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

euractiv.com

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

#141

Post by tantalor »

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #101
tantalor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Legal and useful" are but two criteria Apple uses to approve or refuse apps. They also care about safety, performance, and design. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

They also care about squashing competition which prevents many apps like real web browsers, game streaming and alternative stores which can not pay the 30% fee. IMO its fair for the app store to remove whatever it wants but there needs to be an escape hatch where apps blocked by apple can be manually installed. Since the API apps have access to is secure, this should not be a significant issue. Apps like Parlor may b…

They have that, it's the web browser.

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

#142

Post by pyrale »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #72
jlokier wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

She was not elected by the voters. The voters were told that the winning party's candidate would be the commission president. Now von der Leyen is. She did not run in the election. This is a lot more similar to the electoral college making the losing candidate president than people want to admit. We elected the parliament under the impression that the MEPs would then elect the candidate of the party that got the most…

> This is a lot more similar to the electoral college making the losing candidate president than people want to admit.

Not really comparable, as Von der Leyen and Weber, the denied spitzenkandidat were from the same party. The fact is that the spitzenkandidat system is not an official rule, it's just an informal agreement that the previous legislature managed to strongarm the european council into accepting for Juncker.

I agree with you that some kind of political reform to have a more representation union would be welcome, but your interpretation of this event is a bit overblown.

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

#144

Post by belorn »

myrryr wrote: post #129
dan-robertson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there is a middle ground: let businesses operate how they please so long as they follow the law, and have the law require them to act in a way which is considered reasonable. If you’re a business trying to sell something then you are required to be somewhat honest in how you represent the thing, especially if you are selling some kind of food. If you’re a bank then you are required to be fair to a certain exte…

> Surely there is a middle ground: let businesses operate how they please so long as they follow the law, and have the law require them to act in a way which is considered reasonable. A lot of people would argue that is the situation we have now. The government wasn't against twitter because they were looking like they were going to remove right wing stuff, they were angry because they were being fact checked.

If we are going to attribute emotions to governments, my bet would be fear. Political leaders and political parties rely on multiple international companies to handle daily operations, and the risk that they could be cut out at any time is being demonstrated.

People can try to convince politicians that there is no risk and that only obvious bad people will be targeted.

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

#145

Post by kolinko »

whimsicalism wrote: post #139
mc32 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one big issue is the federal trade commission has been too shy about fighting trusts or anti-competitive behavior because they believe(d) tech is different. They allowed FB and Google to gobble up competitors unimpeded. Amazon is another. Their integration and breadth are a threat to businesses and consumers alike but we’re too busy enjoying next day deliveries to care. You ask for competition but these behem…

Even with anti-trust, I think the EU comission is probably correct that social media platforms may need more direct lines of contact with platform regulators in exchange for being larger players, just because of the intrinsic network effects that exist in the space.

Your preassumption seems to be that centralised networks are somehow unavoidable in tech. I would argue otherwise - both Facebook and Twitter could exist decentralised - it would just be less profitable for the companies.

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

#146

Post by lmilcin »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #121
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can square that circle. Let's say it's 2024, and the dominant social media platform is called Witted[1]. They have their terms of service, but the terms of service have some ambiguity. In fact, Witted deliberately left some ambiguity, for two reasons. First, you can't absolutely codify human interactions - human communication is too complex. Second, Witted wanted the ambiguity, because it gave Witte…

Thank you for clarifying the nuances at play. You've given me food for thought. I think it's easy to say the rules are vague, a statement I agree with. In my understanding of how the big social media players have finally applied their rules against Trump it was for inciting violence and spreading disinformation. I'd suggest the latter is pretty clear-cut, with the former being somewhat more challenging. Trump's tacti…

I think normal people have enough trouble sifting through the noise.

Having the noise additionally filtered by corporations with potentially strong, unclear interests, being able to arbitrarily decide who can or cannot use their platform is going to make the process of getting at truth impossible.

You are not able to tell what happened because you were not there. Most things that are discussed are things that you did not witness or have no expertise in.

To be able have some chance at telling the truth you need to listen to arguments presented by BOTH sides and decide which arguments you think are logically stronger. That ability to tell truth is compromised when you are not allowed to listen to one of the sides.

I personally believe people should be allowed to say whatever they want and be responsible for what they say according to the law. There are existing laws that can be used to determine whether something is incitement, libel, fraud, etc. and those should be used to prosecute in a court of law.

This rather than preemptively remove the possibility of committing a crime by deciding to block an account by a private company.

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

#147

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

belorn wrote: post #138
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).

Many authors have speculated on how modern society would work if rather than 1 legal system you would have large companies that each have their own laws and enforcement. Usually the world is made into a dystopia. I think a 1 government is in general more friendly to fringe or extremist people. Not that the laws are better, but government legal system must in its core treat everyone similar where same act done by two…

I don't think we can enter science fiction stories into the evidence for this debate. They are fiction.

The events in these books don't even necessarily reflect the beliefs of the authors. An author might simply write what would be entertaining to read, or what has been written in the genre before. Even if these fictional megacorps do reflect the widely held belief of genre authors, that doesn't serve as any kind of factual basis on which to base public policy.

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

#148

Post by op00to »

mc32 wrote: post #123

I think the EU understands the precedent this sets. The tech giants have established that if they disagree with something (using their preferred value system), they feel they have the right to take action. Let’s say the an EU minister proposes something that’s antithetical to US principles but is lawful in the EU, now tech giants feel emboldened with the right to take action _unilaterally_ without the right to an app…

If the EU doesn’t like it, they should make their own platform. This isn’t a public park, we are talking about privately owned property.

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

#149

Post by s17n »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #65
lmilcin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, democratic countries are supposed to be governed by representatives elected by people, not by corporate boards. Ability to selectively enable or disable people from being able to access voters is tantamount to having a huge influence on election results. While in the past you could avoid using social media, today this is THE way to reach most of voters. Most people no longer pay substantial attention t…

You discuss governance, access to voters, wielding of power and free speech but not the meat of my comment: a customer not playing by the rules they agreed to, and the implication that they should be allowed to break the rules they agreed to simply because they're important. An organisation must now allow people to flaunt their rules, helpless to remove them despite the abuse that they perpetrate?

The point is that writing the rules should to a large extent be taken out of these organization's hands, because they control vital infrastructure. The new, regulated rules will probably look pretty similar to the existing ToS except without the "the company is allowed to do whatever it wants" clauses, and with actual appeals processes.

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

#150

Post by imnotlost »

DanBC wrote: post #130
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,…

Because we have articles 10 and 11 of the Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union, and the EU does protect these rights. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12... --- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... Article 10 Freedom of thought, conscience and religion 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedo…

Does that mean, in the EU context, that the EU (whatever EU organization that may be), or the individual EU nations can compel private companies to publish certain speech?

Are all EU citizens entitled to publish on Twitter for instance, and can the EU force Twitter to publish?

Is that the EU version of freedom of expression and information?

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