Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global • Hacker News Board

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#71

Post by vorpalhex » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

1. Who selects the censor?

You might be ok with making speech restrictions.. but are you ok with a hardline opposition candidate doing the same?

2. Governments change

Even a government that starts using a power - say restricting access to bank accounts - for something good like stopping actual terrorism or money laundering can decide to start using it against political movements they don't care for.

3. Governments grow

Governments only grow in power. They get bigger. They use more powers. Even some of the hardcore censor states started with more narrow objectives. China started with objectives to stop false information and external propaganda - now they use that power to suppress victims talking about sexual assault by party members.

Fundamentally I do not trust any government to have that power. It will always be abused, and we must always resist it. Australia is an excellent example of a liberal democracy using safetyism to quickly run towards authoritarianism.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#72

Post by teakettle42 » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

Y-bar wrote: post #50

at_a_remove wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's do the smoking thing, since you picked that one. 1) We eventually found out the truth. Nobody guarantees that the wins will be fast. 2) You have to be kidding yourself if you think that the suppressed speech wouldn't be that of the people saying "Smoking is dangerous." The tobacco companies can and did hire experts, manufacture the results they wanted, and so forth. They, the establishment, the moneyed, would b…

> 1. We eventually found out the truth. Yes. Narrowly. After decades of suffering and deaths, which I personally suffer from today. And we were helped by putting legal limits on the lies presented by bad-faith participants.

The alternative is the truth never coming out because the platforms and “fact checkers” are all owned by powerful incumbents with a vested interest in keeping it that way, with individuals silenced under threat of arrest for breaking the narrative.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#73

Post by bsedlm » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

"Accidentally" ?

this presents a choice as to what to belive:

- that they are so incompetent that they do not know what they're doing.

- they are perfectly aware of what they're doing and the journalists are trying to be extremely diplomatic about how they call them out on it. as if they journalist are apologizing for this attack on individual freedoms.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#74

Post by DocTomoe » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

V__ wrote: post #43

DocTomoe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the platform has to decide if a given piece of content actually is illegal under German law, something courts may take years to decide, and forces them to make that decision in minutes. On the other hand, it does not provide an instrument to punish malicious use of that instrument. In that situation, platforms will - and do - just block by default. We have independent courts for a reason. Privatiz…

That is a valid criticism, and I agree. At the same time, due to the reach of social media and the possible implications and the timely manner in which action should be taken, I think there has to be a system with some middle ground. Maybe, forcing platforms to hide the content for some period of time and establishing a new court which only handles these cases, so a quick judgement can be made. But it's a really hard…

Even hiding potentially illegal speech (if you believe such a thing should exist) for some time creates considerable potential of abuse. A group of malicious political actors could still suppress opinions and thus make it appear that there is a public consensus on the opposing opinion.

Especially with a state which has deliberately unclear and flexible (in the sense of 'rubber', not 'agile') laws, this is too big a risk. For example, right now it appears to be illegal to use the letter Z as a symbol in Germany, because some people think that this somehow glorifies/justifies the illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, which is illegal in itself. (No such provision seem to exist against glorifying/justifying the illegal wars of aggressions which "NATO partners" have staged).

So, if we think we need to ban free speech, the strictest controls need to be set up to prevent abuse, and that includes:

1. after a report, a judge ordering a post to be taken down (this could be done by an "Einstweilige Verfügung" until a final verdict can be made)

2. clear guidelines which speech is illegal enough to justify this strong response, defined in a way that does not allow for a slow and secret extension over time. Beware of rubber vocabularies like 'Hate Speech', which can be anything. While we are at it, get rid of 'illegal speech' laws that only make speech illegal when a sufficiently large number (how many?) of other people (that may then decide to become violent) may find offensive (looking at you, blasphemy)

3. Sensible instruments to punish people and/or organisations who abuse this process.

4. These blocking cases need to be publicly documented to avoid "things just disappearing".

Anything less than that, and we really cannot claim to be any better than the many autocratic regimes who ignore human rights.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#75

