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Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

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231–240 of 386 posts

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#231
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…

facebook can simply pull out of the nation

[deleted]

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#232

As someone hiding behind a throwaway account in an effort to avoid doxing and harassment, and getting my more legitimate online presence removed due to hysterics: I welcome the idea of this change. Though I think it is wrong the way it is implemented. I do not speak Polish, and maybe perhaps the Polish law is more nuanced than the article describes. There should be a law that says you cannot produce a unilateral term…

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Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#233
post #163
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only free speech that doesn't violate polish law. Is that what you want?

That doesn't make any sense. What is that even supposed to mean? Yes, Polish people have only the free speech that doesn't violate the Polish law. Some people might think that the laws could be more strict or more relaxed, but this is just how the law works.

Calling it free speech when an authoritarian government heavily restricts what can legally be said feels a bit disingenuous

Do you know anything about poland's heavy restrictions on speech?? https://notesfrompoland.com/2018/08/21/polands-insult-laws-a...

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#234
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in keeping with the law at the time (well the law they passed), they elected 5 justices to replace up coming vacancies. Later it was ruled that 2 of those nominations were unconstitutional (I think because they were for justices who's terms expired after the new legislature was seated), but the newly elected Law and Justice government refused to seat any of them and elected their own slate of 5 justices. When the…

This is all fine and good - but the previous governments 'changing of the law' governing Judicial appointments, and then controversially 'stacking the court' to 14 out of 15 appointments in their favour, is clearly the first salvo in a constitutional war. There is no doubt. It doesn't matter that 'we don't like the jerks in charge' or that 'they've done bad stuff' - the fact is the crisis was obviously initiated befo…

> which de-facto absolved him of any Russian shenanigans. It doesn't matter that he lies about election results - he was not colluding with Russians.

This is quite literally the opposite of the stated conclusion of the Muller investigation. It's not clear to me how you get "absolved him from any Russia shenanigans". There were clear links between the campaign and Russia (up to and including Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian Lawyer for "dirt" on the Clinton campaign), likely in return for changes to the Magnitsky act. That's all plainly stated in the muller report.

He ultimately didn't charge them because while there may have been intent to collude, it didn't pan out.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#235

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.

> Trolling ... may not be against any law but it is in the public interest to allow platforms to remove such content.

Is that really true? When Slashdot was the popular "news for nerds" site, many site regulars intentionally set their threshold to -1 to read the troll posts, because they were often inventive and funny. Yes, a moderation system can filter them out for users who configure the site thusly, but plenty of people would resist banning them outright because they are occasionally enjoyable to read.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#236
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If authoritarianism means that people can freely speak their mind on the internet, then let so be it.

freedom of speech was hardly enjoyed in nazi Germany, soviet Russia, WW2's ultranationalist Japan. Sometimes I wonder if certain people are using "free speech" as a stepping stone to authoritarianism to then destroy freedom of speech.

What is even your point? Just because you're saying something on Facebook doesn't mean that the law of the country you're in doesn't apply to you anymore. You still have to abide to your law. What this does is that it only removes the restrictions of the platform, so you can get only more free speech, not less.

> Sometimes I wonder if certain people are using "free speech" as a stepping stone to authoritarianism to then destroy freedom of speech.

Have you ever entertained the idea that a similar thing could apply to the side that you support?

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#237
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…

We can extend your point. A website used by kids may not want swear words, a website may not want sexists, racists, and another hate speech. In certain situations, disallowing content is the site owner's way of expressing their point of the view. This law bans this site owner from doing so. It limits site owner's ability to express their views on what their own property should be. By the way, we should also keep in mind that a site is the private property of an entity, just like an object or a piece of land. If this law is enacted, when a site owner sees speech on their own site that goes against their values, they can only condemn them with words, but the actual act will still happen on their property.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#238
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened is roughly this: in Poland's Constitutional Tribunal (which is as close of an equivalent of US Supreme Court as you can get in a country with a civil law system), the judges are not elected for life, but only for fixed term. As the term of the elected government was coming to an end, so were the terms of 5 of the justices in the Tribunal. However, two of these terms ended within the elected government's…

Did both of those things happen through some loophole? Or is the elected party just able to kind of do whatever they want unstopped?

As far as I can tell, neither of these actions was based on any “loophole”. However, the nature of the rule of law is that it only works as long as everyone plays by the rules. When the government decides it does no longer has to play by the rules, there isn’t much that can be done to oppose them, as they still hold all the power, and are presumed to hold political authority.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If they don't agree they don't have to use it. It's dishonest because the characterization suggests that sovereign nations are beholden to tech companies, but they aren't.

Re: Poland Justice Minister announces online freedom of speech bill

#240
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t get to see the world where he didn’t do that. For example, let’s pretend his lawyers warned him that TWTR as a company and himself as an individual could be held liable for any future riot organised on Twitter. That would be worse than 6.5%, surely?

Between 8 PM Friday and 4 AM Monday morning, nothing about potential legal liability changed. The decline over the weekend TWTR banned Trump was larger than the decline following the riot itself.

1. We don’t know what advice they were getting and when, and it’s the advice not the liability that matters.

2. This is just an example of things which could be going on, not intended as a factual statement of what did and why Twitter chose to do what it chose to do — if I actually knew something not in the public domain, I’d probably be under NDA to not say.

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