Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

polandin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 386 posts

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#101

Post by sudenmorsian »

throwawaysea wrote: post #82
daliusd wrote: post #3

Oh that’s stupid. Companies will end up with some creative solutions - if it can not be removed it can be made hard to access. Honestly it looks like stupid people in power are sad that their antiLGBT posts are removed.

I get your point, but there's a middle ground here that I feel countries should rightly be able to defend, instead of letting Silicon Valley American companies unilaterally decide their fate. LGBT advocates in America have become extreme, even floating ideas like giving all children puberty blockers ( https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/transgender-activist... ) while other countries like the UK are recognizing,…

> Jones, however, told the Washington Examiner that she is not advocating for all children to be put on such medications.

> "I was not making an argument that all youth should be given puberty blockers. This was not an actual proposal, and it is not something I advocate or endorse," Jones said.

> "This was an argument that claims of trans youth’s unreadiness to give consent to puberty blockers, if followed consistently, lead to the conclusion that all youth are likewise not ready for the experience of puberty itself. Because that conclusion is absurd — again, this was not something that I advocated or endorsed — the argument that trans youth can’t consent to puberty blockers is faulty," Jones added.

With all due respect, in this situation you’re claiming that a fringe view in the US (which even the alleged proponent says was not an actual proposal) is the accepted norm, and that anyone who objects is called a transphobe. That’s not the case at all.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#102

Post by cpncrunch »

curiousfab wrote: post #9

Trolling and many other forms of online abuse may not be against any law but it is in the public interest to allow platforms to remove such content. This initiative may turn out to be the opposite of what it claims to stand for.

It will be great for spammers.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#103

Post by inglor_cz »

devwastaken wrote: post #53

Freedom of speech is also freedom from compelled speech. This kind of law means the government can compel any private party to speak what they want and punish them for not doing so. This is also demonstrably damaging to the effected party. It costs money to host content. Forcing a business to host content costs them - is poland going to fund this? No. If the polish government has a problem with it then they should ma…

"Freedom of speech is also freedom from compelled speech."

Uh, aren't for example nutritional labels a form of compelled speech?

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#104

Post by protonimitate »

CalRobert wrote: post #98
protonimitate wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, and at the risk of sounding ignorant, but I don't understand how a Polish law can be enforced on a company/service/piece of hardware under US (presumably, but could be any other) jurisdiction. At the end of the day, the data is sitting on a piece of hardware somewhere , isn't the "owning" place the one that dictates what laws can be enforced on it?

Who mentioned the US?

No one.

> (presumably, but could be any other)

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#105

Post by jessaustin »

root_axis wrote: post #69
ceilingcorner wrote: post #39

This will continue happening around the world. Who knew - sovereign states don’t want American megacorporations deciding what ideas are appropriate? Prepare for massive Balkanization of the Internet.

This is a dishonest line. The internet is federated, they don't have to use websites created by American megacorporations.

I don't find this dishonest at all. Not everyone in USA agrees with the Great Suspensioning. Why would we expect everyone in Poland to agree with it?

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#106

Post by timeon »

jariel wrote: post #23

Legitimacy aside - purely from a political perspective - this is pretty smart. Poland is at odds with the EU bureaucracy over a bunch of things, and 'Freedom of Expression' is definitely a populist issue a lot of people can feasibly rally behind. Whatever the reality is, the optics are good. It puts the EU in a position of having to 'defend censorship' (or at least detractors could say as much).

> a lot of people can feasibly rally behind.

I do not think that is the case. 'Free speech' is not new topic in EU, but most people who are talking about it are neo-nazis.

This proposal is obviously dictature of free speech.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#107

Post by qertoip »

This "justice" minister is responsible for essentially removing independent courts from the Polish legal system. The judges in Poland are forced to rule as requested by the government. This is by far THE worst shit show since the fall of communism in Poland (1989).

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#108

Post by kennywinker »

d3ckard wrote: post #56
kennywinker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, under this law a post mentioning true facts about nazi collaboration in poland during ww2 would be illegal.

Out of curiosity, which facts do you mean? The law is stupid of course and an attempt to fight for their point of view(that is: xenophobic, racist and intolerant), but history is a subject rather widely discussed in Poland with all the sides being represented in media.

https://time.com/5128341/poland-holocaust-law/

> The bill was proposed by the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and calls for up to three years in prison or a fine for accusing the Polish state or people of involvement or responsibility for the Nazi occupation during World War II

The law has since passed, tho it was later amended to remove the prison time portion.

Now I am not a lawyer, nor am I polish, so I don't know what the situation is on the ground - but I believe the law makes repeating much of the contents of this wikipedia page illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupi...

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#109

Post by mytailorisrich »

This does not compel social media to follow Polish law throughout the world. It only means that social media should be able to filter content per country as they should anyway because what's legal and what's illegal varies from country to country.

An example, which often pops up: Denying the Holocaust falls within free speech protected by the 1st Amendment in the US. On the other hand, it is a criminal offence in many European countries.

It may not matter if you have no legal presence in countries outside your own but the FAANG have legal presence in most in not all Western countries at the very least and must follow the laws of these countries.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#110

Post by anonunivgrad »

protonimitate wrote: post #92
mabbo wrote: post #5

> Under its provisions, social media services will not be allowed to remove content or block accounts if the content on them does not break Polish law. This is kind of insane. So if I offer a free website- a private company operating as I like- I would be forbidden from removing content from my own website that I don't like because the person who wrote it- again, not a paying customer- wants it to be there. Not only…

I'm not a lawyer, and at the risk of sounding ignorant, but I don't understand how a Polish law can be enforced on a company/service/piece of hardware under US (presumably, but could be any other) jurisdiction. At the end of the day, the data is sitting on a piece of hardware somewhere , isn't the "owning" place the one that dictates what laws can be enforced on it?

If you want to do business in a country, then you have to follow the laws of that country. Polish courts would enter judgment against the company for violating Polish law, premising their jurisdiction on the activities of that company within their borders (e.g. accepting payment in polish currency, selling ads to polish businesses, charging for polish views/clicks). They can then seize the company's property in Poland to enforce that judgment. They can also introduce that judgment in foreign courts to do enforcement actions there. Those foreign courts would examine the validity of the Polish judgment (e.g. by reexamining jurisdiction) before issuing orders to enforce it.

There's nothing novel about this. This is how civil judgments are enforced across borders every day.

Post reply on HN