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Australia Passes Law To Punish Social Media Companies For Violent Posts (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Australia passed sweeping legislation Thursday that threatens huge fines for social media companies and jail for their executives (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) if they fail to rapidly remove "abhorrent violent material" from their platforms. The law -- strongly opposed by the tech industry -- puts Australia at the forefront of a global movement to hold companies like Facebook and YouTube accountable for the content they host. It comes less than a month after a gunman, believed to be an Australian white nationalist, distributed a hate-filled manifesto online before using Facebook to live-stream the massacre of 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Written quickly and without much input from technology companies or experts, the measure goes as far as any other democracy's attempt to punish multinational tech platforms for the behavior of their users. "The legislation criminalizes 'abhorrent violent material,' which it defines as videos that show terrorist attacks, murders, rape or kidnapping. Social media companies that fail to remove such content 'expeditiously' could face fines of up to 10 percent of their annual profit, and employees could be sentenced to up to three years in prison," the report adds. "Companies must also inform the police when illegal material is found."
"This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech, which was the fundamental motivation for the tragic Christchurch terrorist attacks," said Sunita Bose, the managing director of the Digital Industry Group, an advocacy group representing Facebook, Google and other companies. "With the vast volumes of content uploaded to the internet every second, this is a highly complex problem that requires discussion with the technology industry, legal experts, the media and civil society to get the solution right -- that didn't happen this week."
"This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech, which was the fundamental motivation for the tragic Christchurch terrorist attacks," said Sunita Bose, the managing director of the Digital Industry Group, an advocacy group representing Facebook, Google and other companies. "With the vast volumes of content uploaded to the internet every second, this is a highly complex problem that requires discussion with the technology industry, legal experts, the media and civil society to get the solution right -- that didn't happen this week."
Or prove that heavy metal music, or video games cause violence.
Does the Koran cause violence?
I'm sure that this will work out perfectly fine and absolutely no unintended consequences will arise as a result.
So is it enough if you comment that someone has a “punchable face”? ;)
L'Idiot
Zukerberg is nervously asking his lawyers if there is an extradition treaty between Australia and the US.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Almost everything native to Australia is poisonous and deadly, and they have nonsense like this now?
I think the country itself, the very land, is trying to get rid of all the humans living there....
The internet was a lot of fun, guys. Sadly, it's been taken over and you will only be allowed to view government-approved content in the future.
Sorry Australia, but you got this one wrong. Your well intentioned emotional response to a tragic event is gonna bite you in the ass.
Just another day in Paradise
Correct reaction by Twitter.
You force me to comply with your law, I will comply with your law. And if I don't like that law, I will comply in the way that fucks you the most.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah. Redirect those connections to your new VPN service.
Gee, have some entrepreneurial spirit!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
News Headline (not available in Austrailia): "Austraila returns to prison colony status, cut off from the rest of the world
All all is fixed and everything is rainbows and lollipops without any unintended consequences and it's hate speech for everyone else but OK speech for us. Yay, we're in la la land now!
I remember seeing movies of gross and violent murder, mass shootings, corpses piled up.
Something tells me these will not be banned.
Every time some tragedy happens like this, you get various conspiracy nuts out and about claiming it was some sort of false-flag. Now, when you have extensive video, like this case, it is easy to debunk. Due to the video & the manifesto the shooter produced, we clearly see who committed this crime, and his motivations behind it. If you want to actually prevent these sorts of attacks in the future, you need to understand why people do these things, and actually address the issues they bring up, rather than stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it doesn't exist.
But if you have a government activity trying to shut down those sorts of videos, and not let people see what actually happened . . . well that is just going to encourage the conspiracy types. And honestly make me think that the Australian government plans on using this law to hide stuff.
Austrailia is so fucked. I feel sorry for the citizens..
I was worried about all the fake news, hate speech, and abhorrent violent material that was appearing on the internet, but now they've passed a law - that should solve all problems.
If only there were large platforms capable of having a large carefully selected panel of people connect to them and look at media to determine in a fair and balanced way whether content is 'violent' or not.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
There is but it doesn't matter; the act has to be a crime in both nations for it to qualify for extradition.
