5 ms·

As a European I love to write smug rants on the internet about how our governments and our political culture are better than those of the US. However, stuff lik

As a European I love to write smug rants on the internet about how our governments and our political culture are better than those of the US. However, stuff like this worries me. We need more freedom of speech, not less. The US is miles ahead of us in this respect. Here in Europe, we're missing that fundamental value of "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it". Instead, it's more like "I disagree with what you say so I'm going to try to get you arrested for it". Eg Dutch xenophobe politician Geert Wilders got dragged into court twice! (ridiculous, and also countereffective because guess what it did for his ratings) This sort of stuff is much worse, however. Given the 24 hour deadline, the only way Facebook reasonably can implement this is automation. A computer program determining whether my post is hate speech or satire? Seriously? Computers can't even tell the difference between a puppy and a cupcake. Why does anyone think this is a good idea? A long time ago I used to hang out on an IRC channel that banned "bad words". The bot was very enthusiastically tuned with conservative American values. There was a user called "War^" but "war" was a forbidden word. Talking to him got you kicked out, mentioning him thrice got you banned. Obviously, the solution there was simple: leave the IRC channel and never come back. But I'm not sure people will feel they have the same option for their favorite social media.

realusername 9y ago
"Freedom of Speech" only is there until you have some nudity on US-owned social media strangely. You can put as much blood as you want but not one picture with some small nudity in it, there are definitely cultural issues on the US side as well. The only picture I've ever reported was a picture of the Bataclan massacre used for karma and I got told by Facebook that it did not violate any guidelines.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Freedom of speech applies to prior or posterior restraint by government. It does not mean that anyone who owns a platform has to let you say whatever you like on it. There's an old canard about how speech is only truly free for those who own a printing press - fortunately, running a website requires much less capital investment, and distribution is pretty much automatic, too. Don't mistake my intent here - it would vastly understate the case to say merely that I do not love Facebook. But free speech is the wrong line of attack, because that is something which we have no legal precedent for obliging them to provide, and this lack of precedent has enduring value exceeding what we might in the short term realize from its contravention.
  - Asooka 9y ago
    Parent was talking about the "Freedom of Speech" that's imbued in the American zeitgeist. It is crystallised most clearly in the first amendment, but in general Americans value their freedom of speech in many situations where the one taking the speech away is not the government per se, but another ruling body acting as de-facto government over some small area of influence. And really, if the best you can say about censoring my speech is that "it's not illegal", maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      You're quite right that freedom of speech and expression is a core American value. Another core American value is independence of thought and action. We are a nation of grown-ass men and women who do not require a company, a government, or any other arbitrary authority to sign off on the exercise of those rights and liberties which are our common birthright. So if Facebook chooses not to permit its users to say controversial things, the American response is not to go crying to Daddy to make that mean old mister Zuckerberg be nice, but instead to say: "Well, then, you do just as you please - and be damned to you, because I will go and do as I please." And then, suiting action to word, to set up one's own website, where one may speak as one likes without fear of being suppressed by the ukaze of some billionaire overlord. We do, after all, still have an open Internet. I think it would behoove us to use it. To that last point, let me reiterate that I have no love for Facebook, and would prefer that such a behemoth, opaque monstrosity - with such an astonishing degree of power to mediate the social interactions of more than a quarter of our entire species - not only did not, but could not, exist. That is far too much power to inhere in any single organization. Where we differ, I think, is in our evaluation of the most useful method of taking that power away from the organization which holds it now. You seem inclined to prefer that government should do so - an obvious answer, to be sure, but in my view fatally flawed insomuch as that, in taking that power away from Facebook, this government would necessarily gather that same power to itself. (Who else, after all, would you have tell Facebook what to do?) I would rather see that power, not still further agglomerated into a different monolithic bloc of same, but rather atomized. It seems to me much more in accord with American values that this mass power be broken down and distributed among many individuals, such that each may exercise her rights with the maximum liberty to do so, and none may forbid another from doing likewise. There are some really exciting projects underway right now to build a framework in which this can happen - indeed, a framework in which nothing else can happen, wherein the construction of a Facebook in anything like its present leviathan form is impossible because it has no apparent benefit to offer. This is a very long-term goal, I freely concede! I may not live to see it bear fruit, if indeed it ever succeeds in so doing. But nothing else of which I'm aware offers a better prospect of upholding those American values which my fellows and I hold so dear.
tmalsburg2 9y ago
> We need more freedom of speech, not less. You seem to be very convinced of this. Could you please list one or two concrete cases where you think free speech was too limited in Europe and where this limitation led to a poor outcome for society? I think this could make your argument much stronger.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cr1895 9y ago
  I'm not the OP you're asking, but here's one example where a Dutch man was jailed for insulting the king: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/07/man-jailed-for-insulting-the-dutch-king/ http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/07/man-jailed-for... edit: more examples from some other European countries http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries-where-is-it-a-criminal-offence-to-insult-a-head-of http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries...
