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But what in case of the abuse of the system? Administrators will end up deleting whatever is reported. Not to mention it can be used in political fight.
If every country with an economy the size of 1 or 2 large US states start making up their own censorship laws and trying to force companies to enforce them, at some point this causes huge inefficiencies.
I can see two end states to this:
1. If the censoring country has enough international legal influence, companies will probably have to block users from that country from using their services.
2. If the censoring country does not have enough international legal influence, the company ignores them and the government has to explicitly censor its citizens' internet connections.
I kind of prefer the second because it's more visible and dramatic - I think a lot of people probably aren't even aware when their country has censorship laws.
This also creates economic opportunities for two classes of alternative content distribution:
1. Content distribution based out of legally friendly countries, a la the Sultanate of Kinakuta. Expect to see the media start using terms styled after "tax haven", like "cybercrime haven", for countries that don't enforce US/EU censorship/copyright laws.
2. Content distribution based off of peer-to-peer networks that are harder to wage lawfare against. Bittorrent, IPFS, etc. fit the bill here.
france is such a weird place. In some ways it's a very free society. In other ways it's not free at all. Don't most of the euro countries have weird laws about hate speech like this?
france is such a weird place. In some ways it's a very free society. In other ways it's not free at all. Don't most of the euro countries have weird laws about hate speech like this?
The conclusion TFA makes seems likely: these services will just err on the side of “delete first, ask questions later” to protect themselves from liability, making all sorts of legal expression impossible.
The current state of online publishing is really sad, and getting worse. Very few modern services used for hosting can be used to publish legal yet fringe or controversial opinions, which should terrify you even if you don’t agree with those things.
We’re moving toward a world where a dozen large companies will be the final arbiters of what can or cannot be published, regardless of what the law says. If you can’t see why that’s a grave threat to society, I question your imagination.
...and that’s just in peacetime. Imagine the special wartime requirements that will apply to these services if their hosting nations ever feel legitimately threatened.
france is such a weird place. In some ways it's a very free society. In other ways it's not free at all. Don't most of the euro countries have weird laws about hate speech like this?
E.g. if a Swiss news site has a comment section where users violate anti racism laws, the site owner can be sued since they published and didn't remove it.
Regarding free society. I think each one has its own quirks and difference where they consider someone's freedom ends. E.g. the US's handling of nudity and swear words is absolutely bizarre to me as a European and as someone from the US you might think the restriction on speech and use of symbols many places in Europe have go too far.
france is such a weird place. In some ways it's a very free society. In other ways it's not free at all. Don't most of the euro countries have weird laws about hate speech like this?
I would use the word fantastic instead.
Good. I would much rather have a good amount of censorship then let bigots hide behind the “free speech” argument.
Who decides authoritatively what is or isn’t “hate speech” within the 24 hour period? The conclusion TFA makes seems likely: these services will just err on the side of “delete first, ask questions later” to protect themselves from liability, making all sorts of legal expression impossible. The current state of online publishing is really sad, and getting worse. Very few modern services used for hosting can be used t…
Good. I would much rather have a good amount of censorship then let bigots hide behind the “free speech” argument.
The hate speech slope is slippery and unscrupulous politicians will always want to interfere.