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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

reuters.com

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Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#651

Post by RobotToaster »

pasc1878 wrote: post #435
schoen wrote: post #38

I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agen…

But part of Agency has just been defunded https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/19/us-funding-for...

This new "portal" will most likely only allow de facto government controlled sites like X.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#652

Post by mortarion »

MiiMe19 wrote: post #503
NewJazz wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X is not a person, it is a website run by Elon Musk. Elon, through his company, publishes the photos. I don't think it matters whether he posted them or not. He was aware of and encouraging of the practice, at least when applied to photos of adults.

Legally, he does not. The poster publishes them onto their own page.

In the EU the platform becomes responsible for posted content, the moment someone notifies them that they are hosting something illegal. They have plausible deniability until notified, after which they have a certain time to act, and if they don't they are criminally liable. The user posting the content is also liable, from the moment they made the post.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#653

Post by frumplestlatz »

marbletiles wrote: post #611
Gareth321 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Malicious communications" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. This veteran was arrested for retweeting this meme ( https://abuwjaawap.cloudimg.io/v7/_lgbtqnation-assets_/asset... ). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11066477/Veteran-ar... He was offered to undergo "re-education." You might not like this meme. You might find it offensive. But should he be arrested by several officers for it? Of course not. This i…

He was arrested for refusing to allow officers to enter his home on a pre-agreed return visit to discuss the complaints: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/arrest_of_mr_darren_b... This is why the Daily Mail causes rolled eyes (along with Spiked and the rest of the right-wing agitprop).

Why on earth was he legally obligated to have that discussion in the first place?

Those complaints should have been laughed at and ignored.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#656

Post by numpad0 »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #526
syspec wrote: post #344

Meanwhile, you can't even go on pornhub in certain states in the US, but yes let's let people go on X and engage in hate speech. In fact I'm sure bad actors will use that site FROM the us, to anonymize their hate speech from Russia/China

Americans is land of the free until someone shows a nipple. Or copies a floppy. Or refuses to partake in flag shagging. Or says something critical of the president. Basically America is very good at protecting hate speech, not so good at the rest.

Yeah. This effort feels perplexing. US just isn't the free-est country on Earth in terms of free speech protections, and the gap is slowly widening. IIRC there still isn't secrecy of communication baked into laws as principles.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#657

Post by marbletiles »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #653
marbletiles wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was arrested for refusing to allow officers to enter his home on a pre-agreed return visit to discuss the complaints: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/arrest_of_mr_darren_b... This is why the Daily Mail causes rolled eyes (along with Spiked and the rest of the right-wing agitprop).

Why on earth was he legally obligated to have that discussion in the first place? Those complaints should have been laughed at and ignored.

The law might be a bad one (and probably is) but on balance better that police investigate suspected illegality than don’t. Overall I’d rather be somewhere where even a former royal can be arrested than somewhere the rule of law is optional.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#658

Post by XorNot »

petcat wrote: post #627
XorNot wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tarrifs cost US consumers not EU consumers. If the US wants to ban AWS from operating in the EU that's just going to accelerate the shift away, for example.

There are no tarriffs being applied on digital services. That's obviously intentional considering how much soft power those services exert on countries the USA wants to maintain an outsized influence over.

How would tarrifs be applied on digital services?

Tarriffs are a tax on imports to the US applied by the US government.

You can't tarriff selling a service overseas, in fact since AWS in other countries is a locally incorporated entity you can't even meaningfully demand they charge more AWS in the UK is a separate corporation incorporated and taxed under UK law, for example.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#659

Post by petcat »

XorNot wrote: post #658
petcat wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no tarriffs being applied on digital services. That's obviously intentional considering how much soft power those services exert on countries the USA wants to maintain an outsized influence over.

How would tarrifs be applied on digital services? Tarriffs are a tax on imports to the US applied by the US government. You can't tarriff selling a service overseas, in fact since AWS in other countries is a locally incorporated entity you can't even meaningfully demand they charge more AWS in the UK is a separate corporation incorporated and taxed under UK law, for example.

Right, I'm aware of that. Which is why I don't know why you brought up tarriffs in a discussion about the "soft power" that US technology services impose.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#660

Post by rrr_oh_man »

shafyy wrote: post #608
raincole wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His unit has successfully prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years. It's just one of the sixteen units that prosecute 'hate speech' cases in Germany. Oh, by the way, the Chancellor himself is calling to demolish online anonymity completely: https://dpa-international.com/politics/urn:newsml:dpa.com:20... But sure, abuse of power is so rare. Nothing to see here.

The current chancellor is also a right-conservative jabroni, so don't equate what he demands to what the German people want.

> so don't equate what he demands to what the German people want

The German people elected the parliament. The parliament elected Merz. The margin was narrow, but that was the decision.

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