  - tmalsburg2 9y ago
    While I agree that it's bad to prevent people from speaking poorly about a king, that's not representative of the kinds of things that the German law is addressing. As such this is not a very strong example, IMO.
    - cr1895 9y ago
      You asked for examples in which free speech was too limited and resulted in a poor outcome for society. You asked that in response to: "We need more freedom of speech, not less. The US is miles ahead of us in this respect. Here in Europe, we're missing that fundamental value of "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it". Instead, it's more like "I disagree with what you say so I'm going to try to get you arrested for it"." Therefore my example is germane and quite a clear example given your question. Here are more examples (again Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Spain): http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries-where-is-it-a-criminal-offence-to-insult-a-head-of http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries...
privateprofile 9y ago
"From October, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites with more that two million users in Germany must take down posts containing hate speech or other criminal material within 24 hours. Content that is not obviously unlawful must be assessed within seven days." To me, this seems more like reasonable regulation than oppression, although some people confuse these concepts, or have a financial interest in conflating personal freedoms with market deregulation. The german government is asking for Facebook to promptly remove content that is obviously illegal in Germany (and most of the world), like murder videos, hate speech, etc. Sounds reasonable to me. TV stations in some (most?) European countries can be held legally responsible for the content they air. This is (fortunately) happening right now where I live, where a private TV station is being investigated for repeatedly airing a program where a psychologist spreads hate speech and fake science like "people who use marijuana have gay sex" and "gipsies don't work and live off the rest of us"; the person's professional license has been revoked as a consequence, so the TV station are being held responsible for airing blatantly illegal content by a disaccredited "psychologist". That's why media needs basic regulation, IMO. After reporting numerous posts for hate speech and personal insults has zero, Facebook's response is always "no breach of our terms". But it's a breach of our society's terms, and fortunately we are still (mostly) held to the rule of law.
- jk563 9y ago
  Part of the issue with the comparison you're making is that the station you mention likely know what they were publishing at each point in time. Facebook is facing a situation more like trying to remove flyers in a town where everybody is putting up 3 new flyers per day.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    And the part you don't mention is that Facebook is making 1000x more money than your avg TV station so it is not a problem to have them to conform to society.
    - xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
      As much as I dislike facebook. The reasoning that they can pay means they should is almost defining corruption, and an easy way for a govt to get money. The problem is not one of morals, as I doubt fb wants this type off content at all. I think it's possibly unreasonable. It's fb vs the world quite literally. It's the nature off it's design. What's next? Police gets fined if they can't catch a criminal within a week? What about a fireman getting fined if he can't put out a fire within 20 minutes. All these things share an uncontrollable and unpredictable situation. You can't ignore the complex design off millions off people streaming millions of text inputs daily and checking it all 100%. That's monkey reasoning, black and white thinking fallacies. Fb should give insight and show how they battle it, but imo it's childish to randomly give 24 hours. At least come with an argument or 'standard' if u will (ie. 1 content checker person per 1k posts or w/e).
quakenul 9y ago
Let's be clear here: FB has been around for more than a decade. Germanys stance on hate speech has been clear all this while. Them now moving in to act on it in the digital domain is hardly a surprise. Social Media giants ignoring local laws, while being occupied with taking over the world truly makes for a great Cinderella story -- but maybe part of growing is also growing up and preparing the business to comply with local laws, instead of waving the "this is so unreasonable" card when you didn't do so for a decade and then eventually get fined for it.
- thinkloop 9y ago
  Local laws don't say that hate speech is allowed as long as it's within 24hrs. It's simply not allowed. But in an attempt to be reasonable for a distributed platform like FB, they are giving 24hrs - is 24hrs reasonable? That's a valid question.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tremon 9y ago
"Freedom of speech" does not entail "freedom of consequences" from said speech. The US also has limitations about what speech is allowed where or when (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone for example). Conspiracy to commit crime is also not protected by free speech laws, many people would argue rightly so. It is not a major leap of logic to extend those anti-conspiracy laws to "speech" that incites other people to commit crimes. A similar discussion can also be seen with Brexit in the UK: hate crimes have been steadily increasing since the Brexit campaign, and many people have been pointing at the divisive and malicious discourse surrounding that as one of the causes. So yes, while I agree with you that speech in general should never be prohibited, and I also agree that automated takedowns of content are not desirable (mainly because once that's in place, the algorithms then become the law -- and that is not where I want to be); I also think that companies that facilitate large-scale communication between citizens can not hide behind "free speech" arguments to completely disavow any and all responsibility for consequences of speech on their platform.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  I fully agree with you but I see no solution. How are said companies going to comply if not by broadly tuned ban bots?
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    The technology is not that different from the ones that make them a lot of money with eyeballs. FB and Google know what is happening, but they don't want to lose this easy money and have to find a new honest and socially ok revenue stream.

