[HN Gopher] EU Commission: 'No longer acceptable' for platforms ...
___________________________________________________________________
EU Commission: 'No longer acceptable' for platforms to take key
decisions alone
Author : sampo
Score : 85 points
Date : 2021-01-12 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.euractiv.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.euractiv.com)
| jively wrote:
| This is the same issue that faces newspapers, publishers and TV
| stations. At some point the scale of reach and influence come
| into conflict with public policy and governance.
|
| Newspapers are horribly regulated and most TV stations can say
| what they like within reason - especially in the US where being
| fair and balanced is no longer a requirement to run a news
| service.
|
| This jurisdictional problem affects all media and isn't just
| limited to social platforms.
|
| The difference with TV and Newspapers is that they can have their
| licenses revoked. So there is a degree of power wielded by the
| government over what is acceptable locally.
|
| In contrast, social media infringes on sovereign power by
| existing and influencing on a global scale without being
| regulated on a local one. A great example is name suppression
| during trials, it might be illegal for a newspaper in France to
| publish a name, but that doesn't stop one in the UK from doing
| it, and because the paper has a website, that foreign paper
| inadvertently breaks local law in France because anyone can look
| it up, but it can't be held accountable.
|
| Sovereignty and global digital media do not intersect well
| without an interface - and that just doesn't exist.
|
| Expect more balkanisation of the Internet in the future as govts
| take back some control over media within their borders.
|
| And no, I'm not advocating for dictator-like suppression of free-
| speech, but a mechanism of accountability for foreign firms
| breaking local laws.
|
| It's a shame that the real-world example has to be Trump, if this
| had happened to Malala, or Thunberg, or the Pope, the advocacy
| for oversight and accountability would be a lot easier to digest.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I know this is a heated topic but I really don't understand what
| the other options are. Having businesses dictate who they want to
| serve seems like censorship but having the government dictate it
| seems way worse. I'm not sure how to decouple or balance the
| freedom of will as a business, freedom of will as a person and
| the societal mandate of the majority (which is how democracy
| works? It's always about the majority values).
| pmontra wrote:
| They could bring those issues to courts. It takes time but it
| is normal in almost every other context.
| khawkins wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a system where the government can pick
| and choose who they want to ban/keep, but rather a system where
| businesses must go through a legal government process to ban
| someone themselves. That platforms need to be held to the same
| freedom of speech standards the US government is held to.
| LoSboccacc wrote:
| > what the other options are
|
| add political views into the list of non-discrimination laws
| and let the courts decide, if it's important enough to have to
| be legislated, that's the closes framework upon which to model
| it.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| No, just have certain businesses operate just like utility
| providers do which means they can't decide who they provide
| service too as long as it's within their service area.
|
| You local electrical company probably can't shut off the power
| even to a meth lab as long as they are paying their bills, and
| even if they do not you are usually required to go through a
| rigorous process before you can take action.
|
| This isn't really about freedom of will, this is about the
| bottom line and companies trying to score cheap points. If it
| was pretty darn clear that no amount of pressure that does not
| go through the courts could make Amazon or Twilio cancel Parler
| there wouldn't be as much noise about it.
|
| There's a reason why no one is tweeting at the power or water
| companies to cut off their services to the Trump campaign, it's
| not because there aren't people that would like to see that
| happening, but because even the most deranged of them know that
| it cannot happen.
|
| You already have precedence for this, back when corporate towns
| were a thing that's where the public square concept emerged
| despite the entire town technically being corporate property it
| was deemed that people cannot be silenced on the streets or in
| the town square.
|
| The issue here is that the Internet isn't treated as a public
| square but as solely corporate property and yes sadly without a
| bunch of corporations the internet doesn't actually exists.
|
| You cannot get to the point that you need to essentially become
| a global Tier 1 ISP before you can put on a service that does
| not break any laws but that would essentially be immune to
| being canceled, and if you want to monetize it you probably
| need to become major payment processor if not an an acquiring
| and and issuing bank too because as we've seen in the past
| PayPal/PCI can easily prevent you from taking any payments.
|
| We do not have an open and distributed network a handful of
| companies can block any content they want at any time, TOR,
| VPN's or anything else won't save you and won't help you your
| ISP can block anything it wants with a single line in a config
| file and if it's not on Google it might as well not be
| accessible. Your hosting options today are rather limited
| especially for a platform that needs to have a global reach and
| that you couldn't take down with a single 5G connection.
|
| Amazon, Google, Microsoft and a tiny handful of others are the
| only ones who can provide you with that infrastructure, if you
| are going with a smaller or more traditional hosting provider
| then there are only a handful of CDNs that can provide you with
| content distribution and DDOS protection/mitigation services.
|
| If you want to grant companies the same freedom you grant to
| people when it comes to making decisions you need an actual
| free market for that, but globally the internet isn't a free
| market and no one can make the argument that it is free yet
| alone a free market when in order to provide a legal service
| (regardless of how distasteful it is) without any of the
| existing market players being able to completely shut you down
| you have to build a Bank of America, a Visa,a DeepOcean and a
| Cloudflare first.
