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Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

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Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#91

Post by fauigerzigerk »

blibble wrote: post #43
casiotone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean aside from the fact that MEPs - the politicians sitting in the EU government - are elected by the general population?

the appointed commission forms the government (executive), not the parliament the head of the commission is chosen by the parliament, and the head of the commission then appoints commissioners commissioners have a tendency to be disgraced former national politicians who have become unelectable at home (e.g. Jean-Claude Juncker, Peter Mandelson)

The commission as a whole has to be approved by the directly elected parliament. It can also be dismissed by the parliament at any time (which has happened before).

The situation is quite similar to a number of member states (e.g Germany) where neither the prime minister nor cabinet ministers have to be members of parliament and the government itself is not elected by the people.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#92

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

JBReefer wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

I don't recall a time in history when publishers (what Facebook et al. are) were required or expected to publish whatever any random person or organizations opinions.

Furthermore, the country most in favor of limiting free speech to protect minorities, Germany(70% pro, 29% against, total population) , ironically has the most experience with the dangers of both extremes of allowances on speech. On one hand the Nazi's were able to rise to power partly because they were able to publicly scapegoat groups of people who were eventually slaughtered en mass. On the other hand you have the Stasi who would torture and murder people based on a whiff of being critical of the ruling party.

Look, I'm for free speech, but lets not pretend that its an issue that doesn't require a modicum of nuance to approach.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#93

Post by dalbasal »

leggomylibro wrote: post #77
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

It's not like the USA has ever had unlimited free speech; it's still illegal to shout 'fire' in a crowded building or make certain kinds of threats (generally the specific kind.) China thinks it should be illegal to say something that threatens the stability of the governing party as an institution, so they control information more heavily. But it's not yet clear what they've proven in the past 60-odd years. Remember…

There’s a difference between recognising a fundamental right and not recognising it at all in my opinion.

China breaks from the “norm” drastically in a lot of ways. It doesn’t recognise the right of the public to elect officials, for example. There are lost of countries with flawed/fake democracies but most have democratic constitutions, officially. China is different.

20-30 years ago, liberal democracy was the only game in town. All new states formed on this basis. None of the ex-soviet states opted for official one-party constitutions, because it wasn’t one of the options.

There are many one party states, in practice. They don’t make it official. For example Egypt & Syria (also Iraq & Libya, formerly) have been one-party republics for 3 generations. Officially, they’re democracies because it was considered the only legitimate way. They rely on fake elections, emergency laws or some other theatre to get around their own official norms.

My point is that if arab revolutions of the 60s or post soviet revolutions of the 90s had happened today, they may have opted for the “Chinese Model” instead.

But, constitutions aren’t written every day. Laws are. Regulations are written every minute.

I’m trying not to be normative or negative about China. Just noting that China as an example, has an impact. It’s now a superpower and acts as a role model. A moderate position on internet censorship is now someplace between “uncensored” and “china.” Anything in between is within the “normal” range.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#94

Post by [deleted] »

JBReefer wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

[deleted]

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#95

Post by JBReefer »

forapurpose wrote: post #86
JBReefer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

> tankie Tankies? I think of that as the Communists who supported Stalin's invasion of Hungary in the 1950s. What does that mean here?

Yeah - there's a ton of them around the internet these days. Tankies are the sort of people who defend the Venezuelan and North Korean governments on r/socialism, for example.

I have no idea what chunk of the actual population they are, but I know a lot of people in Antifa self identify as tankies. I could be wrong though, usually am.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#96

Post by ravenstine »

pjc50 wrote: post #72
JBReefer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

> everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great Hardly. Especially on the left. Including such issues as the ban on breastfeeding photos, ban on trans people using their names, and widespread failure to ban hate speech. (I'm sure I've seen one case of someone recieving a pile of death threats, reporting them, getting told they were "not offensive", then reposting them as…

Just because they advocate freedom to express those ideas does not mean they advocate freedom of speech as a whole. Talking about anything not in the liberal vogue right now opens one up to a world of hurt that wasn't as prevalent even 10 years ago. Bring up being against draconian gun control and, depending on where you live and how large your social circle is, you might get a reputation for being a bunch of things you're not. I'm often seen as a conservative for bringing up the fact that violent crime in America is down, or challenging misconceptions about GMOs or criticizing Bill Nye the Science Guy(no, I'm not kidding), or even so much as questioning the accuracy of the gender pay gap statistic. Yet I have nothing in common with the kind of "conservatives" people are talking about. In fact I'd argue that almost all of my actual positions are far more liberal and progressive than that of most liberals.

The problem is that free speech of any value has to be facilitated by the likes of Facebook and other companies. If companies control who gets banned for saying something, and their goal is largely profit-driven, and the consensus is to make communication habitable for the most consumers(as opposed to actual expression of ideas beyond vapid Instagram photos), we are essentially screwed. The left is at an advantage because they have the facade of being the ones who fight for social injustice and those who are "historically oppressed", which are things that most people, including many conservatives, can't really argue against on face value; when they are handed the keys to media power, they behave just as conservative religious fundamentalists would, just with their own particular set of ideas that are not always congruent.

That is why I find the public's support of censorship, and the socially-acceptable level of vexation over "offensive" ideas, to be very disturbing. I find that I cannot even trust a large number of people who I know, and I think many people have discovered the same thing, which is why platforms like Facebook have turned into digital ghettos.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#97

Post by Stranger43 »

casiotone wrote: post #39
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they could, and it might be easier since as far as I know, the general population has very little influence over who gets to sit in the EU government.

You mean aside from the fact that MEPs - the politicians sitting in the EU government - are elected by the general population?

Please don't use the mere existence of the "Mickey Mouse" parliament as an evidence of direct representation to the EU as the parliament have literally none of the roles or authority of a real parliament but is mostly ceremonial, like the president of the EU.

The real power is and have always been with the council of ministers who is appointed by the member governments, and in practice only responsible to the member parliaments and not the EU parliament, who barely have authority to overrule the larger and more permanent commission, let alone propose any legislation.

Don't get me wrong I am pro EU but the current structure is pretty strange and mostly dysfunctional in trying to spread the pain evenly and prone to being dominated by large corporate interest groups.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#98

Post by heurist »

JBReefer wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

Let's deal with one issue at a time. Our current government actively suppresses minority votes - a step beyond suppressing speech. Get rid of that then redo the survey in 10 years and you'll see a shift back toward freedom of speech. If you're going to uphold a principle for one group then you need to uphold it for all groups. If you don't do that then why should it apply to any group?

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#99

Post by [deleted] »

icebraining wrote: post #17
pmyteh wrote: post #12

Non-EU readers should bear in mind that the presidency of the EU is much much weaker than that of, say, the US. It's rotated around the countries on a schedule, and has mainly agenda-setting authority. That is, countries who hold the presidency will use it to try to get movement on some issues that they care about, but it doesn't have anywhere close to enough power to get something passed which the other member state…

True. One wonders what Estonia, or its government, has to gain from this, though.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#100

Post by Stranger43 »

leggomylibro wrote: post #77
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

It's not like the USA has ever had unlimited free speech; it's still illegal to shout 'fire' in a crowded building or make certain kinds of threats (generally the specific kind.) China thinks it should be illegal to say something that threatens the stability of the governing party as an institution, so they control information more heavily. But it's not yet clear what they've proven in the past 60-odd years. Remember…

The Brandenburg ruling was never about anybody shouting fire in a crowded building but about a left wing newspaper encouraging people to protest the draft by non-violent civil disobedience rendering the US constitution effectively one of the weakest on free speech of any western nation.
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