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EU Gives Ultimatum To Facebook and Twitter: Obey Us Or We'll Start Regulating (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The EU Commission has fired a shot across Facebook and Twitter's bows, having issued a proclamation decreeing that "social media platforms" must do more to remove "illegal content inciting hatred, violence and terrorism online." Although what is said in the EU proclamation is nothing new -- indeed, in the UK, the measures proposed by the EU's talking heads have been standard practice for years -- what matters here is not what is being said publicly, but instead the threat of what might happen unless Facebook appeases the bloc's leaders. The EU said that platforms should appoint dedicated points of contact for police forces and other State agencies to talk to about illegal content; appoint trusted content moderators ("flaggers," in EU-ese); and invest in "automatic detection technologies." In addition, illegal content should be deleted within "specific timeframes."
All straightforward; nothing new there, at least from the British perspective. Yet the threat is in the EU's later words: "Today's communication is a first step and follow-up initiatives will depend on the online platforms' actions to proactively implement the guidelines. The Commission will carefully monitor progress made by the online platforms over the next months and assess whether additional measures are needed."
All straightforward; nothing new there, at least from the British perspective. Yet the threat is in the EU's later words: "Today's communication is a first step and follow-up initiatives will depend on the online platforms' actions to proactively implement the guidelines. The Commission will carefully monitor progress made by the online platforms over the next months and assess whether additional measures are needed."
Pretty much every aspect of your life is subject to the collective will of the society in which you live. You cry, 'Freedom of speech!', and they're saying, 'Stop the spread of dangerous hate!'. Since they have a lot more experience with domestic terror groups than Americans do, I understand why they're going that way.
Right now, you're probably right. But when groups of malcontents are allowed to fester unchecked, they eventually cross the line from being bitter to being violent... and that's when the EU approach suddenly looks better.
So far as I know, nobody has figured out how to balance the two concerns in a way that makes everyone (or even most people) happy.
I'm usually reasonably happy with Canada's position, which is something like 'free speech until you're advocating harming people'. That tends to get Americans twisted up in knots, but it works for us, and we (as much as I can speak for all Canadians) don't feel like we're living under the constant surveillance of Big Brother's telescreens.
Making something illegal doesn't stop it happening, it just causes it to happen in secret...
Those who are planning or advocating violence will still do so, but will now be harder to keep track of. Meanwhile others will be drawn to these illegal groups out of curiosity.
Educate people, allow everything out in the open and most people will reject dangerous ideologies anyway, and the few who don't will be easy to keep on top of.
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Yea, that totally worked for the war on drugs.
And here you highlight the main danger of this kind of approach: even if you agree with banning hate speech in principle, you are inevitably going to end up in a situation where there is selective enforcement, and that gives far more power to the people who get to choose what to enforce than anyone should be comfortable with a select group wielding.
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Freedom of speech, or more generally freedom of expression, is a fundamental human right in the EU. It get balanced against the rights and freedoms of other citizens, just like it does in the US.
In the United States speech that harms other people is sometimes illegal. Fraud, credible threats, harassment etc. It's the same in Europe, it's just that Germany and some other counties consider some speech to be harmful in a more general way, i.e. promoting Nazism might not hurt someone directly but when many people do it it is likely to result in harm.
The argument is not so much if there should be any limit on speech - there is in every developed nation - it's if speech promoting Nazism can be considered to be harmful. I used to think not, but these days I'm not so sure, although I wouldn't ban it.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
publish only content we approve of, or we shut you down. That truly sounds like a formula in China and Russia right now: You publish what we tell you or we will fine you. Sounds a lot like: publish what we tell you, or we shut you down. The requests by the EU sound a lot like the regulatory systems in China where you have reps you report to to approve content. People may say it's for safety but "those who give up essential liberties for a little extra security deserve neither liberty nor security". In other words, there is always going to be some people who have an unpopular or sometimes even dangerous opinion, but if we suppress it being express even non-violently, we eliminate free thought, and when you have that, you have tyranny.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Your bullshit "hate speech" is nothing more then censorship.
