Slashdot Mirror
Germany Starts Enforcing Hate Speech Law (bbc.com)
Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material. From a report: Sites that do not remove "obviously illegal" posts could face fines of up to 50m euro ($60m). The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about law-breaking material. Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law's provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law's main focus but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and Russian social network VK. Other sites such as Vimeo and Flickr could also be caught up in its provisions.
You know, what with their long and illustrious history of totalitarianism and censorship. Which always worked out so perfectly, right?
I guess the correct reply to this whole censorship thing would be "Jawohl, mein Führer!" (spoken to their "Minister of Justice" who came up with this insanity). And I wish this was funny, instead of tragic.
... that social media is not your father's "me too," AOL.
The problem is not that there's hate speech on social media.
The problem is that people on social media validate the activity by objecting.
When governments regulate social media, social media becomes a branch of the government.
It's not. Leave it alone and don't feed the trolls.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
A better question is, Does this forced censorship apply to Slashdot?
The summary says, with added emphasis:
Give that Slashdot is a discussion site and news site, I think it would match the "social network" and "media site" criteria. This brings us to the user count.
There appear to be at least 4 million Slashdot accounts, since there are users like religionofpeas who has a user ID of 4511805. From what I can tell, the Slashdot user ID is sequential, since CmdrTaco has a user ID of 1, and we have long-time Slashdot users like jcr, who has a user ID of 53032.
Now there's always the possibility that some user IDs were skipped at some point, or that one personal has multiple accounts (like is probably the case with the so-called "creimer" family of accounts). But since the user IDs are well into at least the 4.5 million range, it would seem to me like Slashdot is well past the two million user threshold described in the summary.
So again, the question to ask is, Does this forced censorship apply to Slashdot?
Another question to ask is, If Slashdot is obliged to engage in such censorship, how is Slashdot's management going to deal with it? Will they accept it and delete content deemed "bad" by some bureaucrats far off in Europe? Or will they fight it? Or will they just block all German users, as much as is possible? Just what will the Slashdot management do?
Good! I don't want to see another tweet to the sound of
"All I want for Christmas is white genocide."
Or
"Band together to kill all men."
That's a good point.
Another thing we should remember is that it's always the political left pushing for "hate speech" legislation. It doesn't matter if we're talking about European nations, Canada, Australia, or even the US.
It's always members of the political left who want to start classifying speech and limiting it in such ways. Of course, it's conveniently also always members of the political left who get to determine what is and what isn't "hate speech".
The political right takes the opposite approach. Instead of preventing the expression of ideas, they prefer to use free expression to point out where they think that others are wrong, allowing any listeners/readers/viewers to come to their own conclusions.
President Trump is a good example of this. He doesn't push for the shutdown or silencing of media organizations that he questions the reporting of. Rather, he calls them out in public, often right to their faces. He presents his case, and lets everyone else make up their own minds.
When we compare the two approaches, it's clear that the pro-expression approach used by the political right is preferable for society at large. It's far more open and equitable than the censorship and silencing that the political left would prefer to use.
The political right pushes for free speech and free expression for all. The political left pushes for highly-controlled speech, where it is they (the political left) who decides what can be expressed.
...is always about Mind Control. They know that their ideology is so faulty it cannot stand the test of free speech. So they ALWAYS try to control the flow of information.
Marxism, Mohammedism, SPARTA - all the same idealist, brutish, deadly stuff.
Americans killed by anti-fascists: 0
Bullshit. There have been a significant number of cops killed in ambush style killings this year alone, increasingly often by people who've bought into the "anti-fascist"/anti-cop rhetoric of the left. And additionally, racially-motivated killings happen all the time against whites as well, you just will never hear them identified as such by the media because when it's a white victim, it's *never* treated as a hate crime by the media or government (even if the perpetrators are screaming racial epithets as they attack the person).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
The left has always had a more slippery slope towards authoritarian, fascist, totalitarian rule since they are imposing it all for our own good.
bet the guy with his skull cracked open doesn't like the "anti-fascists" that busted his face up.
oh but he's not dead. so violence is ok right?
you are a real piece of shit.
Remember those 5 cops killed in Dallas(plus 12 injured) in 2017? Yeah, he bought into the anti-fascist/anti-cop rhetoric. So was the female cop sitting in the evidence van and had her brains smeared all over the inside. Oh did I mention she was also black and a single parent, and the person was also an anti-fascist/anti-cop nut. Then there were the two troopers in Georgia, another in Tennessee again the same garbage. And that's off the top of my head. Several more in Michigan, and on and on and on. Out of those, almost every case the person was an anti-cop and/or anti-fascist nut, who left behind long screeds justifying their murder of people.
Despite your list up at the top:
Heather Heyer - not directly killed, hasn't been proven in court. Maybe indirectly. Was not struck by the vehicle, died of heart attack. Was massively overweight, and a chain smoker.
Taliesin Namkai Meche - Not killed by a nazi, but by a supremacist of a different flavor.
Ricky Best - Same as above, linked to same story as Meche. Also suspect has yet to have their day in court.
Richard Collins III - unable to make any tie. Posted to a facebook group called "alt-riech" which was nothing but shitposting and memes. That's by the media's own fact checking in this case.
Timothy Caughman - unable to make any tie. Appears to be exactly the same as the black guy who walked up to a white guy a few years ago and shot him. Reasoning is the same "wanted to kill x group"
Srinivas Kuchibhotla - unable to make tie. Only sources are reportedlies and hearsay.
Buckley Kuhn-Fricker & Scott Fricker tied together. Unable to make tie, claims of "nazi behavior." Again no evidence, only reportedlies and hearsay.
In all of those above cases, there are no direct ties, no ranting screeds. You know, I'm sure someone can bring out the "all those white people killed by blacks" over the last 20 years, and were killed just because they were white if they really wanted. I mean come on, it's not like BLM has come out saying hate whitey or to shoot cops or anything. Oh right, they've said both...
Om, nomnomnom...