| lima wrote:
| > _Having businesses dictate who they want to serve seems like
| censorship but having the government dictate it seems way
| worse._
|
| That's what judges and courts are for. Neither government nor
| platforms should be able to make these decisions unilaterally.
| johntb86 wrote:
| Judges and courts are part of the government. In particular,
| they apply laws (including the constitution) that were
| written by the government.
| lima wrote:
| Yes, but that's not the government dictating something.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > Having businesses dictate who they want to serve seems like
| censorship but having the government dictate it seems way
| worse.
|
| Leaving B2B aside, for B2C it is basic consumer protection laws
| common in EU. If a service is offered to a general public, then
| provider may not arbitrarily exclude someone from using it. If
| a provider excludes someone for violating ToS, then the
| excluded one may dispute that at appropriate authority / state
| office.
| SulfurHexaFluri wrote:
| The problem is these companies are too big and powerful now. If
| a small business refuses someone its no big deal, go to another
| business. But when these titans join together to make an action
| that affects you and there are no alternatives left, thats a
| different case.
|
| If both Apple and Google ban your app when the app is legal and
| useful, is it good for society that there is no way around
| this?
| raverbashing wrote:
| Freedom of expression on platforms is important
|
| But it absolutely does not matter for a person in a position of
| power who has dedicated dedicated public information channels
|
| Twitter is right, in the same way any journalist has the right to
| publish or not a statement by the president
| yummybear wrote:
| You really have to walk a censorship tight rope as a social
| media. You need to remove content that targets minorities and
| hate speech or face consequence, but only when it applies to the
| bottom 99% of society - apparently.
|
| The fact that the EU seems to want control over who gets to
| express themselves freely, is even more troubling than the
| inconsistent rules applies by the media themselves.
| disgrunt wrote:
| Suddenly it is very easy for the powers that be to see the
| threat these platforms pose. Deplatform little people? Fine
| with us. Deplatform a head of state? Can't have that!
|
| Facebook, Twitter, et al are going to regret the pandora's box
| of unintended consequences they just opened up with this move.
| Traster wrote:
| Frankly, facebook, twitter et al. really didn't have much
| choice. They've been as tolerant as they can be.
|
| It was parler that screwed things up. It was meant to be a
| right wing equivalent to the left wing social media companies
| (who, coincidentally, are incredibly anti-union, anti-
| corporate tax, and anti-workers right, or as was previously
| known _incredibly right wing_ ). Instead they produced a
| platform that was rampant with death threats, resulting in
| the only (overtly) right wing platform collapsing.
| boplicity wrote:
| I've run a niche "social media" site for 12 years. There is no
| tightrope. The problem is that these large platforms want the
| benefits of scale, without being responsible for dealing with
| the problems of scale. It is imminently possible to build a
| thriving social media site that enforces standards of behavior.
| HN is a good example. However, it is _work_ to actually enforce
| those standards. It takes leadership. Facebook, Twitter, etc,
| are not interested in providing that type of leadership, and
| would likely require both a huge economic investment, and a
| significant change in business strategy.
| majormajor wrote:
| What would happen if Trump was on your site and constantly
| violated your standards of behaviour?
| Talanes wrote:
| Exactly this. The problem lies in the power to control
| expression lying in too few hands. Just having the same media
| system, but with the government directing who they ban is just
| passing the buck.
| [deleted]
| ortusdux wrote:
| I've been wondering how much of all this is an
| (over?)reaction to the threat of the repeal of section 230.
| How many of the people making these decisions have reciently
| had meetings with legal where they learn what changes they
| would need to make to not risk lawsuits. Allowing
| governmental oversight, with legal protection, would sound
| pretty good in comparison.
| loopz wrote:
| We clearly need to understand what rules and algorithms are
| OK, what are their side-effects and potential for abuse.
|
| To get governments into moderation business sounds like an
| idea that simply won't scale. We already got laws to cover
| the legal aspects.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I fully agree that these decisions have to be done by democratic
| institutions. They also have to be very liberal and very careful
| and erring on the side of not taking things down.
|
| My biggest problem however is the EU commission acting like they
| are a democratic institution.
|
| The president of the commission didn't even run in the election.
| We were promised that the candidate of the winning party would
| become president of the commission, but then he didn't and they
| gave us von der Leyen instead, who never really accomplished
| anything but hiring consultants. And even that she couldn't do
| right.
|
| The whole storming the caption hill thing is also funny in that
| regard. Now we suddenly defend that place as this important
| symbolic institution of democracy, and how dare they! But in
| reality, we all know that the people in there spend most of their
| time sucking up to their donors to stay in power. And we know
| that they very, very, very often make decision that favour their
| donors to the detriment of the ... voters.
| jlokier wrote:
| I think your comment gives the misleading impression Von der
| Leyen was not elected at all. So for readers who may not know
| the system:
|
| Von der Leyen's appointment, and the EU Commission, were both
| subject to approval votes by MEPs of the EU Parliament, who are
| elected by EU citizens in all member countries using
| proportional representation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_der_Leyen_Commission#Elect...
