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EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

bbc.com

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Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#151

Post by throwaway894345 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #128
throwaway894345 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the extent they are incorporated with schemes that limit access to the rated content imposed by powerful entities outside of the transaction, they are part of schemes of censorship. (Public censorship schemes that incorporate movie ratings, and thus delegate to movie raters the role of public censor, are common.) No doubt they are part of "schemes of censorship" in some literal sense, but if someone publishes a…

> You're conflating several things. Yes, censorship by a third party has similar effects to government censorship, but we treat them differently My post was discussing whether censorship occurred and whose freedom was affected. While it did mention certain explictly public schemes, it nowhere argued that other schemes should be treated as government censorship, so you are inventing a position here for the sole purpos…

>> You're conflating several things. Yes, censorship by a third party has similar effects to government censorship, but we treat them differently

> My post was discussing whether censorship occurred and whose freedom was affected. While it did mention certain explictly public schemes, it nowhere argued that other schemes should be treated as government censorship, so you are inventing a position here for the sole purpose of claiming it is in error and a conflation of different things.

You brought up the 'third party vs government' dynamic; I was merely mentioning that it's distinct from the dynamic of 'freedom to speak' vs 'freedom to hear'. I specifically never claimed that you were arguing that we should treat third parties the same as the government. No need to speculate about my motives.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#152

Post by avianlyric »

jariel wrote: post #108
pmontra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is currently based upon the Treaty of Lisbon [1] signed in 2007 after the referenda of 2005 for the new constitution (Spain yes, France and Netherlands nay) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

Yes, exactly. Nations gave away sovereign, constitutional powers literally after their populations boldly rejected the terms, in a fair and open democratic processes. Other European nations, verging on 'voting no' were denied the chance precisely because the EU apparatus knew what the outcome would be. There's basically no defence of that issue, and the patronizing arguments defending 'indirect' nature of democracy o…

> ancestors literally fought for 2000 years to overcome, with literally millions dead.

Not sure how good your history is. But the EU was built by an ancestors who were fed of fighting and dying by the millions in wars that did nothing to actually improve people lives.

The whole purpose of the EU from day zero was to ensure lasting peace in Europe, and given there haven't been any domestic European wars since its creation, I would say it's been pretty successful.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#153

Post by TruthHurts44 »

nbzso wrote: post #80

Another money grab from EU bureaucrats. Control the narrative in digital space, regulate small businesses, and get the position of Gatekeeper from big tech. It looks nice on paper.

The money for huge clientele networks milking the EU funds in Eastern Europe and the money for propping up losing businesses and bloated social services in Western Europe have to come from somewhere.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#154

Post by [deleted] »

baxtr wrote: post #75

Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad. And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australi…

[deleted]

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#155

Post by frankfrankfrank »

Majestic121 wrote: post #6

A interesting point missing from the BBC article is that they have different levels of expectations between small to medium businesses and large ones, to avoid regulatory capture ? : > Platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU's population (45 million users) are considered systemic in nature, and are subject not only to specific obligations to control their own risks, but also to a new oversight structure. Another…

I haven't read the details, but I'm surprised not only by the tiers, but that the measure would be something like "reach". How do you accurately and consistently measure "reach" with the internet? Language adapted sites as a ratio of the population that is possibly able or actively accesses the internet? Accounts? Active accounts?

Also, my first thought is to simply then start breaking up into smaller social media companies that are somehow networked. It may actually be that this brings about just that, that we get a kind of adversarial competition or interoperability (I think it's being referred to).

I just find it extremely disheartening that with all the good work and forward thinking it seems the EU is doing, their free speech policies are right out of a dystopian terror novel, the more so as ever more and tighter speech and though control measures are put in place.

It WILL snuff out and strangle innovation and creativity when there is constant fear of drawing the ire of the Thought Police based on intentionally ambiguous thought and speech limitations that are arbitrarily enforced. It's unfortunate that Europeans do not have the courage and conviction to allow for free speech, but it also seems like it is being snuffed out in the USA too. Pursuant consequences will inevitably follow.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#156

Post by mrtksn »

mnouquet wrote: post #133
mrtksn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe didn’t miss the internet bus because of regulations, there were no regulations until the dust settled. The thing is, there’s no US style capital in EU. The American capitalist bankrolled all the internet when there was no clear path to make money from it. I remember when YouTube was burning billions per year, Facebook being labeled as “would never be profitable”. Is there the kind of money in Europe that would…

> Europe didn’t miss the internet bus because of regulations, there were no regulations until the dust settled. False. In France at least, state-monopoly Minitel services shadowed early initial Internet development. Even as Internet took over, communication state monopolies clamped development with overpriced phone bills for a couple of years minimum. It is only when France Telecom got privatized and Free (owned by a…

That's not internet regulation, that's utility regulation. Not different than electricity connection and doesn't have anything to do with the stuff on the internet that turned out to be big deal and countries are now looking to regulate those.

