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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

#911

Post by FatCat1979 »

46493168 wrote: post #741
joenot443 wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole book banning thing is a little weird in 2026, IMO. It's exciting to think about, we all liked Fahrenheit 451, but a book not being bought for elementary schools doesn't really make it "banned" IMO. There are a lot of books which probably shouldn't be in schools. I don't think children should be given copies of Mein Kampf or Camp of Saints, nor the random dark fantasy novels which are so popular today. It fe…

> I don't think children should be given copies Disingenuous framing. Book bans remove books from school libraries. A book sitting on a shelf is not giving a book to someone. > of Mein Kampf or Camp of Saints Why not? Genuinely, why not? What will happen if children have access to words on a printed page? Most of them have access to a supercomputer in their pocket. To make my stance clear in case it’s not: there is n…

> there is no such thing as “age appropriate literature.”

Would you be comfortable with a 5 year old reading "Morning Glory, Milking Farm"?

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

#912

Post by mcv »

Will it also bypass content bans in the US? Or should Europe create its own freedom.eu for that?

I'm sure I don't have to point out the irony of the current censorship-happy government in the US pretending to be a champion of free speech in other countries. I mean, there are plenty of countries with far worse censorship of course, but for the US to attack the EU specifically on this, is pure propaganda.

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

#914

Post by stinkbeetle »

generic92034 wrote: post #715
stinkbeetle wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was argued to be a satirical skit rather than sincere statement I think. Which is quite an outlier but would be still probably quite interesting to compare with other cases. But in general if you were walking down the street or talking about something on the internet and somebody else called out or posted and said you are a nazi. Hate speech?

As mentioned before - it depends on the circumstances. If you call someone wearing a full Nazi outfit a Nazi, it probably will not be seen as hate speech/insult. If you call someone showing nothing in that regard a Nazi out of the blue, it could. But that would be handled as personal insult, then. For hate speech it needs to affect more than one person, I believe.

I see. So are there any situations where it could be considered verboten-speech?

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

#915

Post by matheusmoreira »

larholm wrote: post #552
kjksf wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused about your principles. Do you want censorship (of porn, of "hate speech") or not? Because it seems you don't want censorship of porn but do want censorship of speech. "hate speech" is a made up thing that politicians use to jail people who complain about government. If you're an American you should cherish 1st amendment. You should cherish the fact that founding fathers recognized that the greatest threa…

Freedom of speech is not absolute anywhere, not even under the 1st amendment in the USA. Death threats are illegal whether they happen offline or online. Yelling "I HAVE A BOMB!" in an airport comes with consequences. I believe we can agree on these two examples.

> Yelling "I HAVE A BOMB!" in an airport comes with consequences.

It's not the speech itself that's illegal, it's the fact that they made everyone nearby aware they could have the means to mass murder everyone around them. People will obviously react to that by taking down the potential threat.

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

#916

Post by ImJamal »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #901
ImJamal wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very interested in hearing some of these words capable of killing. I have only heard of such words in fiction so I am quite surprised to learn they are real.

We've had several World Wars (so far) thanks largely to words. I'm not sure what your contention really is, except that maybe you dont like the idea of freedom coming with responsibility for the ways in which you use it.

Nobody died from the words? Did Hitler say millions should die and millions dropped dead? It was the war, the concentration camps, etc that killed people.

Yes, words led to that, but the onus of the deaths are on those who did the killing, not the words. Could the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials have used the excuse that it was actually the words doing the killing and as such they were innocent?

If you want to say words kill, in the way you are saying, then words have killed most people that have been killed. If we take an example where somebody gets turned down and then gets killed for it, would you say words killed that person? Should we ban turning people down? You do want words that kill to be banned after all.

I'm reminded of a phrase I leaned as a kid that starts with sticks and stones...

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

#917

Post by ImJamal »

rgblambda wrote: post #894
ImJamal wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very interested in hearing some of these words capable of killing. I have only heard of such words in fiction so I am quite surprised to learn they are real.

In the 1950s, the Reverend Ian Paisley would organise rallies in the streets of Belfast and when speaking at those rallies, read out the addresses of Catholic homes and businesses on those streets. The crowd would then attack those homes and businesses.

I don't know the exact context or what was said, but I know one thing the words didn't attack somebody. People attacked people and property.

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

#918

Post by matheusmoreira »

FatCat1979 wrote: post #909
tordrt wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would any of your hate speech examples actually be illegal?

UK's made a fair few arrests for exactly those kinda things The US should make an alternate internet without europeans so we can avoid them

This will happen naturally. As countries continue to impose their laws on the internet, it will eventually fracture into numerous regional networks with heavy filtering at the borders. The internet will one day cease to exist.

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

#919

Post by mapontosevenths »

ImJamal wrote: post #916
mapontosevenths wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had several World Wars (so far) thanks largely to words. I'm not sure what your contention really is, except that maybe you dont like the idea of freedom coming with responsibility for the ways in which you use it.

Nobody died from the words? Did Hitler say millions should die and millions dropped dead? It was the war, the concentration camps, etc that killed people. Yes, words led to that, but the onus of the deaths are on those who did the killing, not the words. Could the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials have used the excuse that it was actually the words doing the killing and as such they were innocent? If you want to say word…

Ahhh. Another of Elon's absolutists? Fine all words are ok now. So we make all these things legal:

Obscenity in any context - Won't someone not think of the children?

Child sexual abuse material - Fine in the new regime as long as you didn't record it yourself, right?

Incitement to imminent lawless action - You only told them who to murder, right?

True threats and harassment - All those people can just die. Speech is the ONLY freedom that matters. Serious expressions of intent to commit unlawful violence be damned.

Fighting words - Sure - Bait them till they hit you then the cops can come arrest THEM. Aren't you clever! And totally free from consequences for your actions! Ideal!

Defamation - Why CAN'T we just make stuff up about our enemies, friends, and loved ones? Those suckers rights are far less important than ours after all!

Fraud and false commercial speech - All legal now! Finally the freedom to rip off old ladies and the mentally unwell! Thank god for liberty!

IP violations - Again, free speech is absolute now so nobody can own anything that can be conveyed via language. Yay!

Or... we could just be reasonable about it and say that the limit's of free speech are where they start to impinge on other peoples liberties. Your call.

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

#920

Post by oezi »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #467
oezi wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't really what we perceive (at least if educated). We see that Free Speech is not an absolute right, but is secondary to the most important right which for Germans is Human Dignity. It might be foreign to you because your constitution and history doesn't put the same value on it than our history taught us.

How could German history have taught you anything about human dignity? You went from a military dictatorship to an unstable republic to a fascist state, then you split into military occupation zones, and then one of your military occupation zones annexed the other, the militaries left but you kept the laws, and now you arrest people for saying "from the river to the sea". Using your German-ness to talk to anyone else…

A little less hyperbole would maybe help your arguments, but trying to argue that one of the most liberal democracies in the world is comparable to one of the most repressive regimes is hurting your argument (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/liberal-democracy-index).

Nobody is perfect, but Germans have learned a lot in the last century and a half. One of the things is that Freedom of Speech doesn't deserve the pedestal that primarily US Americans put it on. It has boundaries and one of those is calling for the displacement of an entire nation.

You make it sound like that Germany is just a puppet without its own mind, but in reality it is just some 80m people all with their own mind, history and education. The reality is that Germans are more aware of their history and the impact seemingly small decisions can have on the life of millions. That's why I talk about the German-ness, because many other countries can't or don't want to understand the weight of responsibility which arises from being the perpetrator of two world wars and the holocaust.

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