Post by tablespoon » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

helloworld11 wrote: post #68

tablespoon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...peacefully express ideas which might sometimes be abysmally stupid, ignorant or even malevolent. As long as they can't extend these ideas into coercive force against others, this should be fine. That's also a fairy tale. > The fairytale idea is that by "fighting misinformation" large gatekeepers can somehow forcibly rid the world of bad ideas or make it a better place. I don't think anyone thinks they can actual…

And sincerely, how do you propose that they be stopped from spreading as quickly based on your criteria or correct spread? Honestly curious. Who should decide what ideas can be labeled bad and what ideas tolerable or good? Also, no, it's not a fairytale. Words and expressions of ideas are one thing, coercion and physical violence are another. It's very possible to generally legally stop people from the latter while r…

> And sincerely, how do you propose that they be stopped from spreading as quickly based on your criteria or correct spread?

Isn't it obvious? I carefully referred to a very specific thing when I joined this thread. You seem to be very eager to force a tired kind of binary free speech vs. totalitarian censorship discussion that I believe you've consistently misread me.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#76

Post by V__ » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

DocTomoe wrote: post #74

V__ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a valid criticism, and I agree. At the same time, due to the reach of social media and the possible implications and the timely manner in which action should be taken, I think there has to be a system with some middle ground. Maybe, forcing platforms to hide the content for some period of time and establishing a new court which only handles these cases, so a quick judgement can be made. But it's a really hard…

Even hiding potentially illegal speech (if you believe such a thing should exist) for some time creates considerable potential of abuse. A group of malicious political actors could still suppress opinions and thus make it appear that there is a public consensus on the opposing opinion. Especially with a state which has deliberately unclear and flexible (in the sense of 'rubber', not 'agile') laws, this is too big a r…

> potentially illegal speech (if you believe such a thing should exist)

Child pornography, calls to violence etc. I think anybody agrees that, to some degree, things have to be banned.

> (No such provision seem to exist against glorifying/justifying the illegal wars of aggressions which "NATO partners" have staged).

The main reason no such provision exists is that there simply is no widespread movement to glorify, for example the Iraq war.

> the strictest controls need to be set up to prevent abuse

Absolutely. I just hope some solution can be found, which actually works, because you can only through so many judges against bots, foreign actors etc.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#77

Post by ivan_gammel » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #63

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

Speech can't hurt you. Speech by itself doesn't violate any of your rights.

Private property cannot hurt you, yet property ownership is restricted (e.g. you have to pay taxes). Restrictions often exist not to prevent immediate harm, but to make society functional and enable implementation of other rights. Restriction of free speech can be necessary if it is used to incite violence, thus triggering violation of other rights.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#78

Post by ivan_gammel » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #20

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

So because others are worse Germany's laws are good? I don't know but laws that allow someone to be locked up indefinitely without conviction don't sound like freedom to me.

What laws are you referring to specifically?

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#79

Post by ivan_gammel » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #71

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

1. Who selects the censor? You might be ok with making speech restrictions.. but are you ok with a hardline opposition candidate doing the same? 2. Governments change Even a government that starts using a power - say restricting access to bank accounts - for something good like stopping actual terrorism or money laundering can decide to start using it against political movements they don't care for. 3. Governments gr…

Governments exist to protect those, who cannot protect themselves. If you do not give the government power to balance execution of human rights by restricting some of them in reasonable ways, the government will fail to protect vulnerable minorities and eventually your democracy will be destroyed by those, who will exploit the power of media to promote their agenda and to attack people, who have different ancestry, beliefs or do not fit in that agenda in other ways. The government should not remain unchecked, of course, so voters must have the power to replace them in a democratic process, that’s it. Nobody invented yet a better system, that actually could work.

Re: Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global

#80

Post by ivan_gammel » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

impossiblefork wrote: post #58

ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

One calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for…

Without freedom of speech you don't have democracy, or true freedom of association, etc. It's a critical foundational right on which other human rights are founded.

It is not foundational, it is one of the many rights that our society recognizes. In Universal Declaration of Human Rights it’s Article 19, coming after 18 other articles. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

In German constitution it is Article 5 and it is explicitly limited, considering the importance of the balance. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/German_Federa...