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A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

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Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#71

Post by the8472 »

beepboop77 wrote: post #51
zxcmx wrote: post #28

Users everywhere have had to put up with U.S law for a long time. The laws and norms of the USA are more or less "fully baked in". Try posting a nipple or copyrighted track, for example. If Facebook had come from a different place, all songs and body bits might be Ok but perhaps discussion of government would be banned. I can't tell if that would actually be a better facebook than the one we got.

I think you don't give American companies enough credit when it comes to appealing to various countries laws and opinions. It is disingenuous to say Europe or the rest of the world does not care about copyright when they have historically and increasingly laws that are as strict if not stricter than the US' when it comes to preventing copyright infringement. [1][2] Nipples do reflect American sensibilities although i…

> It is disingenuous to say Europe or the rest of the world does not care about copyright when they have historically and increasingly laws that are as strict if not stricter than the US' when it comes to preventing copyright infringement. [1][2]

Those laws are to some extent pushed through by the US in international treaties on behalf of american copyright holders.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#72

Post by _trampeltier »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #6

So you are not concerned about massive Facebook censoring but is really worried about Austrian court decision which apparently takes 3 years per case? To be clear I am not saying there is no problem, I am saying the Austrian court decision is really the least of it. But honestly enabling any psycho to shout whatever for the whole world to hear is also a problem.

3 years is not so long, sadly. In Switzerland, an deadly accident from a young worker, took such a long time to even start in the court, until it was barred.

https://www.tagblatt.ch/ostschweiz/justiz-tod-in-der-garage-...

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#73

Post by dane-pgp »

choeger wrote: post #3

That's quite the problem we are in, as a global society. Obviously no one wants to give North Korea any say about what can and what cannot be published in the web. But between sovereign, free, democratic societies, different standards might exist. And if you want to do business with, say, the EU as, say, a US tech company you cannot expect US law and commons to apply everywhere. Then it becomes a race to the bottom i…

> Then it becomes a race to the bottom indeed.

The article used that wording, "a classic risk of a race to the bottom", but it doesn't feel entirely accurate to me.

A classic example of a race to the bottom is when jurisdictions compete to attract businesses by lowering their corporation tax rates and regulations. The end result would be zero taxes and zero regulations (unless a country offered a negative tax rate or other incentives).

For censorship, though, I don't see there being a "race" between countries. Just because Austria bans defamation doesn't mean that all other countries will try to out-compete Austria by banning something even less objectionable. What would "the bottom" even be in this "race"? Banning all speech from the internet? Internet companies would simply avoid having any assets or presence in any country that tried that.

Perhaps a better analogy would be "opening the flood gates" or "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link", suggesting that the strictest set of rules would be the one that ended up being implemented.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#74

Post by pessimizer »

the8472 wrote: post #71
beepboop77 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don't give American companies enough credit when it comes to appealing to various countries laws and opinions. It is disingenuous to say Europe or the rest of the world does not care about copyright when they have historically and increasingly laws that are as strict if not stricter than the US' when it comes to preventing copyright infringement. [1][2] Nipples do reflect American sensibilities although i…

> It is disingenuous to say Europe or the rest of the world does not care about copyright when they have historically and increasingly laws that are as strict if not stricter than the US' when it comes to preventing copyright infringement. [1][2] Those laws are to some extent pushed through by the US in international treaties on behalf of american copyright holders.

They're the obvious tariff required in every "free trade" treaty.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#75

Post by Sargos »

anigbrowl wrote: post #46
bigbubba wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When courts gatekeep criticism of politicians, that is fascist. Austria's history of fascism makes this even worse, since they of all people should know better.

Stop arguing with a false premise. The issue here is whether courts in Austria have the right to constrain people's public statements to some standard of demonstrable truthfulness, or not.

