Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 125 posts

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#111

Post by Speednet »

xeyownt wrote: post #77
praptak wrote: post #60

If you wonder what exactly they want to protect, [1] is the recent ruling of a Polish court. As of Jan 12th, publicly saying that "gay people are perverts" is fine as far as Polish law is concerned. [0] Background in English: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/polish-activis... [1]The ruling (Polish only): https://oko.press/kaja-godek-wygrala-w-sadzie-zboczency/

Yes exactly. Typical far right / extremists tactic, disguise their discourses as well accepted democratic ones. They say they want to protect free speech, etc, but in fact are only pushing for their own definition of free speech and will be very quick at banning any other speech that are not according to their views/laws.

[flagged]

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#112

Post by Speednet »

synnejye wrote: post #31
klunger wrote: post #15

This is absurd. Twitter etc are private companies and can do what they want wrt their user's accounts. If they don't want their far-right politicians getting censored, then they can ban those platforms from the country completely. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

No, this is absurd. So you would let all media companies censor someone "because they don't like him"? The only reason you trust private media companies is because they are supposed to be as neutral as possible, not political. If not neutral, then perhaps society should start treating them for what they really are - private political machines. Furthermore censorship is stupid. You might like it when it's Trump gettin…

Thank you synnejye, you have hit the nail on the head.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#113

Post by AnHonestComment »

praptak wrote: post #97
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the hypocrisy in that? They are consistent: lawful views must not be censored, unlawful ones must. I can see how there could be bias in determining what is lawful, but that's not hypocrisy.

It's hypocrisy to paint themselves as protectors of free speech.

You mean Twitter — yammering about “muh freedoms” in other countries while actively censoring the sitting president of their home country?

Yeah, that’s been really hypocritical.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#114

Post by pelliphant »

ArnoVW wrote: post #68
pelliphant wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an american take on censorship. Here is one from the other side of the pond: Private entities setting up rules for their services and then enforcing those rules are not that controversial.

Actually, I am Dutch, but have lived in the UK and am now living in France. I agree that "freedom of speech" is less of an issue for the average European, than for an average American. But Angela Merkel for example critisized strongly the actions of Facebook, Twitter et al. You may agree with private entities censoring now, because you disagree with the censored statements. What if the roles are reversed? What if Mar…

My bad. =)

But anyway, I do agree that there is a problem here, in that some corporations have way too much power. I would argue that the solution is that those corporations need to be regulated and broken up into smaller parts.

So, I think we need to do something about amazon, but in this case, we also needed to do something about parler, and now amazon did that for us.

The zuckerberg example: I would argue that in that scenario, it would be (at least) equally obvious that said regulations where needed. The difference would be that in that scenario, I would argue that zuckerberg was abusing his power, but with what's happening now, I don't think that amazon is abusing their power, (because I think that amazons reason is a valid one), but I still think that they shouldn't have that much power.

I'm a bit tired, but hopefully I'm still making some sense.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#115

Post by [deleted] »

newbie578 wrote: post #73

Let's not act surprised here, it was only natural it would come to this, and I expect other countries to follow suit. If the (still current) president of the world's largest power can be silenced, then just how easily can Jack Dorsey silence a president of a country like let's say Moldavia... I'm not arguing if someone is a bad person or good person, just stating the obvious POV one might get looking at the status qu…

[deleted]

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#116

Post by bobthechef »

praptak wrote: post #97
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the hypocrisy in that? They are consistent: lawful views must not be censored, unlawful ones must. I can see how there could be bias in determining what is lawful, but that's not hypocrisy.

It's hypocrisy to paint themselves as protectors of free speech.

Not really. What constitutes free speech is always qualified, so that's a fantastical argument. In this case, Poland has blasphemy laws (and btw, even Strasbourg allows for these under the margin of appreciation).

In principle, this move shifts decisions from private global corporate power brokers to national representative government. Facebook and Twitter are private, but they've become so powerful and influential that they function like utilities used for communication. It is better to subject these platforms to laws that can be checked by representative government than to the whims of tech oligarchs.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#117

Post by bobthechef »

praptak wrote: post #60

If you wonder what exactly they want to protect, [1] is the recent ruling of a Polish court. As of Jan 12th, publicly saying that "gay people are perverts" is fine as far as Polish law is concerned. [0] Background in English: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/polish-activis... [1]The ruling (Polish only): https://oko.press/kaja-godek-wygrala-w-sadzie-zboczency/

Ad hominem much? And yes, why shouldn't someone have the right to say that? Under natural law theory, same sex attraction is gravely disordered, and indulging that attraction by engaging in an active gay lifestyle is perverse and self-destructive. That some people want to silence traditional views is revealing. Instead of counterargument, you see totalitarian attempts to silence people, in this case Catholics, though one not need be a Catholic to hold this view. The presumption that such criticism must come from a place of contempt shows a profound misunderstanding of the nature of love (the willing of the true good of the other), conflating it with the scandalous encouragement of self-destructive behavior. Regardless, let us suppose such remarks show contempt. Then by that definition, the rabidly anti-clerical and Church-hating Jacobins on the left are the pot calling the kettle black.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#118

Post by bobthechef »

jusssi wrote: post #59
schlupa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A restaurant is a private company and if they don't want to serve blacks and jews they can completely do it. You see now how absurd that argument is?

Speech is voluntary. Having been born a black or a jew (at least for the genetics) is not. Edit: more generally, this is something you are vs something you did. The latter is widely considered as acceptable criterion for revoking your privileges or rights.

That something is voluntary is irrelevant. It's a question of harm. If some group of people were to have green skin, and green skin emitted deadly substances on its own, then this would be involuntary. Should you ban such people from bars, etc?

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#119

Post by bobthechef »

By bringing national law to bear on Facebook, Twitter, etc. in such a vivid way, it sets a precedent that other countries will follow (like EU members). Now, because contradictions b/w any two bodies of law may come into existence, this will lead to blocks of countries that share a similar body of laws regarding speech meaning greater accommodation and less censorship. If there is a high degree of disagreement, however, there may be a good number of such blocks which means decentralization of social media. So either these companies face increased regulation, or they will be force to retreat from global dominance.

Re: Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal

#120

Post by jusssi »

bobthechef wrote: post #118
jusssi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speech is voluntary. Having been born a black or a jew (at least for the genetics) is not. Edit: more generally, this is something you are vs something you did. The latter is widely considered as acceptable criterion for revoking your privileges or rights.

That something is voluntary is irrelevant. It's a question of harm. If some group of people were to have green skin, and green skin emitted deadly substances on its own, then this would be involuntary. Should you ban such people from bars, etc?

Taking a wider interpretation of the harm principle:

Discriminating people for what they are (deadly skin emissions aside; I challenge you to come up with a real-world example) doesn't feel fair, neither to those who are being discriminated against nor the population in general. Unfair constructs in the society are likely to cause overall harm in the long term (if nothing else, the society is unlikely to extract the full potential of those who feel unjustly treated by it). So you'd have to have some benefits that are greater (or greater harm avoided) than the likely harm to justify causing that harm.

So voluntaryness is not irrelevant, with a footnote that there might exist a case where it needs to be weighted against other factors.

Post reply on HN