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

justitia-int.org

81–90 of 97 posts

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

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

This is not correct. Nobody takes it away. It is limited by other rights through the laws that explain when and how the rights should be balanced.

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

#82
post #61

> “The fact that 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” should send a clear warning signal to democracies that this model is a good faith effort gone bad. This just sounds like the author was easily fooled by Erdogan's narrative. The nazis cited british laws to…

Exactly! Putin does refer to US and European laws when signing off the oppressive laws. Interestingly, they often make some sense, but are abused by law enforcement in absence of independent courts. Context matters a lot!

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

#83

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…

> One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms

Yes, only those are dictators or wannabe dictators... In Democracy they are free to speak, also against Democracy, after they grab power no one are free anymore...

> today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated.

Really? Did you look for something more tangible than mass-consumption Bernaysian propaganda? Start with this old governmental (EU) report: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf go to the USA think tanks side like https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html and https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/R... and also far in the past https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/AERODYNAMIC%20%20%20VOL... who is actually violating what?

> Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic

Witch is another scandal, actually one per WHO pandemic declaration... Again I suggest some official governmental sources one from the last pandemic for instance: https://assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2010/20100126_Stateme...

Yes, Democratic Civil Rights are regularly violated and they are because that's mean profit for some until the people remember that in Democracy they rule and arise. Only they tend to remember that way too late, when arising it's not just a legal action or a protest but a civil war and they are so easy to influence that's they tend to be quickly steered/diverted.

That's the real issue: how can we have Democracies when we do not have Citizens but only subjects/people? How in the history Democracy happen?

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

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is foundational for other rights. Take that away, and the other rights might as well not exist.

This is not correct. Nobody takes it away. It is limited by other rights through the laws that explain when and how the rights should be balanced.

Talk of "balances between rights" always ends up in restrictions on liberty. Communitarianism sounds possibly workable until you start to realize that those making the laws you mention (if you're lucky to get them instead of vague guidelines, and then Katie bar the door) and those adjudicating the laws will only decide on the side of whatever benefits them and their cronies. That's taking away freedom of speech, that's taking away all sorts of rights. Liberty is too precious to leave it to politicians and bureaucrats.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Who selects the censor? You might be ok with making speech restrictions.. but are you ok with a hardline opposition candidate doing the same? 2. Governments change Even a government that starts using a power - say restricting access to bank accounts - for something good like stopping actual terrorism or money laundering can decide to start using it against political movements they don't care for. 3. Governments gr…

Governments exist to protect those, who cannot protect themselves. If you do not give the government power to balance execution of human rights by restricting some of them in reasonable ways, the government will fail to protect vulnerable minorities and eventually your democracy will be destroyed by those, who will exploit the power of media to promote their agenda and to attack people, who have different ancestry, b…

Or, you know, the government restricts human rights in "reasonable ways" that are not reasonable for a given minority. Historically it's largely been abuses of governmental power that resulted in atrocities.

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

#86
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments exist to protect those, who cannot protect themselves. If you do not give the government power to balance execution of human rights by restricting some of them in reasonable ways, the government will fail to protect vulnerable minorities and eventually your democracy will be destroyed by those, who will exploit the power of media to promote their agenda and to attack people, who have different ancestry, b…

Or, you know, the government restricts human rights in "reasonable ways" that are not reasonable for a given minority. Historically it's largely been abuses of governmental power that resulted in atrocities.

Historical lessons are important but it’s a very long stretch from atrocities of the past to this specific law in Germany — so long that I don’t really understand how is this related.

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

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most of this stuff comes out after all of the principals are retired and/or dead. This is true of government issues as well, take Tuskeegee. Nobody went to jail for that. And you have to consider the "chain of presenting false information." Is Facebook gonna take the hit? "No, we were just doing what we were told. It isn't like we replicate scientific studies ourselves." How about Cindy, who sent the press release ab…

I was talking about intention and damages.

Say Bob is an idiot, he publishes a video with a flawed experiment where he proves the Earth is flat. There are no damages and Bob really believes Earth is flat so a judge will not find this idiot guilty.

Other case, Bill is is greedy bastard, he wants to sell some pills that make penises grow, Bill uses Phtotoshop to make a false medical diploma, Bill also creates fake studies to show his pills contain some magic shit, Bill also has some partners that know this is bullshit (and there is evidence in emails on how they plan to sucker people). IMO this is a clear case where an ad, or FB post, or blog post that uses fake studies, fake credentials, fake documents intentionally to cause others harm is something a judge can act on and no free speech should allow intentional fake advertising/promotion . But say Jimmy is an idiot and he also shared this because he is stupid, he will not be found guilty.

Say a political group also uses Photoshop, or fakes documents or uses a third party and asks them to create this fake evidence then they should also pay.

So my point is that not FB or YT does the police, but if we have laws and make the guilty pay then there should be less intentional publishing of fake shit. We are still left with idiots that believe false shit and the foreign actorsm paid trolls, maybe you can think on ways to catch this paid foreign trolls.

What FB and YT can do is to update theyr algorithm to not amplify this garbage, your free speech right is not giving you the right to be amplified and promoted, you have the right to share to your friends the latest conspiracy but Fb has the right not to push it to others with their shit algorithm.

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

#88
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reddit is bad for it largely because their moderators are ideologically mindkilled wackos. Threaded conversation as a format works nicely. But if moderation/admin is not sane, it won't work, and reddit admin is openly hostile to diverging views.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of this stuff comes out after all of the principals are retired and/or dead. This is true of government issues as well, take Tuskeegee. Nobody went to jail for that. And you have to consider the "chain of presenting false information." Is Facebook gonna take the hit? "No, we were just doing what we were told. It isn't like we replicate scientific studies ourselves." How about Cindy, who sent the press release ab…

I was talking about intention and damages. Say Bob is an idiot, he publishes a video with a flawed experiment where he proves the Earth is flat. There are no damages and Bob really believes Earth is flat so a judge will not find this idiot guilty. Other case, Bill is is greedy bastard, he wants to sell some pills that make penises grow, Bill uses Phtotoshop to make a false medical diploma, Bill also creates fake stud…

That doesn't really address, though, the tobacco studies. Carefully selection of candidates, some p-hacking, and so on. There are numerous ways to put your thumb on the scale. It isn't just Dr. Nick faking up a degree.

On top of it, you would need some kind of centralized registry, overseen by humans, of what is real and what is fake, for legal purposes. Once that Ministry of Truth exists, how do you get your MKUltra knowledge out? Remember, that was a nutty conspiracy theory for decades. The Ministry of Truth just crushes it because they are part of the government, and poof, you never find out.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is not foundational, it is one of the many rights that our society recognizes. In Universal Declaration of Human Rights it’s Article 19, coming after 18 other articles. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... In German constitution it is Article 5 and it is explicitly limited, considering the importance of the balance. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/German_Federa...

It is absolutely foundational.

You're talking about laws, but free speech isn't about laws, it's a notion of moral philosophy.

The sense in which it is foundational is as follows: you cannot have democracy without freedom of speech, because without it there is no free formation of opinions. You can't freedom of association or freedom of assembly without freedom of speech. These latter are interconnected, because an aspect of freedom of assembly is to assemble to hold, for example, political meetings.

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