|
| > On 16 July 2019, European Parliament took a vote on the
| proposal by the European Council and elected Von der Leyen with
| 383 votes (374 votes needed).
|
| > The Commission was approved by European Parliament on 27
| November 2019, receiving 461 votes, with 157 against and 89
| abstentions.
| jariel wrote:
| "You voted for A a long time ago over there, who appointed B
| over here, who supported C up there, who finally backed D -
| the leader you never heard of - so it's all very democratic!"
|
| Von der Leyen was not elected in any reasonable sense of the
| term.
|
| Voters went to the polls without knowing who she was, or her
| platform.
|
| They thought they were effectively voting for someone else.
|
| They were told that the 'deal' was that so-and-so would be
| the victor - but at the last minute _after the election_ the
| people with power changed their minds and changed norms, and
| in a completely untransparent backroom deal - they chose a
| different leader.
|
| The EU Commissioner is a bad example of positive democracy
| and it's almost impossible to justify on those terms.
|
| It is what it is unfortunately, I'm not sure what the right
| answer is, but the current situation isn't near perfect.
|
| As for the statement - it's reasonable that there should be
| regulations - but the EU leadership shouldn't make such bold
| edicts: "You cannot do this, you must do as we say" - not a
| good way to start. They don't have this kind of legitimacy.
|
| They should position it as: "We don't believe corporations
| should be making these decisions without a framework provided
| by the people of the EU, so we'd like to work with them to
| provide some regulatory leadership"
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| She was not elected by the voters. The voters were told that
| the winning party's candidate would be the commission
| president.
|
| Now von der Leyen is. She did not run in the election.
|
| This is a lot more similar to the electoral college making
| the losing candidate president than people want to admit.
|
| We elected the parliament under the impression that the MEPs
| would then elect the candidate of the party that got the most
| votes. Then, they didn't.
|
| The EU is not very democratic and if we don't fix that, we
| will lose it. And that is the last thing I want. I want the
| EU to succeed.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > She was not elected by the voters. The voters were told
| that the winning party's candidate would be the commission
| president. Now von der Leyen is. She did not run in the
| election.
|
| Well, this is true for prime minister posts in most
| parliamentary democracies. The winner is not the leader of
| plurality-winning party, but one who can get majority
| support in parliament.
|
| Usually it is the same person, but EP is too disintegrated
| for that (many small parties with only token loyality to
| party blocs), so plurality winner failed to get majority
| support. Had MEPs forged majority coalition, they would
| have rejected EC offer and have forced their commission
| president.
| jariel wrote:
| This argument doesn't work very well because even in
| Parliamentary systems there is good clarity as to what
| people are voting for.
|
| Your arguments is resting on technicalities, but not on
| the realities of awareness and participation of voters.
|
| Boris Johnson had a questionable first phase as PM due to
| his inherited position, a lack of confidence - so - there
| was an election. Not only did everyone in the UK know who
| they were voting for in terms of individual leadership,
| but very much in terms of policy. It was also an 'issue
| election'.
|
| The affirmation of 'Boris to complete Brexit' was clear,
| democratic and decisive (however people may disagree with
| the result).
|
| Voters clearly 'had their say'.
|
| The EU does not have any such relevance in terms of
| issues, ideology, leadership, policy, participation,
| regulatory clarity, which makes it's democratic
| credentials kind of questionable.
|
| They do some good work though, it's just going to be a
| problem when the are at odds with the people.
| sampo wrote:
| > My biggest problem however is the EU commission acting like
| they are a democratic institution.
|
| You have a valid note on the lack of democracy in the EU
| commission. But about the topic at hand, both Merkel (Germany)
| and Macron (France) have directly expressed this same opinion
| about Twitter, as the EU commission. And Merkel and Macron have
| more direct democratic leadership mandate, than the EU
| commission.
|
| "Germany and France oppose Trump's Twitter exile"
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-se...
| neogodless wrote:
| I have a sister comment I think is relevant here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25754588
|
| But the key in my comment is the precondition the government is
| _truly_ "of and for the people", and thus any moderation they
| did benefited "the people", and not the government which likely
| holds _more power_ than the people.
|
| What happened with Trump was that he convinced his followers
| that it was OK to only get their information from the places
| that agreed with him, de facto making anything he says the only
| trusted source of information. This is the essence of political
| censorship. By taking away competing sources of information,
| you can basically write your own rule book, because those that
| only hear from you couldn't fathom a different reality.
|
| Information needs to survive the competitive landscape and
| emerge as valid. Information that isn't put through the wringer
| should not be trusted.
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| I see the argument the commission is making, but when it comes to
| the question of inciting violence on privately owned systems, is
| it really the right idea to move it to some sort of public
| committee when the target is "too big to censor?"
| orange_tee wrote:
| Remember that Facebook and Twitter only acted after the fact.
| For them, Trump was too big to censor too. They only took
| action days before he is out of office when it was guaranteed
| he would leave.
