4 ms·

"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 mate

"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use marijuana have gay sex" and "gipsies don't work and live off the rest of us"; the person's professional license has been revoked as a consequence, so the TV station are being held responsible for airing blatantly illegal content by a disaccredited "psychologist".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).
    - owebmaster 9y ago
      > The reasoning that they can pay means they should is almost defining corruption, and an easy way for a govt to get money. If the system is good enough for you to make hundreds of billions of some years, yes, you should expend a lot to conform with society's needs. > You can't ignore the complex design off millions off people streaming millions of text inputs daily and checking it all 100%. You can't allow a company to have so much power over millions of people just because it is difficult to make it conform and keep working. Guess what, find a better solution. The world is not 1% better with all this live Facebook BS, I'd not give a care if it was all shutdown. It is not a free speech problem if they are exploiting it for their own benefit.
Asooka 9y ago
I'm a European citizen and I do not agree that said content should be illegal. I suspect OP would back me (partly) on the reasoning: I don't want it to be illegal, because policing it requires the instatement of an automatic censorship framework, that even if it works perfectly, can be trivially re-used for stifling more speech. Not regulating media has bad consequences, but regulating media has even worse consequences. You can't save people from themselves.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  It not being illegal, someone can use the internet to distort reality and public opinion using "machine learning" or blaming their "AI".

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).
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    > The reasoning that they can pay means they should is almost defining corruption, and an easy way for a govt to get money. If the system is good enough for you to make hundreds of billions of some years, yes, you should expend a lot to conform with society's needs. > You can't ignore the complex design off millions off people streaming millions of text inputs daily and checking it all 100%. You can't allow a company to have so much power over millions of people just because it is difficult to make it conform and keep working. Guess what, find a better solution. The world is not 1% better with all this live Facebook BS, I'd not give a care if it was all shutdown. It is not a free speech problem if they are exploiting it for their own benefit.

Asooka 9y ago

I'm a European citizen and I do not agree that said content should be illegal. I suspect OP would back me (partly) on the reasoning: I don't want it to be illegal, because policing it requires the instatement of an automatic censorship framework, that even if it works perfectly, can be trivially re-used for stifling more speech. Not regulating media has bad consequences, but regulating media has even worse consequences. You can't save people from themselves.

owebmaster 9y ago
It not being illegal, someone can use the internet to distort reality and public opinion using "machine learning" or blaming their "AI".