(2020)
Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
51–60 of 97 posts
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#52Earlier 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.
Freedom of speech is foundational for other rights. Take that away, and the other rights might as well not exist.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Let's do the smoking thing, since you picked that one. 1) We eventually found out the truth. Nobody guarantees that the wins will be fast. 2) You have to be kidding yourself if you think that the suppressed speech wouldn't be that of the people saying "Smoking is dangerous." The tobacco companies can and did hire experts, manufacture the results they wanted, and so forth. They, the establishment, the moneyed, would b…
But If say country X had a law like "if you knowingly present fake shit in an ad all in the know will pay with their life" this shit could not happen, we would need to make the people involved in fabricating false stuff pay proportional with the damage.
You pay for someone to fake some scientific paper - you pay , you Photoshop some images to mislead people you pay proportional with the damage caused plus some 10% of your wealth, you present yourself with fake identity or credentials you pay...
Companies continue to produce this fake ads, fake press releases, fake stats because they are never forced to pay a big fine.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves creating however it suited their purposes or political alignments previously. That anyone who even basically believes in the importance of free speech and individual fre…
> God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform.
At least you're being honest about what that freedom can actually mean in practice, rather than telling some fairy tale about the marketplace of ideas or something.
> Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves creating however it suited their purposes or political alignments previously.
Even if there's truth to that, it has a big, big advantage: it maintains some consensus around something.
> No, the danger is explicitly much more so in the idea that some supposedly proper consensus of ideas should be enforced so that nobody does something silly, like voting for the "wrong" candidate, or viewing certain medical mandates in the "incorrect" way.
That's an over-the-top straw man. I don't think anyone serious wants something like that, certainly not me.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#55One 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.
So prisoners having no internet access makes a society a mere tyranny?
I think you should rethink your criteria.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 re…
A few examples (though the reporting could be clearer):
https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/12/second-time-week-german-...
https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-slammed-for-censoring-german-...
Fortunately for the defenders of that law, the notoriously opaque censorship of social media companies helps hide what is going on, so few examples surface. I could not find anything as convenient as a list of (wrongfully or not) censored content by this law. Often the censored party is not even told that the NetzDG was involved.
Silence on this issue should not be confused with a lack of problems, however. For example, in Germany:
“it can be a criminal offense in Germany to call another person a ‘jerk,’ or even to use the informal du, or ‘thou,’” to communicate a lack of respect for the recipient. German courts have penalized other similar “derogatory epithets,” including “asshole,” “bastard,” “old goat, “fathead,” “dope,” and “whore.” [..] German courts heard 26,757 criminal insult cases that year, leading to 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines. - https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/germanys-netzdg-and...
To me this looks like a severe overreach of speech restrictions, even if one doesn't idealize the US 1st amendment, and accepts the need for some government censorship. Yet I've only learned about it just now, from a very obscure post.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#57Censorship 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.
>Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism No, nothing to do with capitalism, but elitism, that happens in capitalism communism and even tribalism. >fedz for liberating science Again no, liberating the free (as in free beer) access to papers. If you want to liberate science you need to pay the scientist for what they want to study (and not you)
Elitism a crucial foundation to Capitalism.
X Is a crucial foundation to Y is a transitive relationship.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#58One 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…
Without freedom of speech you don't have democracy, or true freedom of association, etc. It's a critical foundational right on which other human rights are founded.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves creating however it suited their purposes or political alignments previously. That anyone who even basically believes in the importance of free speech and individual fre…
> God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. At least you're being honest about what that freedom can actually mean in practice, rather than telling some fairy tale about the marketplace of ideas or something. > Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves…
>At least you're being honest about what that freedom can actually mean in practice, rather than telling some fairy tale about the marketplace of ideas or something.
Yes, freedom of expression taken seriously does indeed mean that people, regular oridnary people in all their varieties then have the freedom to peacefully express ideas which might sometimes be abysmally stupid, ignorant or even malevolent. As long as they can't extend these ideas into coercive force against others, this should be fine. The fairytale idea is that by "fighting misinformation" large gatekeepers can somehow forcibly rid the world of bad ideas or make it a better place. These same gatekeepers of media are themselves some of the biggest misinformation culprits out there, and have been for a very long time.
Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> God forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. At least you're being honest about what that freedom can actually mean in practice, rather than telling some fairy tale about the marketplace of ideas or something. > Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves…
>At least you're being honest about what that freedom can actually mean in practice, rather than telling some fairy tale about the marketplace of ideas or something. Yes, freedom of expression taken seriously does indeed mean that people, regular oridnary people in all their varieties then have the freedom to peacefully express ideas which might sometimes be abysmally stupid, ignorant or even malevolent. As long as t…
> ...peacefully express ideas which might sometimes be abysmally stupid, ignorant or even malevolent. As long as they can't extend these ideas into coercive force against others, this should be fine.
That's also a fairy tale.
> The fairytale idea is that by "fighting misinformation" large gatekeepers can somehow forcibly rid the world of bad ideas or make it a better place.
I don't think anyone thinks they can actually "forcibly rid the world of bad ideas," the best case is that they don't spread as quickly or as widely.
> These same gatekeepers of media are themselves some of the biggest misinformation culprits out there, and have been for a very long time.
And QAnon/Pizzagate, "Stop the Steal," and Ivermectin are the answer? The only truth there is a view into the id, otherwise it's only as correct as stopped clock.
Enjoy the crack-up and decline, I guess?