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| That's not altogether true. They've been footnoting his posts
| where there's been a mismatch with reality.
| loopz wrote:
| Right after an attempted coup.
| tsherr wrote:
| FB and Twitter didn't deplatform Trump because he was a nasty
| bastard who was inciting revolt. They did it because the
| Democrats won and they want to suck up.
| orange_tee wrote:
| Yes that's exactly what I'm saying.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| Assuming that a company's terms of service are deemed fair and
| legal, why would it be "no longer acceptable" to apply them? I
| couldn't care less how high profile someone is, what public
| office they hold; if they break the agreement they made with a
| service provider, they should be subject to the consequences they
| agreed to.
|
| What I would like to see is a company being obliged to enforce
| its terms of service promptly, and not allow profitable rule-
| breakers to continue. Especially when their abuse of the service
| also breaks laws.
| jariel wrote:
| The power imbalance means companies can use all sorts of crazy
| leverage to do all sorts of things that wouldn't really be fair
| in a free market, and certainly not a free market of ideas
| etc..
|
| I'll bet $100 that companies would love to wash their hands of
| a lot of this stuff, and just be able to 'comply' with some
| regulatory things so they can't be blamed or get into trouble
| one way or another.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I think we need to acknowledge that a lot of what these
| agreements outline is, to a large degree, subjective. If human
| language, or expression in general, weren't contextual and up
| for interpretation, then I think this would be a viable way of
| looking at things, but that simply isn't the case.
|
| So long as there is room for interpretation, and the
| consequences (politically, economically, etc.) of those
| interpretations are potentially far reaching, leaving it up to
| private companies with no oversight isn't a good option.
| majormajor wrote:
| So you have _n_ companies each applying their own subjective
| judgement over their own networks, or you have 1 government
| applying its own subjective judgement over all networks in
| that country.
|
| It's highly unlikely that the latter is _more_ friendly to
| fringe or extremist views (setting aside whether or not that
| 's a good thing).
| dimroc wrote:
| One government is optimistic in this case. This is the EU
| talking, they'll gladly deliberate for months before any
| action is taken.
|
| Furthermore, wouldn't this worsen an authoritarian or
| Trump-like scenario? We are expecting the government to
| moderate itself? Wouldn't a yes man/crony just sit in that
| seat ala William Barr and let the tweets go unchecked?
| majormajor wrote:
| Yeah, in the US, depending on which dystopia you think
| we're living in, it's very easy to envision either some
| Trump crony making sure nobody was disrespectful to him
| on Twitter OR some "deep state" agents starting to censor
| him way back in 2015 to try to prevent his getting
| elected in the first place.
|
| I've yet to see a realistic proposal for what should
| replace Twitter's ability to choose its own TOS that
| isn't either a worse situation like that, or isn't some
| "only illegal stuff should be taken down" that probably
| results in far fewer open places on the internet
| accepting user-generated content for broadcast in the
| first place.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| That's a fair statement but as long as a company is not found
| to be applying bias to their application of their rules,
| again I see no problem. In the instances we're discussing
| though, there has been clear violation of terms over a
| sustained period of time.
| rektide wrote:
| this argument seems well & sound to me, if I replace "private
| companies" with "private monopolies". right now I don't think
| we know how monopolistic these companies are & i don't think
| we've tried doing much competing. so yes we are under the
| seat of a few big entities. it's our fault. athe failure of
| us, our unwillingness to compete, does not give the nation's
| of the world preimminent domain. the rights of the private
| entities to converse as they would is to be respected,
| including excluding unwanted voices. if you have something to
| say find your own places to say it.
|
| these garbage fire bonanzas ablaze with calls for violence &
| insurrection with the flimsiest fakest of fabricated basis
| underneath are unfortunately really bad tests of how
| monopolistic big tech is, because they doom themselves, seem
| rankly incompetent, destined to self immolate. competitor
| platformsust follow some law, which is in many cases what
| companies do when they kick people off: protect themselves &
| the rest of the platform from grave risks. I believe
| companies should be encouraged to find their own ways to
| remain safe, that nation's ordering them around to control
| speech in certain governmentally dictated ways would be
| horrific. cyberspace doesn't deserve this infringement,
| people don't, even big tech, sucky g useless as it is,
| doesn't. this isn't china. we don't do that here.
| [deleted]
| neogodless wrote:
| "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.
| Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
| government except all those other forms that have been tried
| from time to time." [0]
|
| -- Winston Churchill
|
| For any kind of platform that allows arbitrary users some
| level of control over the content that will be hosted, the
| options for ensuring that content is not _harmful_ are:
|
| * Community Moderation: users control contributing _and_
| moderating content. The platform chooses moderators, or
| enables voting for them. This gives users and all people
| (i.e. citizens) the most power, but has the most potential
| for abuse of the system to enable using the platform to host,
| spread and share harmful content.
|
| * Platform Moderation: wholly moderated by platform chosen
| moderators. This is probably the most common system. The
| platform will use its own set of values and policies to
| decide what to moderate, and will likely target the most
| popular content deemed harmful. Per platform, this gives
| platforms the most power, but platforms much compete with
| each other
|
| * Government Moderation: moderation likely by the platform,
| but with oversight from government - policy and values may be
| defined by the government; failure to moderate according to
| the government legislation could result in penalties or
| termination of the platform. If the government has sufficient
| checks and balances and citizen influence, this may be a
| desirable system, but if the government is not "of and for
| the people", it could also be used by the government to
| moderate _opponents of the government_ as decided by that
| government. Anyone opposing the absolute power of the
| government may find their content "moderated" away. This is
| the stuff of nightmares for the founding fathers.
|
| "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the
| people fear the government, there is tyranny." [1]
|
| -- Thomas Jefferson
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy
|
| [1] https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-
| collections/whe...