realusername 9y ago

"Freedom of Speech" only is there until you have some nudity on US-owned social media strangely. You can put as much blood as you want but not one picture with some small nudity in it, there are definitely cultural issues on the US side as well. The only picture I've ever reported was a picture of the Bataclan massacre used for karma and I got told by Facebook that it did not violate any guidelines.

throwanem 9y ago
Freedom of speech applies to prior or posterior restraint by government. It does not mean that anyone who owns a platform has to let you say whatever you like on it. There's an old canard about how speech is only truly free for those who own a printing press - fortunately, running a website requires much less capital investment, and distribution is pretty much automatic, too. Don't mistake my intent here - it would vastly understate the case to say merely that I do not love Facebook. But free speech is the wrong line of attack, because that is something which we have no legal precedent for obliging them to provide, and this lack of precedent has enduring value exceeding what we might in the short term realize from its contravention.
- Asooka 9y ago
  Parent was talking about the "Freedom of Speech" that's imbued in the American zeitgeist. It is crystallised most clearly in the first amendment, but in general Americans value their freedom of speech in many situations where the one taking the speech away is not the government per se, but another ruling body acting as de-facto government over some small area of influence. And really, if the best you can say about censoring my speech is that "it's not illegal", maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    You're quite right that freedom of speech and expression is a core American value. Another core American value is independence of thought and action. We are a nation of grown-ass men and women who do not require a company, a government, or any other arbitrary authority to sign off on the exercise of those rights and liberties which are our common birthright. So if Facebook chooses not to permit its users to say controversial things, the American response is not to go crying to Daddy to make that mean old mister Zuckerberg be nice, but instead to say: "Well, then, you do just as you please - and be damned to you, because I will go and do as I please." And then, suiting action to word, to set up one's own website, where one may speak as one likes without fear of being suppressed by the ukaze of some billionaire overlord. We do, after all, still have an open Internet. I think it would behoove us to use it. To that last point, let me reiterate that I have no love for Facebook, and would prefer that such a behemoth, opaque monstrosity - with such an astonishing degree of power to mediate the social interactions of more than a quarter of our entire species - not only did not, but could not, exist. That is far too much power to inhere in any single organization. Where we differ, I think, is in our evaluation of the most useful method of taking that power away from the organization which holds it now. You seem inclined to prefer that government should do so - an obvious answer, to be sure, but in my view fatally flawed insomuch as that, in taking that power away from Facebook, this government would necessarily gather that same power to itself. (Who else, after all, would you have tell Facebook what to do?) I would rather see that power, not still further agglomerated into a different monolithic bloc of same, but rather atomized. It seems to me much more in accord with American values that this mass power be broken down and distributed among many individuals, such that each may exercise her rights with the maximum liberty to do so, and none may forbid another from doing likewise. There are some really exciting projects underway right now to build a framework in which this can happen - indeed, a framework in which nothing else can happen, wherein the construction of a Facebook in anything like its present leviathan form is impossible because it has no apparent benefit to offer. This is a very long-term goal, I freely concede! I may not live to see it bear fruit, if indeed it ever succeeds in so doing. But nothing else of which I'm aware offers a better prospect of upholding those American values which my fellows and I hold so dear.

tmalsburg2 9y ago

> We need more freedom of speech, not less. You seem to be very convinced of this. Could you please list one or two concrete cases where you think free speech was too limited in Europe and where this limitation led to a poor outcome for society? I think this could make your argument much stronger.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cr1895 9y ago
I'm not the OP you're asking, but here's one example where a Dutch man was jailed for insulting the king: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/07/man-jailed-for-insulting-the-dutch-king/ http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/07/man-jailed-for... edit: more examples from some other European countries http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries-where-is-it-a-criminal-offence-to-insult-a-head-of http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries...
- tmalsburg2 9y ago
  While I agree that it's bad to prevent people from speaking poorly about a king, that's not representative of the kinds of things that the German law is addressing. As such this is not a very strong example, IMO.
  - cr1895 9y ago
    You asked for examples in which free speech was too limited and resulted in a poor outcome for society. You asked that in response to: "We need more freedom of speech, not less. The US is miles ahead of us in this respect. Here in Europe, we're missing that fundamental value of "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it". Instead, it's more like "I disagree with what you say so I'm going to try to get you arrested for it"." Therefore my example is germane and quite a clear example given your question. Here are more examples (again Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Spain): http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries-where-is-it-a-criminal-offence-to-insult-a-head-of http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/15/beyond-a-joke-7-countries...

