A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
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Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#2This has come up again because a terrorist attacked the center of the capital Vienna.
The thing that makes this so incredibly ridiculous, is that the authorities actually knew the person tried to attend a IS training camp in Syria. They stopped him. So they knew very well about his intentions. Then a nearby state Slovakia told the Austrian authorities that this person was there and bout ammunition. The Austrian authorities did not further investigate and at the end he went to the center of Vienna and started shooting at people. The thing is, he also showed pictures on instragram or facebook with him holding guns.
Now the EU representatives demand more censorship and want to end End-To-End encryption for the state by implementing a general key so that they can see any kind of encrypted messages. The proposed law also demands from platforms to implement a sort of filter to remove any kind of uploads that might be IP or maybe even offensive.
I actually really like the ideology behind the EU. I think growing together and bringing the states together to strengthen the EU is great. But what is happening right now is pure authoritarian act that will hit anyone for the failure of authorities that would have had enough information and power from the beginning.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#3That's quite the problem we are in, as a global society. Obviously no one wants to give North Korea any say about what can and what cannot be published in the web. But between sovereign, free, democratic societies, different standards might exist. And if you want to do business with, say, the EU as, say, a US tech company you cannot expect US law and commons to apply everywhere. Then it becomes a race to the bottom indeed.
I don't know a solution to this problem. But I also do not want to live in a world, where free speech is effectively limited by Austrian defamation laws and US prudery for everyone.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#4The title should be rephrased to "A Court Ruling in Austria Could Censor Internet Platforms Worldwide".
The Ruling applies to Facebook as a legal person and has no direct effect on other publishers.
A contrary example: The Gutenberg Project was ruled illegal (due to a select number of books still in copyright) in Germany and is blocking German IPs ever since, until the issue is resolved.
Here the company has chosen another approach. Facebook could decide to withdraw from the Austrian market (which it won't). So it has to stick to Austrian court rulings or pay the sanctions.
The problem is not the application of a law. The problem is the current centralization of public speech on huge platforms on the internet.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#5I’m particularly worried about the requirement that posts with the “same essential meaning” be detected. Should this become precedent, must every startup now run Content ID systems... based on NLP and word embeddings? Can a company be held liable for not setting the threshold correctly and allowing even the slightest negative sentiment about a subject through? Can a politician sue to have all references to a certain cartoon bear be removed on the grounds that the references’ very existence is offensive? Can HN be sued for failing to detect my oblique reference above? This is a dangerously slippery slope.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#6So you are not concerned about massive Facebook censoring but is really worried about Austrian court decision which apparently takes 3 years per case?
To be clear I am not saying there is no problem, I am saying the Austrian court decision is really the least of it.
But honestly enabling any psycho to shout whatever for the whole world to hear is also a problem.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#7> The case started with an April 2016 Facebook post, in which a user shared an article featuring a photo of Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, then-chair of Austria’s Green Party, along with commentary labeling her a “lousy traitor,” “corrupt oaf,” and member of a “fascist party,” apparently in response to her immigration policies. This is core, protected speech in the United States. But it was deemed defamation under Austrian law.
This reminds me of the reporting done regarding Larry Pozner[0], a father of a Sandy Hook shooting victim that was subjected to constant accusations, doxxing attempts and death threats from conspiracy theorists for years and decided to take legal action.
Fundamentally, I believe that everyone has the right to not be subjected to death threats and systemic harassment from hate and conspiracy groups, especially those who've lost children to such senseless and brutal killing. American individualism so often deflects the responsibility of dealing with such trauma on those who are subjected to this kind of harassment because it's not impacting the vast majority of the population ("not my problem").
It's clear that much of the Western world have had much stricter free speech laws than the US does for decades, but somehow they don't devolve into the Orwellian nightmare that we always fear when we talk about limiting free speech. In fact, has there been another Western democracy more tested and compared to Orwell's 1984 in the last 5 years than the US?
I don't know what the exact solution to these problems is, but I truly people need to be responsible for what they post online. We as a society also have a responsibility to demand that of our peers because big tech has already shown us that they're not up to this challenge. The worse that harassment gets online, I believe the more segmented and walled off and commercialized the internet will become.
0: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/670/beware-the-jabberwock/a...
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#8So you are not concerned about massive Facebook censoring but is really worried about Austrian court decision which apparently takes 3 years per case? To be clear I am not saying there is no problem, I am saying the Austrian court decision is really the least of it. But honestly enabling any psycho to shout whatever for the whole world to hear is also a problem.
"...enabling any psycho to shout whatever for the whole world to hear is also a problem"
How can I be sure that it's not you that is the psycho? How do I know that your "nothing to see here folks" comment is not sponsored by the re-elected leader of Belarus? I prefer to read your comment and decide for myself to ignore it rather than have it blocked upstream by court, i.e. government, order. But yes, I am concerned also by massive Facebook censoring as well.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#9That's quite the problem we are in, as a global society. Obviously no one wants to give North Korea any say about what can and what cannot be published in the web. But between sovereign, free, democratic societies, different standards might exist. And if you want to do business with, say, the EU as, say, a US tech company you cannot expect US law and commons to apply everywhere. Then it becomes a race to the bottom i…
Your statement about North Korea strikes me as a very discriminatory, as it implies your judgement about NK is somehow objective, and it's political system is a condition justifying them being denied equal treatment in various situations.
Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide
#10> The case started with an April 2016 Facebook post, in which a user shared an article featuring a photo of Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, then-chair of Austria’s Green Party, along with commentary labeling her a “lousy traitor,” “corrupt oaf,” and member of a “fascist party,” apparently in response to her immigration policies. This is core, protected speech in the United States. But it was deemed defamation under Austria…
I just don't see the equivalence here. I agree that platforms have a responsibility not to enable harassment and death threats, but calling a politician "traitor", "corrupt", "fascist" is neither of those things. What are you supposed to do when a politician is corrupt or fascist, if you aren't allowed to talk about it?