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Yeah, so, basically, and I can't believe I have to spell this
| out, the EU Commission is saying "we need new laws".
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| Please, continue to spell this out. Laws that forbid an
| organisation from applying its rules because that
| organisation is popular? Laws that compel an organisation to
| allow users to perpetrate abuse if they're important in one
| country? Where does liability now fall when say, incitement
| to violence end up with someone losing an eye, a life?
|
| Don't misunderstand me - I absolutely think that those who
| allowed Trump to directly incite violence for years have
| blood on their hands. They absolutely have liability for
| this. They disgust me. But now suddenly the conversation
| seems to be that Twitter, for example, should have been
| forbidden from kicking Trump off now or years ago when they
| _should_ have. So who would share the blame now?
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Your point is fair and valid, but Europe has long been wary
| of US Tech's incipient power and they see Trump's permaban
| (warranted as it is) as a warning.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Well, for one, democratic countries are supposed to be governed
| by representatives elected by people, not by corporate boards.
|
| Ability to selectively enable or disable people from being able
| to access voters is tantamount to having a huge influence on
| election results.
|
| While in the past you could avoid using social media, today
| this is THE way to reach most of voters. Most people no longer
| pay substantial attention to what happens on television, forgot
| what radio is (it is a little bit of noise your car gives so
| that it is not quiet) and don't read printed papers.
|
| Now, this time it happened for Trump and we can discuss whether
| this was or was not a good decision, but the question is who is
| going to wield the power like that in the future and whether it
| is even permissible do to something like that.
|
| On one side you have the idea of free speech, but then added to
| social media you have inevitable disinformation as anybody can
| get amplified and amount of information is such that it is not
| possible to verify and vet it.
|
| In the past you would have handful of news-generating
| organizations and it was easy to spot and call false
| information. But this is forever gone, there seems to be a need
| to find out some kind of new equilibrium that will allow detect
| and filter misinformation without anybody having power to
| singlehandedly "vanish" people from public life.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| You discuss governance, access to voters, wielding of power
| and free speech but not the meat of my comment: a customer
| not playing by the rules they agreed to, and the implication
| that they should be allowed to break the rules they agreed to
| simply because they're important. An organisation must now
| allow people to flaunt their rules, helpless to remove them
| despite the abuse that they perpetrate?
| quotemstr wrote:
| A corporation is an abstraction, an artificial person created
| to pool resources and do business at scale. It's a good, useful
| abstraction --- but like all abstractions, it's leaky, and
| sometimes the abstraction does more harm than good. Governments
| are run for the benefit of natural people, not artificial ones,
| and when the latter behave in ways detrimental to the interests
| of the former, there's nothing wrong with setting rules.
| bjeds wrote:
| I'm impressed that the EU is taking action in this case and I
| hope they also look into the shutdown of Parler under antitrust
| legislation.
|
| Parler was the number one downloaded social media app in the app
| store after all. According to BBC the most popular accounts on
| Parler were people like Sean Hannity and Ted Cruz, who each had
| followers in the millions.
|
| Of course Parler had a problem with some - maybe even many -
| violent people, like the Washington rioters, but it seems to me
| that the vast majority of Parler users were not violent people,
| but fairly normal republicans of the kind that are still not
| banned on Twitter and Facebook (like the two persons I
| mentioned).
|
| Removing the hyperbole on each side, I think it'd be interesting
| if the EU looked into this to conclude if the shutdown of Parler
| was ok or not.
| africanboy wrote:
| I think EU doesn't have an opinion on Parler, that's a business
| relationship gone wrong.
|
| The leak of the Parler content shows that they were actively
| moderating the platform to push it on the far right side, using
| millions of fake accounts with admin privileges.
|
| So Amazon terminated their account.
|
| The ban of Trump from social networks is a different topic, I
| don't think Trump has a big fan base in EU, but it's the
| perfect excuse to demand what many have been advocating for
| years now: political control of the social network decisions,
| given that they can influence the public opinion (Facebook
| admitted today that their platform was used to spread violence
| in Myanmar)
|
| I have personally advocated for putting social network under
| public scrutiny or close their operations in EU.
|
| I am glad that the European Union is finally taking steps in
| that direction.
|
| EDIT:
|
| source -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25731121
| leothecool wrote:
| > they were actively moderating the platform to push it on
| the far right side
|
| Do you have a source for this? I tried googling it for ~5
| minutes, but my google-fu is too weak.
