EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#51

Post by neogodless » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #35

proactivesvcs wrote: post #25

Assuming that a company's terms of service are deemed fair and legal, why would it be "no longer acceptable" to apply them? I couldn't care less how high profile someone is, what public office they hold; if they break the agreement they made with a service provider, they should be subject to the consequences they agreed to. What I would like to see is a company being obliged to enforce its terms of service promptly,…

I think we need to acknowledge that a lot of what these agreements outline is, to a large degree, subjective. If human language, or expression in general, weren't contextual and up for interpretation, then I think this would be a viable way of looking at things, but that simply isn't the case. So long as there is room for interpretation, and the consequences (politically, economically, etc.) of those interpretations…

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." [0]

-- Winston Churchill

For any kind of platform that allows arbitrary users some level of control over the content that will be hosted, the options for ensuring that content is not harmful are:

* Community Moderation: users control contributing and moderating content. The platform chooses moderators, or enables voting for them. This gives users and all people (i.e. citizens) the most power, but has the most potential for abuse of the system to enable using the platform to host, spread and share harmful content.

* Platform Moderation: wholly moderated by platform chosen moderators. This is probably the most common system. The platform will use its own set of values and policies to decide what to moderate, and will likely target the most popular content deemed harmful. Per platform, this gives platforms the most power, but platforms much compete with each other

* Government Moderation: moderation likely by the platform, but with oversight from government - policy and values may be defined by the government; failure to moderate according to the government legislation could result in penalties or termination of the platform. If the government has sufficient checks and balances and citizen influence, this may be a desirable system, but if the government is not "of and for the people", it could also be used by the government to moderate opponents of the government as decided by that government. Anyone opposing the absolute power of the government may find their content "moderated" away. This is the stuff of nightmares for the founding fathers.

"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." [1]

-- Thomas Jefferson

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy

[1] https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/whe...

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#52

Post by dimroc » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #39

BobbyJo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to acknowledge that a lot of what these agreements outline is, to a large degree, subjective. If human language, or expression in general, weren't contextual and up for interpretation, then I think this would be a viable way of looking at things, but that simply isn't the case. So long as there is room for interpretation, and the consequences (politically, economically, etc.) of those interpretations…

So you have n companies each applying their own subjective judgement over their own networks, or you have 1 government applying its own subjective judgement over all networks in that country. It's highly unlikely that the latter is more friendly to fringe or extremist views (setting aside whether or not that's a good thing).

One government is optimistic in this case. This is the EU talking, they'll gladly deliberate for months before any action is taken.

Furthermore, wouldn't this worsen an authoritarian or Trump-like scenario? We are expecting the government to moderate itself? Wouldn't a yes man/crony just sit in that seat ala William Barr and let the tweets go unchecked?

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#53

Post by majormajor » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #33

yummybear wrote: post #2

You really have to walk a censorship tight rope as a social media. You need to remove content that targets minorities and hate speech or face consequence, but only when it applies to the bottom 99% of society - apparently. The fact that the EU seems to want control over who gets to express themselves freely, is even more troubling than the inconsistent rules applies by the media themselves.

I've run a niche "social media" site for 12 years. There is no tightrope. The problem is that these large platforms want the benefits of scale, without being responsible for dealing with the problems of scale. It is imminently possible to build a thriving social media site that enforces standards of behavior. HN is a good example. However, it is work to actually enforce those standards. It takes leadership. Facebook,…

What would happen if Trump was on your site and constantly violated your standards of behaviour?

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#54

Post by didibus » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #4

I'm left wing but I despair for the future of the left. If the right had control of the tech companies it would have removed left content years ago and never blinked or even thought twice about it. The right never agonises over its own strong decisions, whereas the left, if it takes strong action , wrings its hands in agony about whether it has done the correct thing or not. That's why in the long run the right will…

You probably should say the "center" instead of the "left". Or maybe the "liberals". That's because the "left" historically has been as assertive as the "right" if you look at the extreme communist parties VS fascists/feudal parties.

I do think you have a point though, but you can't be liberal and authoritarian at the same time. So to push for liberal ideas and laws/rights, while also pushing to enforce it through anti-liberal means is pretty contradictory, and so it makes sense most liberals don't do so.

Also remember that liberal societies are the exception in human history, not the rule. Almost never have people rallied around the idea that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property and governments must not violate these rights.

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#55

Post by majormajor » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

dimroc wrote: post #52

majormajor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have n companies each applying their own subjective judgement over their own networks, or you have 1 government applying its own subjective judgement over all networks in that country. It's highly unlikely that the latter is more friendly to fringe or extremist views (setting aside whether or not that's a good thing).

