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Facebook Must Delete Hate Postings Worldwide, Rules Austrian Court (reuters.com)
An Austrian court has ruled that Facebook must delete hate speech postings worldwide. "The case -- brought by Austria's Green party over insults to its leader -- has international ramifications as the court ruled the postings must be deleted across the platform and not just in Austria, a point that had been left open in an initial ruling," reports Reuters. From the report: The case comes as legislators around Europe are considering ways of forcing Facebook, Google, Twitter and others to rapidly remove hate speech or incitement to violence. Facebook's lawyers in Vienna declined to comment on the ruling, which was distributed by the Greens and confirmed by a court spokesman, and Facebook did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Strengthening the earlier ruling, the Viennese appeals court ruled on Friday that Facebook must remove the postings against Greens leader Eva Glawischnig as well as any verbatim repostings, and said merely blocking them in Austria without deleting them for users abroad was not sufficient. The court added it was easy for Facebook to automate this process. It said, however, that Facebook could not be expected to trawl through content to find posts that are similar, rather than identical, to ones already identified as hate speech. The Greens hope to get the ruling strengthened further at Austria's highest court. They want the court to demand Facebook remove similar - not only identical - postings, and to make it identify holders of fake accounts. The Greens also want Facebook to pay damages, which would make it easier for individuals in similar cases to take the financial risk of taking legal action.
ANyone ever read Ray Bradburys forward on why he wrote F451? He wrote it years later and it was included in some editions. He described something akin to creeping political correctness arguments put forth by narrow interest groups were going to strangle all expression because everything offends somebody. The solution the politicians favor is to ban things that offend. So soon books would be not only banned but people would go out of their way to try to make sure nobody could have access to offensive books. It would all be bread and circuses.
At the time I read that, San Francisco was going through a phase where the public libraries were Bolwderizing Mary Poppins so that the slang spoken by the Black maid was converted to a more respectable kings english. Original copies were pulled from the libraries.
I felt he had a point. It doesn't really matter if the book is offensive. Protecting people from offense is worse.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You can only take it.
The problem is that "hate speech" is it's defined by idiots. A muslim saying that atheists should be killed is seen as an expression of faith. Someone saying that Islam is backwards and violent for sentencing atheists to death is hate speech
I hear that Barbra Streisand is a special advisor to the court on this case.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I think this would be a demonstration that they are not aware of the limitations of their jurisdiction.
Remember the last time an Austrian tried to dictate policy globally?
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I think this would be a demonstration that they are not aware of the limitations of their jurisdiction.
Remember the last time an Austrian tried to dictate policy globally?
Oh My Godwin!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Arnold was pretty moderate for a Californian Democrat.
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> Surely one can find exceptions to the rule.
I believe those exceptions are called rights, or human rights. An individual or group may do as they please, but should not infringe on anyone's rights.
If you only have the "right" to say things everyone agrees with, that's no right at all; that's just agreement.
Note that the US Constitution and others modeled on it do not by their terms create rights, they bar the government from *infringing* on the rights. It also says "the right of free speech", not "a right of free speech" - the framers recognized that human rights *already* existed and said shall not infringe rights.
I think this would be a demonstration that they are not aware of the limitations of their jurisdiction.
Remember the last time an Austrian tried to dictate policy globally?
Oh My Godwin!
I did nazi that coming, did jew?
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You've conflated jurisdiction with authority. They have the jurisdiction. They lack the authority.
While the subsidiary is within the court's jurisdiction, the court's authority does not extend beyond their jurisdiction to cover what the parent organization does outside of Austria's borders. The court can order them to remove the content from servers in Austria, order them to hide it from display to Austrians, and may even be able to do the same across the EU*, but they most certainly do NOT have the authority to enforce those rules against Facebook globally.
Rulings like these effectively trample on the sovereignty of other nations where one country's laws may not be the ones they've chosen to follow. This sort of issue has been a constant struggle in recent years with the US, as it's been attempting to overstep its bounds in similar ways. It's something we need to push back on regardless of where it occurs if we want to have any hope of encouraging the US and others to be good neighbors by confining their rulings to their borders.
* I know there are some country-level courts that can make rulings that are binding across country borders within the EU, but, as an American, I don't really have an awareness of which courts those are or if this is one of them.