The multinational tech companies are EXISTENTIALLY motivated to weaken and dissolve national identity for this very reason. Every country they operate in they will algorithmically and politically oppose any nationalist movement. The tech companies moved quickly and captured the vast majority of the world-- their greatest terror is that, like china, countries will realize that allowing an american company to monitor and manipulate their population might not be in the best interest of the people. The multinationals will do their best to influence and when necessary but off political leaders around the world. The war is just beginning.
A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
121–130 of 131 posts
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really think the https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 case is egregious? The punishment is meaningful, but hardly life or career changing. Just because something has been said in rap lyrics does not mean it's OK to say in all contexts. Do you know the context and what she said? Surely it's conceivable that what she said really was harmful to community. Consider why free speech exists: to p…
> Do you really think the https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 case is egregious? The punishment is meaningful, but hardly life or career changing. Just because something has been said in rap lyrics does not mean it's OK to say in all contexts. Do you know the context and what she said? Surely it's conceivable that what she said really was harmful to community. All you are doing is rationalising…
Communication can do harm. It can also do good. That's kind of the point of protecting it - it's got power. If it were powerless, then fraud, misinformation campaigns, copyright infringement, insider trading, leaks of classified info, selling trade secrets, and online bullying etc would be irrelevant, but they're not; they have impacts. To be clear: I'm not saying that all of those are worth preventing regardless of circumstances.
I'm not weighing in on the BBC reported case because all the relevant details are omitted. But in principle I support the notion those that do harm should be held to account; and without knowing the details, the 8 weeks of curfew don't sound necessarily implausible. Of course, laws can be excessive; that's for sure, but even if this one were (I don't have the details, and a sample size of 1 isn't something to draw conclusions from regardless) - that's merely an argument to be more reasonable, not to leave all harm entirely unpunished. Superficially: sure, it sounds unreasonable to give a teenager 8 weeks of curfew and a considerable 500 pound fine for something they said online. But I don't know the details; so I'm not sure what to make of that.
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> We didn't choose to draw the line though. The legislation was pushed through in the mid-2000s because of terrorists bombings (by Islamists) in the UK.
Yeah, that's society deciding to draw the line. Your use of the passive voice is notable, but I don't think think it's wise to think of this as a passive choice - a democratically elected parliament chose to write that act, and subsequent parliaments left it in place, by choice. It may well be a bad law - and many such laws are terrible; as are many other laws. But they're fundamentally the people's responsibility, and failing to own up to that responsibility is essentially giving up on democracy.
It would be lovely if we could live in the world in which all speech was good and none harmful. That would make all this super easy! But harms from communication do arise, and we need to deal with them.
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> > Regardless, though bad laws should be repealed the larger point stands: these countries have not devolved into Orwellian nightmares.
> They are locking people up for speech and investigating jokes. So yes they have.
The point of an Orwellian police state is to exercise (draconian) control. It is not enough for some isolated incident to occur.
In fact, I'll argue the opposite: that the world you would effectively help to create by rejecting such laws categorically is much closer to Orwellian than one in which we to work to avoid harmful statements. Because one central theme of the book is doublespeak, and in general the creation of alternative truths, and the hiding of real truths via misinformation. And that's exactly the world we're descending into. We should aim to prevent that, not to work toward that goal all while honestly, yet ironically claiming to be protecting free speech. It won't end well.
When you argue that some laws restricting speech have harmful consequences, I'll vigorously agree. When you argue that a free and open debate is one of the essential components of a functioning democracy, I'll vigorously agree. You're totally right!
But I also want to re-emphasize that the choices are not binary, nor trivial, nor that we should be aiming for centralized control of speech. I don't want to live in a police state, any more than you! But just because some laws aiming to prevent harmful speech miss their mark does not mean laws aiming to protect it cannot also miss their mark. Ideally, we'd acknowledge that we have a problem, and look for solutions that mitigate the doublespeak and disinformation while being difficult to centrally control, and avoiding draconian punishments too. We should be looking for self-reinforcing positive feedback loops, not direct control - that prevents most of the risks of direct punishment of speech, while hopefully still achieving some of the aims. And the first step along that process is having a frank discussion about this problem in the first place, and that's what we're struggling with as a society now.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did I say that? I don't think so. I see a problem in a generalization of the kind done in the title of the article. Facebook is not "the Internet". The Austrian court rule does not apply to "The Internet" at all. It applies to Facebook and Facebook only. If someone published the same content on another platform then the court would have to rule again. I see the real problem in Platforms like Facebook becoming the onl…
Facebook is not Internet, that is right. But the decision that applies to Facebook can apply to anything on Internet within the reach of the Austrian state and, piece by piece, that means almost the entire Internet. Saying it is just a Facebook incident is very short sighted, many people could not care less about FB.
