit them to PG-13 movies (which have as much violence, but less sex) illustrates, rather than rebuts, the greater tolerance for violence than sex.

Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, is rated R for sexual content. I have seen the movie twice, but the only "sexual content" I can remember is a short humorous flash of a couple having sex. For comparison, the movie is rated between 7 and 15 years in the rest of the world. There is no violence in the movie. It's basically a very sweet and innocent movie, rated R in the US.

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

#289

Post by rahkiin »

smsm42 wrote: post #236
oneloop wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us more about this Russian censorship, you seem to know a lot about the subject.

How many weeks you're willing to spend on it? :) Yes, I know a bunch about the subject, but most of it hardly relevant to the topic at hand.

Please enlighten us anyways. Now your argument is empty, or fuelled by fear of the Russians. Not with any sources.

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

#290

Post by danjoc »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #229
danjoc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trademark? Why would you need to violate trademarks? This is a straw man argument. I didn't say violate trademarks. I said trademark enforcement. A small competitor can be wiped out easily with legal costs associated with an extended trademark battle in court. >Build your own system or come up with your own great idea. Same straw man. I don't have to violate patents to be sued out of existence. >There's no patent on…

> I said trademark enforcement. A small competitor can be wiped out easily with legal costs associated with an extended trademark battle in court. Has anything like that ever happened? Someone starts a business and a competitor with a completely unrelated name wipes them out with a trademark battle?

It's going to be hard to point to examples by definition because they were wiped out and nobody ever heard from them again. An example of this you may have heard of, but did not wipe out the company, was AstraZenica's suit against Dr. Reddy's over the purple color of a heartburn pill.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-reddys-blocked-from-selling-p...

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