privateprofile 9y ago

"From October, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites with more that two million users in Germany must take down posts containing hate speech or other criminal material within 24 hours. Content that is not obviously unlawful must be assessed within seven days." To me, this seems more like reasonable regulation than oppression, although some people confuse these concepts, or have a financial interest in conflating personal freedoms with market deregulation. The german government is asking for Facebook to promptly remove content that is obviously illegal in Germany (and most of the world), like murder videos, hate speech, etc. Sounds reasonable to me. TV stations in some (most?) European countries can be held legally responsible for the content they air. This is (fortunately) happening right now where I live, where a private TV station is being investigated for repeatedly airing a program where a psychologist spreads hate speech and fake science like "people who use marijuana have gay sex" and "gipsies don't work and live off the rest of us"; the person's professional license has been revoked as a consequence, so the TV station are being held responsible for airing blatantly illegal content by a disaccredited "psychologist". That's why media needs basic regulation, IMO. After reporting numerous posts for hate speech and personal insults has zero, Facebook's response is always "no breach of our terms". But it's a breach of our society's terms, and fortunately we are still (mostly) held to the rule of law.

jk563 9y ago
Part of the issue with the comparison you're making is that the station you mention likely know what they were publishing at each point in time. Facebook is facing a situation more like trying to remove flyers in a town where everybody is putting up 3 new flyers per day.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  And the part you don't mention is that Facebook is making 1000x more money than your avg TV station so it is not a problem to have them to conform to society.
  - xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
    As much as I dislike facebook. The reasoning that they can pay means they should is almost defining corruption, and an easy way for a govt to get money. The problem is not one of morals, as I doubt fb wants this type off content at all. I think it's possibly unreasonable. It's fb vs the world quite literally. It's the nature off it's design. What's next? Police gets fined if they can't catch a criminal within a week? What about a fireman getting fined if he can't put out a fire within 20 minutes. All these things share an uncontrollable and unpredictable situation. You can't ignore the complex design off millions off people streaming millions of text inputs daily and checking it all 100%. That's monkey reasoning, black and white thinking fallacies. Fb should give insight and show how they battle it, but imo it's childish to randomly give 24 hours. At least come with an argument or 'standard' if u will (ie. 1 content checker person per 1k posts or w/e).

quakenul 9y ago

Let's be clear here: FB has been around for more than a decade. Germanys stance on hate speech has been clear all this while. Them now moving in to act on it in the digital domain is hardly a surprise. Social Media giants ignoring local laws, while being occupied with taking over the world truly makes for a great Cinderella story -- but maybe part of growing is also growing up and preparing the business to comply with local laws, instead of waving the "this is so unreasonable" card when you didn't do so for a decade and then eventually get fined for it.

thinkloop 9y ago
Local laws don't say that hate speech is allowed as long as it's within 24hrs. It's simply not allowed. But in an attempt to be reasonable for a distributed platform like FB, they are giving 24hrs - is 24hrs reasonable? That's a valid question.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tremon 9y ago

"Freedom of speech" does not entail "freedom of consequences" from said speech. The US also has limitations about what speech is allowed where or when (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone for example). Conspiracy to commit crime is also not protected by free speech laws, many people would argue rightly so. It is not a major leap of logic to extend those anti-conspiracy laws to "speech" that incites other people to commit crimes. A similar discussion can also be seen with Brexit in the UK: hate crimes have been steadily increasing since the Brexit campaign, and many people have been pointing at the divisive and malicious discourse surrounding that as one of the causes. So yes, while I agree with you that speech in general should never be prohibited, and I also agree that automated takedowns of content are not desirable (mainly because once that's in place, the algorithms then become the law -- and that is not where I want to be); I also think that companies that facilitate large-scale communication between citizens can not hide behind "free speech" arguments to completely disavow any and all responsibility for consequences of speech on their platform.

skrebbel 9y ago
I fully agree with you but I see no solution. How are said companies going to comply if not by broadly tuned ban bots?
- owebmaster 9y ago
  The technology is not that different from the ones that make them a lot of money with eyeballs. FB and Google know what is happening, but they don't want to lose this easy money and have to find a new honest and socially ok revenue stream.