671–680 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
So you're telling me, the landlord of a burning house starts to put out the (smaller) fire next door in a self-less act of virtue? There is some other incentive here other than supposedly restoring "freedom of speech", don't you agree?
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).
"A 51-year-old man from Aldershot was arrested on suspicion of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter."
This is the legal basis for the arrest. Without the retweet, police would not have had authority to turn up to his place of residence - twice - and demand entry. No doubt they preferred Brady voluntarily submit himself for interview at the station, but he refused, which I hope we can all agree is the morally correct position. No one should have police turn up outside their house - TWICE - because of a parody retweet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a definition of censorship that seems to equate restrictions to any website or data stream as freedom, not whether the content of the site breaks local laws. This is a bit extreme, since most countries have laws against gambling, and if you could get around it by just setting up servers abroad, what value are local laws?
I'm not sure I see any practical difference between a government saying "we will block website X because we don't like it" and "we will block website X because we say that website X is illegal". For example if Iran blocks a website which is critical of the regime, do you consider it important whether such criticisms are against the law or not in Iran? I think most people would consider it censorship either way. If yo…
How would you solve this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Press freedom !== entirety of freedom of speech European politicians are calling every day to censor social media. People are arrested regularly for social media posts. Censorship is absolutely an issue in Europe and it’s only getting worse. I welcome such an attitude as this.
The US's low press freedom index is precisely because people are being legally intimidated for wrongthink. It is not limited to the press, either. Mahmoud Khalil (the Palestinian activist detained by ICE on fake immigration charges for his political speech) is a famous example, but there are many. The US's "commitment to free speech" is nowadays not very much more noble than Russia's principled stand against economic…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
American free speech laws are the exception, not the rule. All European free speech laws have always been balanced and weighed up against other laws. This is hardly anything new. If anything, the internet has brought forth a short time period where everything goes and the status quo is now recovering. The legal definition of hate speech (or rather, its local equivalents) is not just "any ideas counter to beliefs I ho…
American free speech laws are the superior option. A government that has the power to arrest people for saying "hateful" things is no better than China or North Korea. But at least you won't need to deal with people saying mean things (that you can block) on your computer (that no one is forcing you to use for social media) anymore, right?
America wants to be free to spread fascist propaganda and child sexual abuse material all over the world, i.e., it's utterly degenerate culture.
You are free to try, we are free to ban it. It's all good.
Such an irony that there are two sides trying to control the Internet in their own lovely ways and in the end it's the people who will have to suffer one way or the other. But I do think countries around the world should have a hard look at how the Internet is, even today, de facto controlled by the US. Take ".com" and ".net" domains for example. Like there are efforts underway to get away from SWIFT (and hopefully o…
You think you want US influence to weaken, but you may feel very differently should it happen. There is a lot you’re taking for granted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point US has close to zero (if not negative) "soft" power.
Trade and tarriff relief are an option still. Despite how shitty the US has been and the distrust that will cause in the future access to US markets will be very attractive until the economy collapses. Soft power isn't just from countries liking you after all.
We don't care any more. We don't like you. Do you understand?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the German border maybe 10 minutes to the east of me, I can open that website just fine. Seems like an exclusively German problem, not a European one. I don't think foreign propaganda was ever exempt from freedom of speech here in Europe (except the countries and regimes which lacked free speech, of course), it just wasn't much of a problem before the internet made opinions so easy to broadcast.
Unfortunately EU is now developing practice of extrajudicial sanctions on EU and national level, targeting both media and individuals expressing points of views alternative to position of Brussels or Berlin. Vance was surprisingly right back then in Munich. It’s not just Russian propaganda, but now it is conveniently used as a blanket cover to sanction even EU citizens (see case of German journalist Hüseyin Doğru, wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Republicans are spending all of US's remaining soft power on stealing Greenland. If it ends with the Navy showing its non-soft power, Europe won't have any fucks left to give about some website.
We already don't. We want the Americans to pack up their bases and fuck off. Ami, go home! They've done enough work to stir up chaos and war all over the planet in the last 7 decades.
I suspect most Americans would actually be quite supportive.
You’ll just have to figure out how to actually pay for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which soft power are you talking about?
Sure, it's decreasing under Trump, but to pretend the richest, most militarily powerful, most culturally influential nation on the planet somehow doesn't have any soft power is... certainly a choice.