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Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

theguardian.com

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#31
post #15

This is absurd. Twitter etc are private companies and can do what they want wrt their user's accounts. If they don't want their far-right politicians getting censored, then they can ban those platforms from the country completely. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

No, this is absurd. So you would let all media companies censor someone "because they don't like him"?

The only reason you trust private media companies is because they are supposed to be as neutral as possible, not political. If not neutral, then perhaps society should start treating them for what they really are - private political machines.

Furthermore censorship is stupid. You might like it when it's Trump getting censored, but you wont be laughing once the censorship comes back and hits you. Free speech fuck yes.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#34

Ironic that this news from Poland comes a day after activists go on trial for replacing halos with rainbows in a picture in Poland: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9142821/Poland-tria...

Not only ironic, also hypocritical: they are proposing to make it illegal to censor views that don't break Polish laws, while replacing a halo with a rainbow in a photo of an icon does break Polish laws, because it "offends religious sentiment", so it could (and probably also should, if you ask them) be censored.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#35
> Censorship of free speech, which is the domain of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is now returning in the form of a new, commercial mechanism to combat those who think differently.

As terrible as PiS are for other reasons, Morawiecki has a point here, although I don't see he is standing by this point consistently when it comes to, e.g., those who "think differently" about sexuality.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#36

All I see lately is people conflating the right to free speech with the right to be heard . Free speech means that you can't be put in jail for something you say. That's it . But nobody has an entitlement to be amplified . That's not a right. Nobody has the right to unfettered access to someone else's platform. That's never, ever been the case. You never had the right to edit the front page of a newspaper that you do…

Interesting. In India a comedian was arrested (still is) for making a joke which he didn't crack. Some people wanted to make a joke of the system by a false complaint and guess what, the police is supporting a false claim instead of letting the accused go. So much for free speech. Literally the guy didnt say something and he is being arrested for that

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#37
post #22
post #15

This is absurd. Twitter etc are private companies and can do what they want wrt their user's accounts. If they don't want their far-right politicians getting censored, then they can ban those platforms from the country completely. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

of course, you can always create your own social platform, and then if some hosting company decides to ban you, you can always create your own, and have own internet as well right?

Time to go to Neocities? I know they're a company subject to the same laws of the countries in which they operate but it seems like a suggestion to go back to that (which I've seen Linux-y Youtubers suggest) but it's an old method of solution to a different problem Geocities was set up to solve.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people need to know the motivations - the current polish government basically won the election on spreading hoaxes on social media (Facebook) and heavily polarizing the population on LGBTI, migrant wave, abortion laws and other topics.

The LGBTI issue is heavily polarized in NL too : if you don't buy 100% into it, you are assumed to be a fascist.

But that's reality, which is why it's such a useful signal for employers and social media companies to use.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#39
post #15

This is absurd. Twitter etc are private companies and can do what they want wrt their user's accounts. If they don't want their far-right politicians getting censored, then they can ban those platforms from the country completely. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

This comment is beyond ridiculous. Private American corporations are not above law or democratically elected governments. This is not any different than GDPR or other regulations.

I think the difference is that unlike spoiled American "Bernie Sanders voter"-generation, Polish people still remember what it's like to live under a far-left censorship and simply do not want to experience that again.

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