And there always a fight at a heavy metal concert but never at Barry Manillow concert - just say'in.
That's because there's no testosterone at a Barry Manilow concert.
No sig today...
So, now we are outlawing specific kinds of speech? Danger is close.
Tread lightly. It's a really slippery slope when you start down this path and something I suggest we weigh carefully before reacting emotionally.
Where I'm all for avoiding things like yelling "fire in a theater" or "inflaming an actual riot" it's going to put us way out on the slippery slope to do this. I wonder if the risks are worth the sacrifice of freedom, if we can craft a narrow enough rule to fix the actual problem without sliding into full censorship... I'm not sure we can.
So, what rule are you suggesting here? Specifically what and what isn't allowed? What's the problem we are trying to fix?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So all the videos of the planes flying in the buildings on 9/11 is illegal? What is "abhorrent violent material". Once again censorship is never the answer.
Maybe a better answer is for companies to just block .au from their platforms.
There will be only intended consequences. These lawmakers might not know a volt from a vault or a wire from a fire but they do have people who can explain to them that this is totally unworkable in practice. But it will create opportunities for selective enforcement, which governments absolutely adore.
You can tell there are too many laws when the police have discretion as to who to cite, and who not to. Every major society has too many laws for actual justice to survive. If prosecution is not required for every offense, it means that there's too many offenses.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So does this apply equally to the following?
* Books
* Music
* Movies
* Video Games
* News Stories
* etc
Is Australia serious about holding the creators of violent content accountable? Maybe there's some other factor rather than just free speech and Australia got this one wrong. Liberty is a dangerous thing ... better take it away from everyone before some individuals misuse it and were not willing to hold those specific individuals accountable for the specific ways they harmed others.
Captcha: unbiased
/. hates it. But here is the thing, FB, UTube etc kept saying we can't police it, we won't police it. Not our posts... It is just their profits. I am often amazed how people keep defending what in real life would end up in broken bones if said. Or how about all those utube vid's showing homeless people getting beaten up? These are indefensible. I'm ok with Marky going to jail or even an Eric Schmidt for allowing their products to be used this way and for them to profit by it. Reminds me of the cig exec's testifying before congress that cigs did not cause cancer. Do you really believe Marky and Eric don't know what drives the eyeballs? It ain't cat vids. It is hate, anti-vaxers, ... Basically crazy people trying to one up each other. Or worse, people like the infowars guys trying to get more and more extreme to get enough eyeballs that they get a cut from google. It is sick. It seems like there are no forces counterbalancing this descent into cesspool.
I'm sure that this will work out perfectly fine and absolutely no unintended consequences will arise as a result.
Yep ...
But it argued that the public information message, simply asking people to register to vote, should not count as a "political campaign".
What the "good" people want is never politics, of course. It's just plain common sense, ya know.
What is the connection with illegal material? Is it illegal to video an illegal act being performed?
Because they never pay.
Corporatism != Free Market
According to the French government (quoted in the link) Twitter is not complying with the law at all, they are just doing it to try to force the government to back down.
It is of course up to Twitter if they want to try that, but I doubt it's going to work. Give it a few months and they will have set up an office to handle this stuff, since political tweets are a significant source of revenue.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You are missing the reason for doing this. Trump and Brexit.
People are starting to vote out horrible politicians who decided they shouldn't be held accountable. They need to stop it by banning things like Drudge Report, and Fox News. If not for outlets like those they believe they won't have to massively rig elections in ways that are found out, like the DNC got caught doing. However, they can't pass a law that just outlaws Drudge Report (but the FCC has been still attempting to for 10 years now). They use something like this to "ban offensive content" then define that content to be Drudge and Fox.
Liberals cry and bitch because they can't win fair elections, EVER. They have to rig the system to guarantee they win because no reasonable person agrees with them. Killing live born babies and calling it abortion is NOT a mainstream stance, but that is the DNC. Supporting KKK members as state governors is not mainstream, but it is for the DNC. They have to censor/ban everything pointing out how wretched they are. This is just Australia's version of the same thing.
Keep voting for corruption, keep voting for the left, and this is what you will get.
Watch any time a DNC member loses an election that the "polls" said they should win. They are still complaining about Bush in 2000, they did a fake Muller investigation for 2 years because Trump won. The DNC and the left are complete shit.