Apparently you learnt NOTHING from (British) Political Philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) to which this YouTuber beautifully summarized:
Gee, oh look, C. S. Lewis (Hey, look another smart British citizen!) said the SAME thing, except he called it Chronological Snobbery
Grow the fuck up EU already. Just maybe you should pay more attention to your history.
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Only cowards censor.
A government protecting speech for all is standing up for equality for all people.
We distrust the government because we do not think we are special and that the horrors of the past can happen here. What drives violence is that same in Europe as in the US because human nature. Sweeping offensive speech under the rug does not solve the problem. Outlawing offensive speech only perpetuates those that parade those believes because those people will go underground, be validated, double their resolve, galvanize their support and create a victim narrative for recruitment.
Speech is more dangerous than a gun because it can rally genocide. Yet, it is the most important right of a democratic society. If you ban speech then you undermine the foundation of democracy. Free speech does not protect speech the majority thinks acceptable. It is for the controversial and offensive which has been historically the speech that has given us more freedom and more rights and more understanding of ourselves.
There is a price to every right. The more that people forget that - the more that the price will be paid in blood.
"We have to put a stop to the idea that it is a part of everybody's civil rights to say whatever he pleases." - Adolf Hitler
The issue here is something recent anti-white supremacist protesters need to take to heart. The principle of free speech is agnostic. You cannot claim to uphold free speech while simultaneously attempting to deny it to those you disagree with. Either you believe in free speech, even when that speech offends you. Or you believe in suppression of certain viewpoints and their expression. The latter puts you in the same category as China, Russia, and Nazi Germany - the only difference is which ideas you've decided to suppress.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The idea behind free speech is that you can't counter a negative with a negative. If you consider it to be justified to impose negative policies against ideas you consider to be negative, you are by definition justifying negative policies towards your ideas by those people if the tables are ever turned. After all, from their perspective, you have negative ideas and thus they are justified in imposing negative policies against you And all of society devolves into a self-perpetuating cycle of negativity.
Free speech attempts to break this cycle by saying everyone is allowed to have their say. And instead of actively fighting against the expression of ideas we don't like, we'll simply rely on rational people (who hopefully make up the overwhelming majority of the population) to judge and dismiss those ideas as ridiculous. The proper response to white supremacist propaganda is citing historical examples of where their beliefs have led the world in the past - innocents living (or hiding) in fear, mob lynchings of innocents, genocide, world war. Convince rational people that we don't want to go down that direction again.
Freedom of speech applies to "radical parties" far from the current ruling party more than anything else. That's the entire point, really, the freedom to disagree with the rulers, plus the freedom to disagree with the "intellectuals" in charge of communist regimes.
Communists(or whatever the post-modernists call themselves these days) in the US are now staging violent protests against free speech, because it's anathema to draconic rule by self-described "intellectuals".
Whatever sort of party you fear, any party that objects to free speech is the worst choice.
Fundamentally, humans have two ways to resolve disputes: speech or violence. Which do you choose?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Where did you get that from? Free speech is free speech. While no one is obligated to provide you a platform to speak from, people can freely talk about whatever they'd like, and as only the most offensive speech was ever in need of protection, that's what we're talking about. The freedom to speak (or otherwise express your thoughts).
If the government gets to label speech it doesn't like "hate speech" and suppress it, then the government has to power to suppress any and all speech. The excuse isn't the point: the suppression of speech is the point.
Again, conflict will be resolved by speech or by violence. I prefer speech. I also think my ideas are better, and feel no need to prevent my opponent from speaking - let him! The more nay idiot who disagrees with me speaks, the more he'll embarrass himself. Or, you know, the possibility exists that I'm wrong. But not about free speech - there's to much evidence from history that suppressing speech never fixes anything, merely shifts thins to violence earlier.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.