One government is optimistic in this case. This is the EU talking, they'll gladly deliberate for months before any action is taken. Furthermore, wouldn't this worsen an authoritarian or Trump-like scenario? We are expecting the government to moderate itself? Wouldn't a yes man/crony just sit in that seat ala William Barr and let the tweets go unchecked?

Yeah, in the US, depending on which dystopia you think we're living in, it's very easy to envision either some Trump crony making sure nobody was disrespectful to him on Twitter OR some "deep state" agents starting to censor him way back in 2015 to try to prevent his getting elected in the first place.

I've yet to see a realistic proposal for what should replace Twitter's ability to choose its own TOS that isn't either a worse situation like that, or isn't some "only illegal stuff should be taken down" that probably results in far fewer open places on the internet accepting user-generated content for broadcast in the first place.

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#56

Post by loxs » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #41

loxs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Corporations have the right to censor whatever they want. But that's not moral (what they are doing currently). We should abandon these instances and find better ways to communicate - less centralized. - Store owners (and property owners in general) should be able to defend their property with firepower (or pay for such services) freely, without fear of repercussions. This stands both against BLM and MAGA. Of cours…

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I mostly agree - we can criticize corporations for their current actions from a moral perspective but not a legal one. To your second point - isn't the U.S. one of the only developed countries where you kind of can do this? I regularly see armed guards in front of private businesses, from Walmarts in the middle of nowhere to dispensaries in downtown SF. (FWIW I think calling SV…

Yeah, the US is better than many countries with regards of laws that allow you to stand your ground. That's exactly the reason that made me consider moving there. Not any more :-(.

I might have overplayed the 'commie' part a little. Still what I see there is quite in line with the practices of the former Eastern Block - I am from Bulgaria and I had "the chance" to live in a communist society until I was 8. The witch hunting is copied basically 1:1, and also the "witch profile" is surprisingly the same - evil capitalist "pigs", presumably white and presumably racist/nazi.

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#57

Post by yuliyp » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

africanboy wrote: post #27

j_walter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm...yes https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/facebook-inc/summary?all=20... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?id=D... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/summary?all=2020...

the Democratic party of the USA is center-leftish at best. For example they don't openly support - unions - universal free healthcare - strong workers' guaranteed rights (paid holidays, paid sick leave, paternity/maternity, limited working hours - e.g. max 40 hours per week -, overtime pay etc. etc.)

> they don't openly support

What's the definition of openly support you're using? Going off the party platform, it seems like they do:

> unions

> strong workers' guaranteed rights

https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/building... see the section "Protecting Workers and Families and Creating Millions of Jobs Across America"

> universal free healthcare

Except for the word "free", https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/achievin... makes their position on universal health care clear. Exactly how the cost gets shared by society is something that's a bit more nuanced (there's no way for it to be completely free; the question is how much is funded by taxes vs other fees).

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#58

Post by jlokier » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #46

I fully agree that these decisions have to be done by democratic institutions. They also have to be very liberal and very careful and erring on the side of not taking things down. My biggest problem however is the EU commission acting like they are a democratic institution. The president of the commission didn't even run in the election. We were promised that the candidate of the winning party would become president…

I think your comment gives the misleading impression Von der Leyen was not elected at all. So for readers who may not know the system:

Von der Leyen's appointment, and the EU Commission, were both subject to approval votes by MEPs of the EU Parliament, who are elected by EU citizens in all member countries using proportional representation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_der_Leyen_Commission#Elect...

> On 16 July 2019, European Parliament took a vote on the proposal by the European Council and elected Von der Leyen with 383 votes (374 votes needed).

> The Commission was approved by European Parliament on 27 November 2019, receiving 461 votes, with 157 against and 89 abstentions.

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#59

Post by loxs » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #42

ndiscussion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a libertarian until I realized my ideals would lead to my own party's censorship and demise. This meme sums it up: https://imgur.com/a/DZJoWKa

Yes this is mostly my feeling to. A central part of libertarianism seems to be insisting the governments give up power, which is all well and good until someone worse steps in to pick it up.

Until you realize that big government is what keeps monopolies in place and what forces them to act politically.

Re: EU Commission: ‘No longer acceptable’ for platforms to take key decisions alone

#60

Post by syntaxing » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

I know this is a heated topic but I really don’t understand what the other options are. Having businesses dictate who they want to serve seems like censorship but having the government dictate it seems way worse. I’m not sure how to decouple or balance the freedom of will as a business, freedom of will as a person and the societal mandate of the majority (which is how democracy works? It’s always about the majority values).