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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

#51

Post by beepboop77 »

zxcmx wrote: post #28

Users everywhere have had to put up with U.S law for a long time. The laws and norms of the USA are more or less "fully baked in". Try posting a nipple or copyrighted track, for example. If Facebook had come from a different place, all songs and body bits might be Ok but perhaps discussion of government would be banned. I can't tell if that would actually be a better facebook than the one we got.

I think you don't give American companies enough credit when it comes to appealing to various countries laws and opinions. It is disingenuous to say Europe or the rest of the world does not care about copyright when they have historically and increasingly laws that are as strict if not stricter than the US' when it comes to preventing copyright infringement. [1][2]

Nipples do reflect American sensibilities although it is understandable that many companies do not want to go down that road as it could lead to becoming distributors of porn. I think you will find that many countries outside of Europe agree or don't think that these rules go far enough.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_... [2] https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/06/33f524714d35-japa...

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#52

Post by s9w »

anigbrowl wrote: post #49
s9w wrote: post #25

Just for comparison: If you insult a green party member in Germany, the police will literally raid your home. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24981251

Pretty sure there was more to the situation than that one-line summary.

The German article in the comments has more info, which states that some of the raids were for insulting a female German politician - which very likely means Renate Künast since she's been on a warpath down that line multiple times in the recent past. And she is a high ranking member of the green party.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#53

Post by tedunangst »

zxcmx wrote: post #28

Users everywhere have had to put up with U.S law for a long time. The laws and norms of the USA are more or less "fully baked in". Try posting a nipple or copyrighted track, for example. If Facebook had come from a different place, all songs and body bits might be Ok but perhaps discussion of government would be banned. I can't tell if that would actually be a better facebook than the one we got.

There are several US based sites which allow nipple posting, if that's your thing.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#54

Post by alpaca128 »

pjc50 wrote: post #42
alpaca128 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> notably the potential transgender pronoun compulsion laws Which, in my opinion, go clearly a step farther than just censoring offensive language. I can understand the latter to some degree, but forcing people to replace certain words in their communication only differs from Orwell's dystopia in the size of the dictionary. It's a dilemma: huge communities like Facebook cannot really be moderated effectively and are…

> but forcing people to replace certain words in their communication only differs from Orwell's dystopia in the size of the dictionary. It's dystopian that people can't hurl the N-word at each other?

But they absolutely can hurl the N-word at each other. It is frowned upon for good reason, but it's not illegal.

What I was talking about was the proposal to actually force people to refer to others by their preferred pronouns. I am not against new pronouns, but the government should not enforce such a change in how people communicate. Language evolves naturally with society, not the other way around. Also there's enough evidence that banning bad words does not work and people always find a new way to piss off others. After all it's the symptom, not the cause.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#55

Post by save_ferris »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16
save_ferris wrote: post #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 Austria…

> has there been another Western democracy more tested and compared to Orwell's 1984 in the last 5 years than the US? None of those people are in jail. And that regime, despite its best efforts, is being peacefully removed from power. America is the world’s oldest [EDIT: large, old] extant democracy. I wouldn’t lightly consider toying with something so basic as free speech. Several European and Asian democracies are…

> America is the world’s oldest [EDIT: large, old] extant democracy.

Nothing about our history guarantees our future as a democracy, this is hot hand fallacy at its finest. If there's one thing that's consistent across human history, civilizations always fail at some point.

> I wouldn’t lightly consider toying with something so basic as free speech. Several European and Asian democracies are already teetering towards authoritarianism, the first step of which is curtailing public debate.