| africanboy wrote:
| source:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25731121
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I'm left wing but I despair for the future of the left.
|
| If the right had control of the tech companies it would have
| removed left content years ago and never blinked or even thought
| twice about it.
|
| The right never agonises over its own strong decisions, whereas
| the left, if it takes strong action , wrings its hands in agony
| about whether it has done the correct thing or not.
|
| That's why in the long run the right will beat the left because
| it is utterly shameless in taken any action it can to assert
| power, whilst the left is reluctant to take any strong action.
|
| The left scores a knockdown on the right via social media
| restriction, but soon enough, the left will offer a hand to help
| the right back up so they can win the fight.
| tsherr wrote:
| The right says "all of us are together, and we have to keep
| those guys out."
|
| The left says "we're all together, but we should convince
| everyone to come to our side."
|
| FUD and tribalism are easier to win with.
| luckylion wrote:
| I believe you're projecting a picture you'd like to see. One
| that is painting the side you consider yourself to be a part of
| as morally clean and just, while the other side is
| reprehensible and shameless.
|
| It has little to do with reality, and it's obvious that you
| haven't spent time with conservatives. It's not useful to only
| learn about those who think differently from yourself by
| listening to what those who think like you say about them. Your
| perception seems heavily based on shrill far left voices. It's
| essentially a mirror image of what somebody on the far-right
| thinks about progressives after hearing about what they
| do/did/want to do by listening to shrill far-right voices.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Future of the Left btw. is one of the best bands ever and are
| very helpful if you need a distraction from all this BS.
|
| I fully agree on the notion that the right wields every power
| it can get, while the left doesn't.
|
| We now have two years ahead of us where the Democrats are in
| full power of the US government. Let's see what they do with
| it. I'm especially interested if they are going to make sure to
| help themselves for the next election, by combating the voter
| suppression tactics that the Republicans use.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| My guess is that the Democrats will be unlikely to make
| radical changes needed to fix all the things that need to be
| fixed.
|
| I see the left side of politics generally as weak and unable
| to take strong action.
|
| The left likes to listen - an admirable trait, but listening
| and collaborating too much dilutes outcomes.
| mistermann wrote:
| > The left likes to listen - an admirable trait, but
| listening and collaborating too much dilutes outcomes.
|
| Who on the left (or any pole/dimension) has actually sat
| down and made a _serious_ effort to understand in high
| detail the various grievances and world views of the type
| of people who stormed the Capitol, or conspiracy theorists?
|
| I'm not asserting that no one has done it, but I have never
| encountered anyone who has. The best I know of is the
| Jubilee YouTube channel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/jubileemedia/videos
|
| What I have encountered though, in very large quantities
| (essentially, the entirety of journalism and social media
| comments on the matter) are people who _make detailed
| claims_ about what these sorts of people say, or believe,
| or want to do - and typically, they state these beliefs not
| in the form of opinions, _but in the form of facts_. But to
| be fair, I doubt that they even realize that they aren 't
| facts, that's just the unfortunate way that our minds
| perceive reality.
| loxs wrote:
| The sad thing is that this is exactly how the right sees the
| actions of the left. and it's even worse, as they (the left)
| are now winning. Their eyes are not blinking - they don't care
| about freedom of speech or fair game.
|
| In the long run, both sides start to see this modus operandi as
| completely normal. Censorship and vengeance to the other side
| are completely acceptable.
|
| As a libertarian, I am utterly horrified.
| j_walter wrote:
| This. We don't have civil discourse anymore...people just
| yell and call people names. You don't like what the other
| person says they are a "libtard"...or a "racist". You don't
| like what they are doing online, get them kicked off or dox
| them to your friends. Justify online bullying like it's a
| sport. Now it's escalated to not just banning them from
| social media...but a coordinated effort to destroy the
| alternative platform they had.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| When did speaking truth to power become "bullying"? And
| anyway, removing those who spew violent rhetoric is how
| civility is restored. The fact that the response to Twitter
| bans is so violent proves somebody needed to be silenced.
| grahamburger wrote:
| What is the proper libertarian response to current events?
| Asking in good faith, honestly curious.
|
| To be fair, I'm curious about what the response would be to
| BLM riots+politician involvement, MAGA riots+president
| involvement, and big tech censorship in response.
| loxs wrote:
| - Corporations have the right to censor whatever they want.
| But that's not moral (what they are doing currently). We
| should abandon these instances and find better ways to
| communicate - less centralized.
|
| - Store owners (and property owners in general) should be
| able to defend their property with firepower (or pay for
| such services) freely, without fear of repercussions. This
| stands both against BLM and MAGA. Of course, this luxury is
| not allowed in the current world.
|
| So we have to find find better ways - don't stand in the
| way of a moving train, but find ways to survive and prosper
| no matter. We move to greener pastures, find jobs that are
| better paying with less risks, learn to be adaptive and
| prepared.