We are living in the golden age of the open internet. I doubt that the open internet will cease to exist. However, I expect a new sanitized internet to be a form of a walled garden that keeps users from the open internet.
China's model probably will not be the exact model as the Chinese model requires a very large staff of monitors. However, a similar model using AI to identify troublesome text and images can be done.
As in China, there will always be workarounds that allow access to the open internet; however, most will see those workarounds as being more trouble than they are worth. That will place the critical mass in the Walled Garden and people will start seeing the open internet as not being worth the time and effort to access.
You don't seem to realize that the right wing is in control of the Australian Parliament, but then again you don't seem to notice that the push to regulate social media is bipartisan.
Australia is run by a Murdoch-backed right wing government. But don't let that stop you pretending it's the "left" because they want to take... uh your right to die outside a hospital you can't afford to use away.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's all about selling adverts, and anything else is collateral damage. While this is undoubtably bad law it is also a wake up call to Tech companies that the products (you and me) sometimes bite back.
*Not sure if there is an acceptable native Australian character, as everything down under eventually tries to kill you.
Have gnu, will travel.
According to the French government (quoted in the link) Twitter is not complying with the law at all, they are just doing it to try to force the government to back down.
And according to Twitter, they are complying with the law. Since neither Twitter nor the French government has any credibility with thinking people since they are both hypocritical AF, it's difficult to imagine what is gained by playing "he said, she said".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... for the attack. The actual (ostensible) motivations are described in the terrorist's manifesto which, in some countries, is now a crime to possess. While problematic, this law is less of a problem than a hypothetical law criminalizing hate speech would be.
I assume it's because then juries would often go, "These laws are fucking stupid" or "he's not guilty of most of this." and acquit him, can't have that now.
If they are required to censor everything that might interfere with an election, that's what they do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They aren't. Not sure where you got that from... The law says that political ads must be properly attributed.
The ads in question are just encouraging people to vote and don't count under the wording of the law. They are not partisan or attempting to influence the vote in any way, merely encouraging participation.
Twitter just doesn't want the hassle of verifying the identities of people buying political ads, the lazy buggers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Australia passes law to punish car makers for the bumper stickers drivers put on their cars?
You don't seem to realize that the right wing is in control of the Australian Parliament, but then again you don't seem to notice that the push to regulate social media is bipartisan.
You don't realize that this is what OUR LEFT (not yours, ours) wants. Censor and squelch everything that doesn't fit the narrative.
Honestly our right would love censorship too, but traditionally have been averse at doing so. Except for titties. Can't show titties.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Australia is run by a Murdoch-backed right wing government. But don't let that stop you pretending it's the "left" because they want to take... uh your right to die outside a hospital you can't afford to use away.
Australias Right Wing just did this.
But this is what our Left Wing wants. Get it? UNderstand my post now?
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
VPN.
With advanced crypto that no 5 eye nation has the skills to counter.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So basically if there is an audio and/or video showing terrorism, murder, attempted murder, rape, torture, or kidnap and it isn't for political, legal, research (scientific, academic, historic, medical), artistic use or for the news accessible to Australians then the company/individual hosting the file, no matter where in the world they are, has to inform the authorities and remove access to Australians.
The content has to be produced by someone involved with the act in order for it to be removed. 434.31 (1)(c)
That's what I got from going through the actual legal text.
Was it properly attributed?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, you can mod me all the way down—this law WILL be used as I say.
This is another short-sighted example of politicians saying "we've got to do something!", because they know if they take too long to do anything, they'll get voted out.
The fact of the matter is that this is unworkable in practice. With the amount of content being uploaded to these services, how much do you think it would cost the companies that run them to look at every single post and decide if it falls into this category? Astronomical amounts. Enough to eat all their profits and more.
What will happen is one of two things: either the companies will ignore it, and look at the fines as a cost of doing business, or they'll go out of business trying to absorb the costs of complying.
And before anyone suggests it, automated computer analysis of posts trying to decide if they fall into this category simply won't work. At the current state of the industry, computers and AI simply aren't good enough yet to catch all instances - so that means humans evaluating things, and that means a lot of cost.