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Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

wikimedia.brussels

71–80 of 82 posts

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can go to prison for saying things.

To add to this comment which is unfairly downvoted, some example of laws in Europe that I collected over the years: France's "hate speech" laws, which prohibit speech that is deemed to be insulting, threatening, or discriminatory on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France ) Germany's NetzDG law, which requires social…

[deleted]

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#72

I am seeing a lot of 0 karma and less than a day old accounts posting here. I think we may be getting botted.

EU is heavily targeted every time is mentioned here. Don't know why, but it's something that is happening and I also noticed that the same arguments are used Evey time - EU is not free - EU is descending into authoritarianism - You can be jailed for saying things - EU politicians are puppets working for some gray entities that want to cancel the right to privacy for (reason unknown) and so on

I am not sure whether it is about the EU per se. It seems to trace more to the nowadays highly toxic questions of free speech and alleged censorship. Although much of values and rights are shared across all Western countries, the freedom of expression has always diverged between the US and the rest. Of course, they have a right to point out that this freedom is (slightly) restricted in most European countries. Personally, I've never quite understood the obsession of many Americans on this particular right, given that there are so many other important rights and liberties in the Constitution.

EDIT: While someone with a background in comparative legal analysis would be needed for a verification, I could also posit a hypothesis that both the EU's Charter and the national constitutions of most European countries grant more rights than the Constitution. That said, more is not always better from a constitutional law perspective, as the reform proposals in Chile clearly have showed.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ref: https://news.yahoo.com/french-woman-faces-trial-insulting-16...

that's the right of every people here in EU. If you offend me (online or offline) I can sue you and you could face trial. It's called defamation. Nothing to see here. EDIT: insult here must be read using its most informal meaning (offense sufers the same destiny), not the legal one. We have different wording for the two circumstances "ingiuria" for the legal term which has been depenalisedd years ago and "insulto" to…

Everything you wrote is wrong.

"Offending" someone is meaningless. Anyone can claim they were offended by anything, but that doesn't automatically make the thing illegal or injurious.

Insults != defamation

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#74
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this comment which is unfairly downvoted, some example of laws in Europe that I collected over the years: France's "hate speech" laws, which prohibit speech that is deemed to be insulting, threatening, or discriminatory on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France ) Germany's NetzDG law, which requires social…

yes in the US you can wave Nazi flags, but if a police officer stops you for allegedly speeding and you remove your hands from the wheel or look them in the eyes, they can and will shoot you. They shoot to kill over a thousand times a year. If any of those EU countries had such stats, they would shutdown the police entirely for abuse of violence. Fortunately, we are civilized and it never happened. Anyway you are wro…

Updated the data with sources. Marked Lodo Alfano as repealed. The rest of your comment is off-topic.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#75
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another account created 3 hours ago. Very interesting

It’s like telling someone “your opinion doesn’t matter cause you’re ugly/old/young”. A post is either relevant or not, regardless of when account was created.

On this thread there are multiple accounts created in the last few hours

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#76
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like telling someone “your opinion doesn’t matter cause you’re ugly/old/young”. A post is either relevant or not, regardless of when account was created.

On this thread there are multiple accounts created in the last few hours

I don't see the relevance of the account age as long as the person is engaging in a healthy discussion.

However, I have noticed that in other comment sections, such as those on „Der Spiegel“, some people attempt to dismiss the opinions of users with recently created accounts as well.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is heavily targeted every time is mentioned here. Don't know why, but it's something that is happening and I also noticed that the same arguments are used Evey time - EU is not free - EU is descending into authoritarianism - You can be jailed for saying things - EU politicians are puppets working for some gray entities that want to cancel the right to privacy for (reason unknown) and so on

I am not sure whether it is about the EU per se. It seems to trace more to the nowadays highly toxic questions of free speech and alleged censorship. Although much of values and rights are shared across all Western countries, the freedom of expression has always diverged between the US and the rest. Of course, they have a right to point out that this freedom is (slightly) restricted in most European countries. Person…

Seeing a lot of the replies here focus on the EU's prevalence of anti-hate speech laws, there's clearly one genus of the audience that sees the EU as being "restrictive" on their kind of free speech. Which is not surprising in the least.

As an American, I see nothing wrong with the EU's measures against hate speech. In the past decade, I've seen exactly where no limits on it leads to.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#78
IMO it's naive to think there is going to be some large public space where reasonable and thoughtful free speech occurs. In my experience running public forums on an e-commerce site, you can have this for small groups of people, but as it gets larger, there are inevitably a few troublemakers that will turn it into a cesspool. You can't moderate them without violating their "free speech" rights, and once they are there, the reasonable, thoughtful people will leave.

I think it's a much better idea for individuals to have their own blogs, with comments enabled if they choose, and let them moderate these as they see fit.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure whether it is about the EU per se. It seems to trace more to the nowadays highly toxic questions of free speech and alleged censorship. Although much of values and rights are shared across all Western countries, the freedom of expression has always diverged between the US and the rest. Of course, they have a right to point out that this freedom is (slightly) restricted in most European countries. Person…

Seeing a lot of the replies here focus on the EU's prevalence of anti-hate speech laws, there's clearly one genus of the audience that sees the EU as being "restrictive" on their kind of free speech. Which is not surprising in the least. As an American, I see nothing wrong with the EU's measures against hate speech. In the past decade, I've seen exactly where no limits on it leads to.

My rule of thumb for evaluating laws: what could the most malicious person you can imagine do with that power?

'Hate speech' is a highly subjective category, and most proposals for hate speech laws that I've seen could be abused terribly.

Re: Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well go on and insult an EU country leader here. :)

Are you.....under the impression that French laws apply in all of EU or something?

It’s actually how the EU mostly work. Country members do still most of law and merge upstream. GDPR for example originated from the CNIL which is French. And contain things that restrict freedom of speech at an EU level. [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-alphabet-privacy-idCNL5N2...

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