|
| For me personally, this means that I did not move to the
| USA when I had the chance. I prefer not to work for US
| companies (especially the SV commie bunch), I don't travel
| to the USA any more. And I try to be vigilant with regards
| to the dangers that come from there (and will inevitably
| become worse, at least in the near future).
| grahamburger wrote:
| Thank you for the thoughtful response. I mostly agree -
| we can criticize corporations for their current actions
| from a moral perspective but not a legal one.
|
| To your second point - isn't the U.S. one of the only
| developed countries where you kind of can do this? I
| regularly see armed guards in front of private
| businesses, from Walmarts in the middle of nowhere to
| dispensaries in downtown SF.
|
| (FWIW I think calling SV tech 'commies' is off the mark -
| Marx would find little in common with the SV tech
| industry, I think.)
| loxs wrote:
| Yeah, the US is better than many countries with regards
| of laws that allow you to stand your ground. That's
| exactly the reason that made me consider moving there.
| Not any more :-(.
|
| I might have overplayed the 'commie' part a little. Still
| what I see there is quite in line with the practices of
| the former Eastern Block - I am from Bulgaria and I had
| "the chance" to live in a communist society until I was
| 8. The witch hunting is copied basically 1:1, and also
| the "witch profile" is surprisingly the same - evil
| capitalist "pigs", presumably white and presumably
| racist/nazi.
| ndiscussion wrote:
| I used to be a libertarian until I realized my ideals would
| lead to my own party's censorship and demise.
|
| This meme sums it up: https://imgur.com/a/DZJoWKa
| grahamburger wrote:
| Yes this is mostly my feeling to. A central part of
| libertarianism seems to be insisting the governments give
| up power, which is all well and good until someone worse
| steps in to pick it up.
| loxs wrote:
| Until you realize that big government is what keeps
| monopolies in place and what forces them to act
| politically.
| j_walter wrote:
| Spoken like someone that only sees right and left. In fact many
| people on the "right" were tired of seeing FB and Twitter
| control so much and they were constantly told it's a private
| platform so go make your own. They did so, and then those same
| companies worked in tandem to destroy Parler. Signal and
| WhatsApp are used to coordinate violent and destructive
| riots...we don't see anyone trying to take them down. The
| opinion is they do more good than bad...despite the ability to
| use them for either purpose.
|
| There are people on the left and right that are power hungry
| and make decisions only to benefit themselves...however some
| people actually care about freedoms and fairness. Bad and
| illegal behavior will happen in any system with
| freedoms...banning those systems is not the answer.
| sbuk wrote:
| This is the paradox of tolerance, which says for a tolerant
| society to remain tolerant, it cannot tolerate intolerance.
|
| Many people need to learn the difference between de-
| platforming and censorship - in this case Parler is
| essentially being de-platformed by private businesses who no
| longer wish to do business with them, which is their right.
| As a free speech advocate, surely you must accept that that
| extends to a company of people, be that 1, 1000 or 10000
| people, otherwise you're advocating for double-standards (see
| above). Forcibly compelling businesses (which include sole-
| traders or individuals) to conduct business with anyone that
| wants to avail themselves of their product, which is what the
| EC is advocating, if far more worrisome for free speech.
|
| Moreover, there is nothing stopping the "silenced"
| organisations and people from creating their own platform.
| Blocking organisations and individuals from accessing the
| internet is problematic, but in this situation somewhat
| ironic. The side cheering the bans (no, not leftist, America
| doesn't really have left-wing politics) were pushing net
| neutrality and the internet as a public service while those
| being de-platforming were adamant that this would be a bad
| thing.
| [deleted]
| bmaisonp wrote:
| What makes you think that these platforms are actually taking
| action for "the left?" Is silicon valley actually a leftist
| paradise full of leftist megacorperations?
| j_walter wrote:
| Ummm...yes
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/facebook-
| inc/summary?all=20...
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-
| corp/summary?id=D...
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-
| com/summary?all=2020...
| bmaisonp wrote:
| They are certainly aligned with the US Democratic party,
| but I think it's a mistake to equate the Democrats with
| "the left" unless you're only speaking in that total
| American context where "Left=Dems, Right=GOP, end of
| story."
| com wrote:
| Where I live, US Democratic Party policy positions would
| be held by unelectable right wingers. I agree that
| confusing some kind of left alignment with the US
| Democratic Party is not advisable, even in parts of the
| USA.
| africanboy wrote:
| the Democratic party of the USA is center-leftish at best.
|
| For example they don't openly support
|
| - unions
|
| - universal free healthcare
|
| - strong workers' guaranteed rights (paid holidays, paid
| sick leave, paternity/maternity, limited working hours -
| e.g. max 40 hours per week -, overtime pay etc. etc.)
| yuliyp wrote:
| > they don't openly support
|
| What's the definition of openly support you're using?
| Going off the party platform, it seems like they do:
|
| > unions
|
| > strong workers' guaranteed rights
|
| https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-
| platform/building... see the section "Protecting Workers
| and Families and Creating Millions of Jobs Across
| America"
|
| > universal free healthcare
|
| Except for the word "free", https://democrats.org/where-
| we-stand/party-platform/achievin... makes their position
| on universal health care clear. Exactly how the cost gets
| shared by society is something that's a bit more nuanced
| (there's no way for it to be completely free; the
| question is how much is funded by taxes vs other fees).