I did not say it's just Facebook and I said that the court can rule many times. I did say that the court would have to rule every single time. And if speech on the internet wasn't centralized the way it is today then the court would have to make as many decisions as there are people making the same statement. That would not work effectively if the expressed opinion was backed and expressed by many people in many places.
And let's not forget that the content of the opinion in question is not one on which a fruitful political debate can be built, you f ps ;) If it was, the court may have come to an entirely different conclusion.
I do not want to defend the court's ruling here and I have too few insights into the Austrian political landscape to understand how (in-)adequate this decision might be. But the fact remains: If I live outside of Austria but my website is reachable from Austria, I can write whatever I want and have nothing to fear from an Austrian court as long as I am not trying to take my website-business to the Austrian market.
They may decide to block my IP inside Austria but that would hardly be global censorship (even if it's still an issue worth fighting over).
The whole "people couldn't care less about FB" talk really takes this to the wrong place and is making me tired as long as you misinterpret everything else and repeat my own statements as if it was a counter-argument.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really see no problem with states demanding that their censorship laws apply world wide?
People here don't because the attitude here is "it's Facebook so fuck them".
Not casual dismissal, no "fuck them".
Just: This ruling is not about censoring the internet. It's about keeping a huge actor from publishing a type of content.
My point was that it is a problem that so many people are dependent on the standing of this single player. If Facebook it outlawed somewhere, this silences everyone on the platform.
And not to forget that it gives Facebook the ability to promote or censor content as much as they want. But they wouldn't, because they're all about free speech. Phew!
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#125Users 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.
Many people got banned the last months for promoting masks or talking conspiracies. Imo i would not assume facebook to actually enable free speech.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#126That'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…
I would argue that the internet as we know it today would not exist without the American 1st amendment. If that ever goes away, the internet as we know it today will no longer exist. The majority of the worlds hosting companies are here and there is a reason why people throughout the world use a vpn just to have simple online conversations that we freely enjoy.
I would argue that is wrong. We have free speech over in europe too and not because the US forced it on us, but it also is something we generally value. We just dont run around claiming its the most amazing thing ever.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
People here don't because the attitude here is "it's Facebook so fuck them".
Which I don't really understand, it's an attempt at global censorship, that's the concern. But as it's a ruling against Facebook the general impression I get is casual dismissal
Facebook is actively ignoring EU privacy laws by shipping private data out of the EU. You can not reflect this on the whole internet, but on facebook only. As many have said already
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#128> The case started with an April 2016 Facebook post, in which a user shared an article featuring a photo of Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, then-chair of Austria’s Green Party, along with commentary labeling her a “lousy traitor,” “corrupt oaf,” and member of a “fascist party,” apparently in response to her immigration policies. This is core, protected speech in the United States. But it was deemed defamation under Austria…
For many of us beeing not allowed to blame people with specific (usually way to generalized) slurs does not exactly lessen our ability for free speech. Imo this perception is only drawn on us by americans.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is a tax or regulation incentive race to the bottom really a bad thing? The residents of those jurisdictions that end up without much tax income and the externalities of the lax regulations so they would suffer and pressure their government to increase the tax and make the regulations stricter. Eventually, it should reach an equilibrium where those things are "fair" as determined by all the participants in the market…
> What are the alternatives besides something oppressive like using military power to prevent other countries from taxing their citizens too little? Dropping the dogma of free trade and free flow of capital, and taxing any transactions involving tax havens to the point where it's not profitable to use them for tax avoidance. You can only have countries' tax systems and regulations competing in global "free market" of…
I agree. If the US doesn't like tax havens, then the US can tax the local operations of companies that are incorporated there. No need for any hand wringing. Or maybe the US does like tax havens because they kind of keep the actual operations and money in the US which helps the economy despite a lack of tax.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you really think the https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921 case is egregious? The punishment is meaningful, but hardly life or career changing. Just because something has been said in rap lyrics does not mean it's OK to say in all contexts. Do you know the context and what she said? Surely it's conceivable that what she said really was harmful to community. All you are doing is rationalising…
Communication can do harm. It can also do good. That's kind of the point of protecting it - it's got power. If it were powerless, then fraud, misinformation campaigns, copyright infringement, insider trading, leaks of classified info, selling trade secrets, and online bullying etc would be irrelevant, but they're not; they have impacts. To be clear: I'm not saying that all of those are worth preventing regardless of…
> Communication can do harm. It can also do good. That's kind of the point of protecting it - it's got power. If it were powerless, then fraud, misinformation campaigns, copyright infringement, insider trading, leaks of classified info, selling trade secrets, and online bullying etc would be irrelevant, but they're not; they have impacts. To be clear: I'm not saying that all of those are worth preventing regardless of circumstances.