From the Western viewpoint the answer is clearly no, but Austria will keep walking down that path regardless of whether it's morally right.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#76

Post by pessimizer »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #56
notahacker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or compliance, because having already taken the corporate position that certain electoral messaging is so misleading and damaging it needs content warnings, shadowbanning or even deletion, it would be frankly weird for Facebook to sacrifice its Austrian business on the altar of insisting that actually a series of courts are wrong and memes accusing a leading Green Party figure of being a fascist are not libel but an…

the Austrian green party is fishing for right-wing voters who are disgruntled by the FPÖ many scandals. their policies are strange since they seem to want to appeal to the right according to their conservative policy a lot more than to the left. This is counter the tradition of what is "normal" for a Green party in other countries. their ultra conservative approach gobbles up previous FPÖ voters that are disillusione…

That you agree with the anti-Green posts is not relevant. Pretend the ruling was against a Green politician for doing the same thing to someone you like.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#77

Post by rcoveson »

victorbstan wrote: post #63

Free speech without universal free education is a mistake.

Your statement has a nice ring to it only because it takes advantage of the very confusing English word "free". In the "free speech" context, it's free as in liberty. In the "universal, free education" context, it's free as in beer; the implication being government funded and managed (and mandatory, implied by "universal"). So while your statement seems to be all about freedom, it's really about predicating one freedom on the restriction of another.

Here's how I would rephrase your statement:

"It's a mistake for the government to let people speak freely before they have been educated by the government."

Which I think is significantly less compelling.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#78

Post by avhon1 »

legulere wrote: post #60

No it doesn’t. It just means if you offer a service in a country, you have to follow its laws. The problem is that we have huge multinational companies centralizing the internet.

If I host my own website in the United States and post writing which is non-protected speech in Australia, might I be required to block Australian IP addresses from accessing it, or even to remove it altogether? Even though I don't have any Australian presence, my content is available in Australia, which might meet a standard for offering a service in Australia. I know this is not what this ruling is about, but it does bring reality closer to my hypothetical.

Secondly, why should local laws be enforcable globally? Should Australia really be able to globally forbid speech which is prohibited in Australia? Facebook's initial response was to follow Australian rules in Australia, and geoblock the contested posts. According to this ruling, this is insufficient, and Facebook is required to block these posts, and "equivalent" content, globally.

edit: I did indeed misread "Austria" as "Australia" throughout the entire article

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#79

Post by ginko »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #56
notahacker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or compliance, because having already taken the corporate position that certain electoral messaging is so misleading and damaging it needs content warnings, shadowbanning or even deletion, it would be frankly weird for Facebook to sacrifice its Austrian business on the altar of insisting that actually a series of courts are wrong and memes accusing a leading Green Party figure of being a fascist are not libel but an…

the Austrian green party is fishing for right-wing voters who are disgruntled by the FPÖ many scandals. their policies are strange since they seem to want to appeal to the right according to their conservative policy a lot more than to the left. This is counter the tradition of what is "normal" for a Green party in other countries. their ultra conservative approach gobbles up previous FPÖ voters that are disillusione…

>Austria is the most West of all the Eastern EU countries so a lot of things that are not normal in Western Europe are so in Austria

What the hell are you talking about? Austria is squarely Central European. It was never part of the East in any way.

And the Green party is most definitely not fishing for right-wing voters. Not to mention that Eva Glawischnig isn't even in the party anymore.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#80

Post by ben_w »

tedunangst wrote: post #53
zxcmx wrote: post #28

Users everywhere have had to put up with U.S law for a long time. The laws and norms of the USA are more or less "fully baked in". Try posting a nipple or copyrighted track, for example. If Facebook had come from a different place, all songs and body bits might be Ok but perhaps discussion of government would be banned. I can't tell if that would actually be a better facebook than the one we got.

There are several US based sites which allow nipple posting, if that's your thing.

There is a big difference between “treated as porn” versus “this part of anatomy is specially evolved to be inserted into the mouth of an infant, so we don’t care if you show pictures of that exact scenario”.
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