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Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

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Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#11

Post by Udik »

theBobBob wrote: post #4

Isn't Germany on of the countries that at least had plans on making social media companies responsible for what their users post on their sites. If I remember correctly they were even proposing massive fines if content that they deemed illegal was not removed within an hour and even holding the executives criminally responsible for the content that any of their users post? I'm not sure did they actually go that far b…

I think the point here is "content that they deemed illegal". There is one authority that mediates between the needs and ideologies of all participants in society, and that's the state. The state sets boundaries- publicly discussed, contracted, declared and approved- so that everyone is entirely free to do whatever they please inside those boundaries.

The case where private companies in an oligo or monopolistic environment decide what to censor and what to promote is entirely different.

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#12

Post by nojokes1 »

It's honestly quite scary to me how we're able to censor people off the internet from popular discourse. Yes, they're absolutely private companies with the ability to do what they need in service of profits and their own values but it's almost chilling to see how effective this can be on individuals/ideas.

On the flip side, there is a need for action against ideas and individuals that are dangerous to society...but should we really trust google, twitter, amazon, et al., to be the judge, jury and executioner for all this with an entirely invisible process? Are there not elected officials that we've explicitly given this power to?

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#14

Post by tsdlts »

nojokes1 wrote: post #12

It's honestly quite scary to me how we're able to censor people off the internet from popular discourse. Yes, they're absolutely private companies with the ability to do what they need in service of profits and their own values but it's almost chilling to see how effective this can be on individuals/ideas. On the flip side, there is a need for action against ideas and individuals that are dangerous to society...but s…

I have little hope that the legal system will be adapted to the current technocratic society we currently live in given that the average age of someone in Congress is 58 and in the Senate it's 62. That said, if they ever get around to it, they should investigate "shadow banning." The ability to silence people without any notification or even any way for the effected party to prove it is pretty insidious and should have some regulation behind it. They can effectively skirt any public scrutiny and control the entire discourse of a country.

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#15

Post by Tarsul »

"He [her speaker] added that governments, not private companies, should decide on any limitations to freedom of speech." So it's more a critic of the US government than of Twitter. And if the government doesn't act, it's up to someone else, in this case social media companies to do something, isn't it? If Trump wasn't the president, he would have been banned way before and with good reason. Germany knows there is a difference between "freedom of speech" and letting everyone say whatever they want no matter what damage it heralds.

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#16

Post by pxtail »

ckmdjdndndn wrote: post #3

Throw away. What I find so funny is the hypocrisy of all these co’s. During growth, no morals at all. Once at the top, suddenly the arbiter of honesty and righteousness. Reddit - How long did they let /r/creepshots /r/jailbait and more run wild before shutting down? When it was convenient economically with investors and growth numbers? Only after a bad article was written? Amazon - Make a list of all the businesses A…

Personally, for sinister reasons I like what FB/Twitter and other high profile companies are doing right now. All this meddling with politics, openly taking sides and censoring based on arbitrary rules like a cesar pointing thumb up and down - I'm pretty convinced (and I hope!) that especially for "social media" giants this will sooner or later backfire and will be one of reasons of their demise, improvement or at least significant reduction of influence.

All of this serves as reminder that not necessarily full and true picture could be visible when looking through social media lens, at the same time it's sad because it increases doubts,distrust and divides society even more - certain and looking at votes count - pretty big one - part of society could feel that there is no common ground for discussion,they are not welcome, have to find or create their own platform (bubble).

I think that one of reasons why social media is that messy is the reach, it appears that it's the curse and the blessing at same time - it makes local issues global ones, it allows to form a mob, mass where individual voices and meaningful discussion is impossible. This is visible even here on HN, sometimes there are massive threads with thousands of comments and while plenty are insightful and valuable I have feeling that some threshold is crossed and it no longer make sense to read and comment there.

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#18

Post by [deleted] »

theBobBob wrote: post #4

Isn't Germany on of the countries that at least had plans on making social media companies responsible for what their users post on their sites. If I remember correctly they were even proposing massive fines if content that they deemed illegal was not removed within an hour and even holding the executives criminally responsible for the content that any of their users post? I'm not sure did they actually go that far b…

[deleted]

Re: Angela Merkel blasts Twitter's decision to permanently suspend Trump's account

#19

Post by gamblor956 »

Tarsul wrote: post #15

"He [her speaker] added that governments, not private companies, should decide on any limitations to freedom of speech." So it's more a critic of the US government than of Twitter. And if the government doesn't act, it's up to someone else, in this case social media companies to do something, isn't it? If Trump wasn't the president, he would have been banned way before and with good reason. Germany knows there is a d…

Europe has a different conception of free speech and censorship than we do.

Censorship is acceptable and desired in Europe. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc., all censor entire categories of speech and types of speech, including for example criticism of religion in Germany, or expressions of religion in France (to cite opposing examples). Free speech in Europe is really just what the government says is free; the default assumption being that the government has the right to censorship speech unless it is shown to warrant free speech protections.

In the U.S., freedom of speech is presumed. Censorship is only allowed by the government if the government can show that restrictions on speech are warranted, and in such case the restrictions must be limited to those necessary to address the reasons for placing the restrictions. But, censorship by private parties is allowed without restraint (accepting certain physical facilities like shopping centers) because not speaking is regarded as speech in the U.S.

So, Germany's criticism flows from their belief that the government should get to decide what gets censored, and not understanding that in the U.S., individuals and companies get to make that choice for themselves.

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