You protect communication by letting people communicate freely. As for "misinformation", well free speech has you covered. You can use your voice to correct that mis-information. As for "online bullying". You know how you stop online bullying? You log out of social media and it ends.
The others you have listed already have existing legislation that covers them. It doesn't need speech controls or controls over lines of communication.
> I'm not weighing in on the BBC reported case because all the relevant details are omitted. But in principle I support the notion those that do harm should be held to account; and without knowing the details, the 8 weeks of curfew don't sound necessarily implausible. Of course, laws can be excessive; that's for sure, but even if this one were (I don't have the details, and a sample size of 1 isn't something to draw conclusions from regardless) - that's merely an argument to be more reasonable, not to leave all harm entirely unpunished. Superficially: sure, it sounds unreasonable to give a teenager 8 weeks of curfew and a considerable 500 pound fine for something they said online. But I don't know the details; so I'm not sure what to make of that.
What you should make of it. Is that you can be fined, prosecuted and even put in prison for shitposting on facebook. That is ridiculous. Anything else is apologetics for laws that shouldn't exist.
People won these freedoms over hundreds of years of social progress. But lets throw it all away because might have upset somoene else online.
> Yeah, that's society deciding to draw the line. Your use of the passive voice is notable, but I don't think think it's wise to think of this as a passive choice - a democratically elected parliament chose to write that act, and subsequent parliaments left it in place, by choice. It may well be a bad law - and many such laws are terrible; as are many other laws. But they're fundamentally the people's responsibility, and failing to own up to that responsibility is essentially giving up on democracy.
I have no idea what a "passive voice" is. All you are doing it making a case against democracy in my eyes (Democracy is considered by some to be soft-communism, but that is on the extreme side of libertarism/anarcho-capitalist circles however this view isn't without some merit). If you rights can be simply be voted away by your representatives that doesn't preserve liberty.
I am soo sick of people like yourself that will just excuse away rights violations because represntatives voted for it. If everyone voted to kill all the Jews or Homosexuals in a country does it make it okay? Obviously not. What you are doing is more apologetics for laws that shouldn't exist.
Everyone should be allowed to say what they like. The only exceptions I might grant you are calls to violence.
> But I also want to re-emphasize that the choices are not binary, nor trivial, nor that we should be aiming for centralized control of speech. I don't want to live in a police state, any more than you! But just because some laws aiming to prevent harmful speech miss their mark does not mean laws aiming to protect it cannot also miss their mark. Ideally, we'd acknowledge that we have a problem, and look for solutions that mitigate the doublespeak and disinformation while being difficult to centrally control, and avoiding draconian punishments too. We should be looking for self-reinforcing positive feedback loops, not direct control - that prevents most of the risks of direct punishment of speech, while hopefully still achieving some of the aims. And the first step along that process is having a frank discussion about this problem in the first place, and that's what we're struggling with as a society now.
There is no such thing as harmful speech. It is a made up thing with no proper defintion that is used to suppress dissisent of the populace against the state (which normally collude with the rich). Speech is not violence and never will be.