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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

#151

Post by NoOneNew »

zmmmmm wrote: post #126

It's hard to overlook that the political class is suddenly up in arms about this primarily because they suddenly perceive themselves as being under threat from it. Ordinary individuals and businesses have had to deal with the hegemony of the platforms for a long time and it hasn't really mattered until now. I fear the outcome of this is going to be that it translates into massive regulatory overreach and splitting up…

Agreed that regulatory overreach is on the horizon. Hell, pretty sure it's going to happen (or at least be full steam ahead) in the first 100 days of Biden's presidency. While I don't agree with sweeping regulatory practices and would like to see a thoughtful plan of trying to increase competition instead, I can't blame the political class' position. I find it even fascinating how far reaching this event has been and how anti-Trump politicians and organizations NOW finally see how dangerous Silicon Valley has become. In essence, Twitter went to war with the Office of President of the USA (not just Trump, but the position of USA president itself), right or wrong (I'm ignoring the moral/ethics going on for the sake of this debate, though, Trump did overstep his bounds... putting it mildly). This fact shows they can and will do it again and to lesser politicians.

"We took Trump's voice away, we can do it to you too. We pushed anti-Trump rhetoric and silenced pro-Trump rhetoric... do I need to replace Trump with your name if you don't do as we say?" If there is no fallout for Twitter, how far can they push it? What if Biden decides to do some policies that Twitter isn't in favor of? Does he get shut out too? The EU can see very well that the same thing can happen to them easily as well. Shit, even the ACLU threw an objection and concern over this and they hate Trump just as must as any other democrat. The big problem is, and you have to be fair, Trump put up a hell of a PR fight the past 4 years and did rather well up until the very end. Most politicians have crumbled from less pressure than what he experienced. Not many others will be able to hold out as long as he did. This extra weapon of social media and Silicon Valley taking down the public voice of politicians is really fucking dangerous, no matter the political spectrum. They're a handful of billionaires or near to billionaires who have direct control of what a large portion of the human population sees as fact and truth... and they have no one to oversight them.

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

#152

Post by mc32 »

op00to wrote: post #148
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.

Sure but the EU, like China, like Russia are different jurisdictions with different laws. Their countries, their rules.

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

#153

Post by belorn »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #71
engineer_22 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, so, basically, and I can't believe I have to spell this out, the EU Commission is saying "we need new laws".

Please, continue to spell this out. Laws that forbid an organisation from applying its rules because that organisation is popular? Laws that compel an organisation to allow users to perpetrate abuse if they're important in one country? Where does liability now fall when say, incitement to violence end up with someone losing an eye, a life? Don't misunderstand me - I absolutely think that those who allowed Trump to di…

> Where does liability now fall when say, incitement to violence end up with someone losing an eye, a life?

Courts? The US is a bit weird in that one person is excluded for the normal legal system of judges, and instead replaces it with the congress, but regardless that is where the crime of "incitement to violence" and "conspiracy" is settled.

As with all other conspiracies, we also have the persons who committed the act of violence. If they are not dead they will hopefully end up in court and have their case brought up by the legal system.

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

#154

Post by wolco5 »

op00to wrote: post #148
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.

The point is to regulate social media for European citizens. They set the rules. If facebook or twitter cannot follow them they will pull out of that market allowing space for a local platform to take over.

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

#155

Post by golemiprague »

jti107 wrote: post #118

Twitter is a private company enforcing their terms of service. They are not required to give you a platform to express your speech.

That's exactly what they are trying to change, the rules that applied to twitter like private companies and rightfully so. Nobody claims that what they did was illegal, but they want to make it illegal, the same way discrimination based on race became illegal after years it was legal.

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

#156

Post by username90 »

shimonabi wrote: post #120

The EU would be the first to ban all discussion by its critics. I'm paying taxes so that they can daily serve me Youtube and Twitter ads of how wonderful the EU is. I can't imagine such propaganda in the USA.

> I can't imagine such propaganda in the USA.

In USA they still make most kids recite this every day in school:

> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

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

#157

Post by username90 »

kolinko wrote: post #145
whimsicalism wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It being less profitable effectively makes it an impossibility without regulations.

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

#158

Post by wolco5 »

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…

How are Germany's Nazi laws permitted under this framework?

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

#159

Post by belorn »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #147
belorn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is true, through we do have historical evidence during the colonial times where large shipping companies were large enough to rival nations and had their own laws and enforcement. Later we also have large mining companies with their own towns, laws and enforcement.

As far as I remember my history, companies that are larger than nation with their own laws and enforcement have not much nice things written about them.

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

#160

Post by dcposch »

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…

That is certainly what they're worried about.

Here's a less flattering angle on the same worry. Europe is caught pants-down. They are realizing how weak they are in tech and scrambling to fix it. The facts:

- None of the 20 most valuable companies in the world are European. Most are US or China based, and many are tech.

- A tiny number of successful startups are European. I think their biggest in the last 20 years is Spotify...

- This is a sad showing for a continent with a $20t GDP and 500 million citizens (EU + UK).

- Software is eating the world. This was a lukewarm take when pmarca wrote that famous essay a decade ago, now you could almost restate it past-tense.

Europe is simply not participating in that process meaningfully. Sure, there have been vast shifts in many aspects of life--Europeans spend just as much time on their iPhones as we do, on Twitter, no FB, on Insta, on Gmail. But they neither invented nor control the development of any of those things.

So yes, European world leaders are belatedly realizing that a guy in SF with a footlong beard could ban them from Twitter at will. But that is the tip of the iceberg. They have developed deep dependency on US tech in all kinds of ways. If GSuite or O365 went down tomorrow, how many EU governments would be able to get any work done?

This situation mirrors the (more extensively discussed) military situation. Europe has complacently decided that the US can manage it for them, and are now experiencing a rude awakening.

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