And, nobody cares about Dailymotion. The Americans are shooting for complete take over of a media, not being just another small business doing video. That's why the huge capital is needed and that's why Youtube was never profitable until being acquired by Youtube and that's why only now "Youtube ads are so annoying".

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#157

Post by idkwhoiam »

nickpp wrote: post #110
baxtr wrote: post #75

Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad. And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australi…

Another EU citizen here, resonating with your words. It seems that Europe has decided to stop evolving and just do anything to protect the status quo. All these regulations just trying to keep those damn disruptors at bay. Innovation is forbidden here. But hey! It’s for our own good.

Couldn't agree more. The EU is well behind the rest of the world in terms of innovation. We spend all our time thinking about new taxes & regulations. IMO all this bureaucracy will kill the EU.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#158

Post by stiray »

john_moscow wrote: post #25
FleaFlicker99 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> must prioritise complaints raised by "trusted flaggers" That's the real concern here. Speech must be handled very carefully, but now we're elevating some specific people to be 'more equal' than others? Who are these people, and why do they get more say? I can see that opening a can of worms. I don't live in the EU, but just like that well intentioned but shortsighted cookie law, the rest of us will have to deal wit…

This is the trend of the past decade. More and more people are expected to work as replaceable drones without any real career advancement, or a shot at affording retirement, house, or family/kids. But the social pressure resulting from this is cleverly redirected. Instead of being passionate about starting their own business (and competing with the former employer), they are now passionate about policing what others…

Well you might address it also the way you have mentioned but there is a tiny issue. European culture and its laws are highly problematic in regards to todays behaviour and income that large internet companies profit from (spying on users and use their data essentially against them - even for just showing the ads). Today there is just no way to make your own 3rd party OS / search engine / social network (regardless if it would be better) as development is too expensive on the other side you dont have financing from the same murky practices that were just too new when current giants (and even those have monopoly so there is literally no way to finance yourself) came out.

Yes, they were first but now they are strangling everybody.

And this is not only true for EU, same goes for USA. Someone will have to do something about it but with the power of home lobbying I dont believe that the States will do anything meaningful. On the other side, EU needs to protect its market.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#159

Post by throwaway894345 »

core-questions wrote: post #136
avianlyric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange argument your making there. One of the interesting side effects of free speech rights is also the prevention of forced speech. After all how can you have free speech if someone else can force to express views you don’t hold? Why should my right to free speech trump your right to not be forced to speak? Equally what right to I have to force any corporation to publish and distribute speech they don’t agree with…

I don't see how I am forcing you as a person to say a damn thing. You've entered into a new level of tactical nihilism here. > you’re saying that I have the right to go to your home, plaster it with posters that you disagree with, then prevent you from removing them. How is your personal home the same thing as a gigantic, billion-user social network that has effectively (especially in 2020) replaced the pub, the bar,…

> How is your personal home the same thing as a gigantic, billion-user social network that has effectively (especially in 2020) replaced the pub, the bar, the town square, and the public forum? It's not, and you know it isn't.

I think the scale is a good point (no idea what your original post contained since it was flagged before I read it). Twitter and a handful of other social media companies handle (by which I mean "choose who gets to see what content") such an enormous volume of speech that its moderation policies can influence elections and therefore public policy. Moreover, their power is inherently anti-competitive--users can't take their network to another platform because these platforms don't interoperate by design. It seems like this is an antitrust issue, especially since these networks tend to lobby together to protect their interests.

Re: EU reveals plan to regulate Big Tech

#160

Post by ANarrativeApe »

Watching this with great interest. The platform we are launching next year is focused on letting people vote the $40 trillion in shares they own through their collective investments. A core feature is the ability to support externally proposed company resolutions so that they trigger minority shareholder rights, creating a mechanism for getting the issues that matter to you onto the only corporate agenda that counts. We'll be operating 'Citizen Shareholder Assemblies' in which anyone will be able to participate. We're super aware of the need for open debate and free speech but at the same time we want arguments to be based on data. As Citizen Shareholders are able to follow the voting pattern of Default Advisors, we are particularly keen on preventing the 'obtaining of votes by deception'. You'd think there would be lot's of best practice we could follow from the wonderful world of politics, but it turns out that isn't a thing in the 'real world'. If we achieve our ambitions in a few years we will have 10% of the EU population, and even more in the US (103.7 million US citizens own shares through collective investments). Rather than waiting for problems to arise we are looking to get ahead of this curve. We have a number of things going for us, 1. we are not reliant on advertising revenues 2. we will know who everyone is (free speech doesn't have to equal anonymous speech) and 3. we have so many examples of how not to do this. We ;ook forward to the constructive criticism we will undoubtedly get from groups like hacker news. Any upfront thoughts would be much appreciated.
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