Free speech existed prior to the internet, it's not like Tim Berners-Lee changes the world and all of a sudden free speech exists. Canada has much stricter free speech laws than the US and their political discourse seems to be just fine. Plus there are already plenty of restrictions baked into "free speech" online. You can't threaten to shoot up a school on social media without consequences, why can't the same principles be applied to people who make death threats towards individuals? Companies already have the ability to lock you out of your account for no reason whatsoever without any defined arbitration system. What about the internet is so truly sacrosanct that we permit such inconsistency from corporate governance while railing against legal protections mandated by governments? Free speech is already being messed with; it's being used to automate the virality of hate speech with ruthless efficiency.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#56

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

notahacker wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook could decide to withdraw from the Austrian market (which it won't) There is another option: defiance. Withdraw employees, liquidate assets, and force Austria to enjoin it overseas and/or block it.

Or compliance, because having already taken the corporate position that certain electoral messaging is so misleading and damaging it needs content warnings, shadowbanning or even deletion, it would be frankly weird for Facebook to sacrifice its Austrian business on the altar of insisting that actually a series of courts are wrong and memes accusing a leading Green Party figure of being a fascist are not libel but an…

the Austrian green party is fishing for right-wing voters who are disgruntled by the FPÖ many scandals. their policies are strange since they seem to want to appeal to the right according to their conservative policy a lot more than to the left. This is counter the tradition of what is "normal" for a Green party in other countries. their ultra conservative approach gobbles up previous FPÖ voters that are disillusioned with the Ibiza scandal and the crowd that screams "ban burkas" or are obsessed with foreigners not "integrating themselves properly" especially brown people (it's ok to live there as a native English speaker you will never feel any of it).

Austria is the most West of all the Eastern EU countries so a lot of things that are not normal in Western Europe are so in Austria. The right is cosying up to Putin (who often gets invited to private events like weddings by Austrian politicians) and as close to Russia as Poland is to the US. Many Austrian high-end properties from skiing resorts to Vienna is in the hands of Russians, ... there is a good reason Austrian secret service was dropped as an ally to share information with from other FVEY-allied countries: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-security-idUSKCN1...

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#57

Post by forest_dweller »

save_ferris wrote: post #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 Austria…

> 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.

They are though. You must not have been paying attention.

In the UK we are locking up 7 people a day over "hate speech". The most egergious example is the Chelsea Russell case.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

These laws were sold to us under the guise of "Locking up Islamic Extremists". Now we are putting ankle braclets on 17 year old girls for posting gangsta rap lyrics.

We also have the "Non Crime Hate Incident". Where you can be put on a naughty list for saying the wrong thing on twitter. These can stop you from finding employment as you will show up on a background check. You have broken no law but you are treated as if you have.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-51501202

He won in court. But they wouldn't actually review the legislation which is the real problem.

Comedians have been investigated for making jokes about Turkish politicians.

https://www.dw.com/en/turkey-asks-germany-to-prosecute-comed...

You are foolish if these laws won't be used against the population at large. Look up the term "Anarcho Tyranny".

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#58

Post by pjc50 »

alpaca128 wrote: post #54
pjc50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but forcing people to replace certain words in their communication only differs from Orwell's dystopia in the size of the dictionary. It's dystopian that people can't hurl the N-word at each other?

But they absolutely can hurl the N-word at each other. It is frowned upon for good reason, but it's not illegal. What I was talking about was the proposal to actually force people to refer to others by their preferred pronouns. I am not against new pronouns, but the government should not enforce such a change in how people communicate. Language evolves naturally with society, not the other way around. Also there's en…

Is there such a proposal? What does it actually say? I'm asking because gender recognition acts have been systematically misrepresented by the media.

Re: A court ruling in Austria could censor the internet worldwide

#59

Post by matheusmoreira »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #34
choeger wrote: post #3

That'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…

> 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. The problem is that whether a country can enforce its speech restrictions against outsiders has very little to do with how much we agree with them. If you don't want to follow the law of North Korea, you'll lose access to the N…

> But what happens when it's China?

What happens is US companies quickly capitulate and start appeasing the chinese authorities! They still get access to the american market if they sacrifice core western and american values like freedom of speech and privacy but they lose the growing chinese market if they refuse to do so. It's an easy decision for them.

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