| africanboy wrote:
| that's interesting.
|
| thanks for posting it.
|
| My knowledge of their program was evidently not updated
| with their latest propositions.
|
| I hope they'll make it this time.
| Veen wrote:
| Your analysis is not useful because no such entities as "the
| left" and "the right" exist. It's not remotely helpful to lump
| complex and differentiated phenomena into binary categories so
| you can attach simple motivations and behaviors to them.
| mistermann wrote:
| I agree, but will offer a supplementary idea to:
|
| > It's not remotely helpful to lump complex and
| differentiated phenomena into binary categories so you can
| attach simple motivations and behaviors to them
|
| It's not "helpful", to the general populace, but it is
| extremely _useful_ to existing power structures to divide the
| populace up along various dimensions and then "attach (via
| sophisticated media narratives) simple motivations and
| behaviors to them". Advertising and marketing does just this,
| and it works quite well, and is there not plentiful evidence
| that at least _suggests_ the same may be happening to some
| degree in the realm of politics?
|
| https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-clear-pill-
| part-1-of-5-th...
|
| When people hear one story, they tend to ask: _is this true_?
| When they hear two stories, they tend to ask: _which one of
| these is true_? Isn't this a neat trick? Maybe our whole
| world is built on it. Any point on which both poles concur is
| shared story: "uncontroversial, bipartisan consensus."
|
| Shared story has root privilege. It has no natural enemies
| and is automatically true. Injecting ideas into it is
| nontrivial and hence lucrative; this profession is called
| "PR."
|
| There is no reason to assume that either pole of the spectrum
| of conflict, or the middle, or the shared story, is any
| closer to reality than the single pole of the one-story
| state.
|
| Dividing the narrative has not answered the old question: is
| any of this true? Rather, it has... dodged it. Stagecraft!
|
| This is even better than supposing that, since we fought
| Hitler and Hitler was bad, we must be good. These very basic
| fallacies, or psychological exploits, are deeply embedded in
| our political operating systems. Like bugs in code, they are
| invisible until you look straight at them. Then they are
| obvious.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Edit: to all those downvoters, I've seen how
| socialism/communism simply doesn't work long term, how it ruins
| society and decent people living in it, first hand, as much as
| possible. So its a bit more personal than anonymous internet
| ninja philosophers so popular not only here these days.
|
| What you write doesn't make much sense. The world isn't black
| and white, and left and right have whole spectrum. The ultra
| (left or right) never overthink their decision, always feel
| righteous even if heading straight to hell. If you think
| moderate left (ie EU from US perspective), it might be a
| correct assessment from certain point of view (not a big fan of
| EU here, I like the theory but not many things in practice).
|
| Moderate right/centrists could be described exactly same things
| as you say about left.
|
| Why right might beat left, at least in theory, is because it
| gives people more money directly. People like that. tey like to
| have some control over such an important thing. Instead of
| massive taxation, that in ideal world isn't stolen in some way
| (in reality much/most of it is, or at least very badly
| mismanaged) and spent in social, health, education,
| infrastructure etc.
|
| Once folks see real money, they have at least some
| control/choice over it. Even if kindergardens cost a fortune
| (there are other options in some cases), and paid maternity
| leave is shorter (you can stay longer but unpaid). And health
| care might cost something (but apart from US its not a bad idea
| generally, works great in Switzerland for example).
|
| Oh and don't forget the lean state aparate, very attractive
| unless you are actually some semi-useless otherwise
| unemployable state bureaucrat. And so on.
| krona wrote:
| It's rather infantile to think forcing millions of people you
| disapprove of off a platform would make them magically
| disappear.
|
| Does closing your eyes make the monsters under your bed go
| away?
| mhh__ wrote:
| I don't think the left could be reasonably construed to be in
| charge of social media. By output there's a lot of socialists
| online, for example, but they're not in charge.
|
| Maybe some hyper-partisan American concept of leftism.
|
| I absolutely agree that the right is partly successful because
| it isn't afraid to punch down from the status-quo. I'm a
| centre-right liberal democrat (UK), so I'm no socialist -
| although I firmly believe that most right-wingers are of the
| "capitalism for you, socialism for me"-type in practice.
| didibus wrote:
| You probably should say the "center" instead of the "left". Or
| maybe the "liberals". That's because the "left" historically
| has been as assertive as the "right" if you look at the extreme
| communist parties VS fascists/feudal parties.
|
| I do think you have a point though, but you can't be liberal
| and authoritarian at the same time. So to push for liberal
| ideas and laws/rights, while also pushing to enforce it through
| anti-liberal means is pretty contradictory, and so it makes
| sense most liberals don't do so.
|
| Also remember that liberal societies are the exception in human
| history, not the rule. Almost never have people rallied around
| the idea that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and
| property and governments must not violate these rights.
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