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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

#31

Post by cato_the_elder »

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…

Those indices are ridiculous, and at best merely reflective of the values of the people who compose them.

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

#32

Post by ivan_gammel »

swayvil wrote: post #29
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.

>What makes it a democracy is that all members of society participate in that conversation. Freely. Anything less is mere tyranny.

I guess the keyword there is „that“, right? Freedom of speech should not be restricted if it helps to support the democracy, but OTHER conversations are different matter. As I said, freedom of speech is not absolute and is checked by other freedoms and rights.

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

#33

Post by eigenrick »

soco wrote: post #23
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…

Twitter is definitely a bad place for nuanced discussion. I disagree about the 'and al', though.

Other platforms are much better for for long form communication and open discussion, e.g. Reddit, Zulip, etc.

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

#34

Post by Y-bar »

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.

This author (Jacob Mchangama) is an absolutist with regards to free speech and subscribes fully to the idea that in the marketplace of ideas the truth and correct result will always come out on top. As an example, just recently he argued in another article titled "The Problem With Banning Russian Disinformation FREE SPEECH HELPS UKRAINE" that preventing state-sponsored propaganda from reaching its target audience is a bad idea.

It's a bit unfortunate and almost as if he has never read about the constant barrage of pro-smoking propaganda, or anti-climate change propaganda, or anti-rohingya propaganda in Myanmar ended. Propaganda succeeds because of the resources being poured into it. He also seems to not accept the slow and continued polarization these efforts of propaganda have on society which in turn hurt democracy and therefore threaten free speech even more in the long run.

Absolutist free-for-all no-holds-barred free speech could work fine where everyone can speak with their own voice without being drowned in a cacophony of a thousand bot accounts repeating arguments made in bad faith meant to poison the discourse.

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

#35

Post by DocTomoe »

xbar wrote: post #26
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 rem…

> "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 would like to remind everyone that during the Nuremberg trials, leading Nazis cited then-current US policy as an inspiration for both their eugenics and race separation laws.

Bad actors will use your bad laws to justify their greatest atrocities. And your bad laws will look horrific once the storm has passed. Thus be careful what you consider 'good policy'.

Considering the impact lawmakers have, I am all for considerable punishments (as in: several years of jail time) for everyone who voted yes on a law that was later struck down by the respective country's Supreme Court equivalent.

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

#36

Post by swayvil »

tablespoon wrote: post #27
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.

If we have a problem with "misinformation" (what a delicious figure of newspeak!) then provide us with the tools for managing that. We do not desire your kindly administration.

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

#37

Post by DocTomoe »

V__ wrote: post #9

> Even if there are good reasons to counter online hate speech and disinformation, the approach prototyped by the German NetzDG law will exacerbate the decade-long global free speech recession which is part and parcel of the wider democratic recession.” > “Once democracies cede the high ground and renege on their commitment to free speech by privatizing and outsourcing regulation, authoritarians will rush in creating…

The problem is that the platform has to decide if a given piece of content actually is illegal under German law, something courts may take years to decide, and forces them to make that decision in minutes. On the other hand, it does not provide an instrument to punish malicious use of that instrument.

In that situation, platforms will - and do - just block by default.

We have independent courts for a reason. Privatizing legal decisions in international corporation hands is not a good idea.

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

#38

Post by swayvil »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #32
swayvil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>What makes it a democracy is that all members of society participate in that conversation. Freely. Anything less is mere tyranny. I guess the keyword there is „that“, right? Freedom of speech should not be restricted if it helps to support the democracy, but OTHER conversations are different matter. As I said, freedom of speech is not absolute and is checked by other freedoms and rights.

To suggest that any conversation is more deserving of a guarantee of sincerity than any other seems bad.

Should we assume that there is an invisible man between us, transforming our words? That seems really bad to me.

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

#39

Post by ivan_gammel »

car_analogy wrote: post #30
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…

Do you have a precedent where this resulted in unlawful restriction of speech or it’s just a generic speculation?

I had a look once at the form in one of Meta services to report hate speech: it does require some effort to fill the form and it does require the issue to be reported to police. If you don’t want to report the case to authorities, the platform will not take down the content. I do not see how this could result in a real censorship in a state with the rule of law.

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

#40

Post by Y-bar »

swayvil wrote: post #29
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.

> What makes it a democracy is that all members of society participate in that conversation. Freely. Anything less is mere tyranny.

Are bot accounts paid for by an external part (e.g. foreign government agency or multinational company), which 24/7 post inflammatory (not illegal) and bad-faith augments (not illegal) in a conversation part of that society?

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