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Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

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Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#21

Post by nness »

I was curious about the article's inclusion of Australia, so I looked into the reference. The similarities are the "intermediate liability" and method of calculating fines, which Australia introduces in the "Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act 2019"

Except, the Australian law has limits on the applicability of the amendment for research purposes, journalism, good faith, and matters of public interest.

But it does fall into similar traps. Its not possible to know whether the violent content was published by someone other than the perpetrator, i.e. a victim, public bystander, or journalist. The social media company doesn't even need to know the content exists for them to be liable as intermediary (which is an interesting contrast to the safe-harbour provisions of the DMCA).

It is a particularly broad amendment which will probably just result in the wholesale banning of anything approaching violent media. I can see why such a thing might hinder free expression and the press within Australia.

(At the same time, if it were to prevent footage the Christchurch mass shooting from being shared, I can see the upside.)

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#22

Post by [deleted] »

mminer237 wrote: post #7
bannedbybros wrote: post #2

Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism. Not just controlling the hegemonic narrative through media, etc. But also the founder of SciHub is stalked by the fedz for liberating science, etc. IP is censorship.

Patents are, like, the opposite of censorship. They're the government saying that if you want legal protection for your invention then you have to openly share exactly how you did it with the world. (Except for military patents.)

[deleted]

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#23

Post by soco »

eigenrick wrote: post #10

As much as I worry about online bullying (not quite legally hate speech, but obviously hate speech) and also misinformation (anti-vax, etc), I think that anything that squelches the ability to have open discussions on any topic is wrong. It seems that we've strongly overgeneralized any fake news to be anything that is antithetical to the idea du jour, whether there is any merit to the idea or not. This harms society…

However Twitter and al are not exactly a place to hold discussions, by definition. They facilitate (if not straight up favor) quick visceral reactions and whatever type of bullying will feel at ease in there. So I agree with you on the point of censorship being bad, but disagree on calling bullying "open discussions". Yes I'm aware that real life bullying is in some places tolerated just as well, and I fully disagree to that too - does that make me a censor? Or if I ask for violence on the streets, am I having an open discussion?

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#24

Post by sharperguy »

bannedbybros wrote: post #2

Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism. Not just controlling the hegemonic narrative through media, etc. But also the founder of SciHub is stalked by the fedz for liberating science, etc. IP is censorship.

An actual free market would do away with patent and copyright laws, since they violate property rights.

If I truly owned a computer, it would be my right to execute any pattern of bits that doesn't actively create a connection to the outside and cause chaos to other people's property, even if it goes against the wishes of the original person who defined that pattern of bits.

Likewise, if I built a factory with parts I have purchased, I could produce any widget I had the plans to, even if it happens to function similarly to plans specified in some public library of patents.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#25

Post by dleslie »

bannedbybros wrote: post #2

Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism. Not just controlling the hegemonic narrative through media, etc. But also the founder of SciHub is stalked by the fedz for liberating science, etc. IP is censorship.

Bold of you to be critical of capitalism around here; but I can't completely disagree with you.

IP rights exist as a result of state force; copyright and patents can't really exist without it. They are fundamentally reliant upon the state using its force to censure those who use intellectual property without authorization. And yes, before someone states as much: digitally enforced proof of ownership is just an automated, digital state.

But capitalism doesn't require intellectual property to operate, and so I wouldn't call censorship a crucial foundation of capitalism.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#26

Post by xbar »

simion314 wrote: post #15

What idiot believes that authoritarian governments were incapable of censorship until some democratic one decided to update their laws for misinformation /hate/defamation to also apply to social media / internet ? Bad faith article, I would use more competent authors to push my agenda.

No idiot, nor the author I suspect, believes that.

The author probably exaggerated the total risk to people living under authoritarian regimes. I think his inspiration from the article can be seen in this statement:

"Erdogan’s Turkey – one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists – is citing NetzDG as inspiration for its new draconian law on “The Regulation of Publications made in the Internet Environment”

I removed his conclusion. I will give you mine: NetzDG is a bad law and a poor model for lawmakers to follow.

It has not solved any problem ( "ICYMI: New Report on Germany's NetzDG Online Hate Speech Law Shows No Threat of Over-Blocking". Counter Extremism Project. Retrieved 11 January 2022. Echikson, William; Knodt, Olivia (2018). Germany's NetzDG: A key test for combatting online hate (PDF). Centre for European Policy Studies)

And it is chilling for free speech which I consider the greatest of public goods.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#27

Post by tablespoon »

swayvil wrote: post #17

We can't have the hoi polloi just freely talking to each other willy nilly.

> We can't have the hoi polloi just freely talking to each other willy nilly.

They can freely talk all they want, but it might have been a mistake to give them all frictionless broadcasting licenses. In those conditions, it seems like crowdsourced viral misinformation is quite competitive in the marketplace of ideas, perhaps even to the point of winning fair and square.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#28

Post by mdiesel »

orange_joe wrote: post #12
bannedbybros wrote: post #2

Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism. Not just controlling the hegemonic narrative through media, etc. But also the founder of SciHub is stalked by the fedz for liberating science, etc. IP is censorship.

I don’t believe the historic record shows this to be true. The liberal democracies (all capitalist) of the west have the least amount of censorship in human history. Communist regimes would(and continue) send people to camps, monarchs would behead those who offended them, and empires would crucify dissenters. The actual material conditions of our history don’t really show capitalism as being particularly dependent on…

Becoming rich in capitalism beyond what you can earn from your own labour often requires exploiting some imbalance in the system. That imbalance is very regularly something we find out about later and the general public considers unethical. Whether it's the sweatshops of the clothing industry, sitting on science like tobacco/oil, the predatory lending of the banks... Every industry does it and it relies on getting rich and getting out before people find out.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#29

Post by swayvil »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

Democracy is a conversation where we, as a society, craft policy.

What makes it a democracy is that all members of society participate in that conversation. Freely.

Anything less is mere tyranny.

But if we need a way to manage spam, lies and the other poisonous forms of conversation, then empower the individual to handle that. Because we do not trust you.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#30

Post by car_analogy »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

You are defending generic restrictions on speech, but the NetzDG makes very specific restrictions - such as prohibitive (up to €50 million) fines if something claimed to be illegal (by a mere complainant, not a court order) is not taken down within 7 days, and within 24 hours if it is "clearly illegal", resulting in severe chilling effects.

Try to defended those instead.

(Yes, no fine is levied if the content is not taken down, and turns out to not be illegal. What sane company will take such a risk?)

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