10 ms·

Twitter should not enforce ridiculous German laws. The tech companies need to call the bluff of countries that demand censorship.

by nsnick 9y ago

rimliu 9y ago
So you say thech companies are above the law? What could go wrong…
- nsnick 9y ago
  Certainly not. Germany can block twitter, but I don't think the German people will accept that. Countries that love censorship need to realize that if they want to be part of the global discourse, they need to be part of all of the global discourse.
  - somenewacc 9y ago
    I'm not sure that calls for genocide are part of the global discourse.
    - abiox 9y ago
      this seems like a red herring or something... are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about? is there a legitimate possibility that, say, bob goes on twitter and says 'kill all romanians!' and suddenly there's a genocide of romanians? it's doesn't make sense. i mean, i get that it's attempting to appeal to one's aversion to a very bad idea, but random bob can't cause a genocide. a strong dictatorship a la hitler or stalin on the other hand... well, that's a much bigger problem than trying to regulate mean words.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about? If you're a member of the subject group, then they most certainly are. Instead of constructing silly examples, let me suggest you look into the history of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia or Hutu-Tutsi animus in Rwanda.
        abiox 9y ago
        military or organized physical violence is not the same as a random yokel saying dumb things on the internet. invoking real world violence as a stand-in for which one calibrates their regard for a person's tweets seems more like an emotional appeal rather than a logical dialog.
        anigbrowl 9y ago
        The internet is a great organizing tool, and you have no way to know whether any given comment is random or coordinated.
        abiox 9y ago
        seems like a nonsequitur; either way, if a bad guy wants to throw away opsec and publicly document information for a court to use as evidence... well, i guess it's nice that they're making policework much easier.
    - nine_k 9y ago
      Sorry, here's reality for you. A lot of unpleasant, dangerous, and clearly wrong ideas are present outside your filter bubble. Being aware of them may be also unpleasant and dangerous, but pretending they do not exist, and are not being voiced, is delusional. Choose your poison.
      - Daishiman 9y ago
        We all know these ideas existed. Nobody's pretending that they don't exist. We can be aware of ideas existing without being advocates of them.
    - sintaxi 9y ago
      That isn't an argument. People who call for genocide can be charged with a crime. There is no reason to remove the content from public record until there is a conviction, and even then there is an argument to be made to leave the content online as an example of what not to say if you want to stay out of jail.
      - anigbrowl 9y ago
        You can charge them with a crime, but leaving specifically objectionable content up is rather pointless because you're not litigating whether it's specifically prohibited (as calls for genocide are in Germany) but whether liability attaches to the apparent speaker/writer (whose account might have been compromised, for example). Another reason not to leave it up is because it's frightening to the subjects of such eliminationist discourse, who shouldn't have to put up with being considered acceptable targets for systematic violence.
    - nsnick 9y ago
      If you are not sure, I say we err on the side of freedom of speech.
- abiox 9y ago
  if the law states that companies are deputized to act as police and enforce the law of the land, then i guess they have to comply. do the companies engaging in policing actions receive the same protections and considerations as actual police and government officials when it comes to legal issues involved with the act of law enforcement? i feel it's better that the state should be expected to take responsibility for and enforce it's own laws.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    Companies aren't "deputised". They are just required to follow laws. It's nothing new, nor limited to Germany, nor nefarious: US companies are routinely required to cooperate with the government. When they submit tax information, have the foodstuffs they sell inspected for contamination, when they ask for your driver's license before selling you alcohol or when they put a "you must be this tall" cardboard cutout at the roller-coster's entrance.
    - abiox 9y ago
      what i mean is: if a law just says 'people can't say mean words', is every private company expected to thereafter analyze all words that exist on it's platform (be it twitter, or sms text, or gmail, etc) make a determination as to whether those words violate the law, and are then expected to take some action, based on it's assessment that a crime or civil offense has been committed? that's what i mean by deputized. if the law doesn't say the company is required to take an action, the company should be mostly indifferent to the law's interaction with third parties. further, it's a bit silly for a law to say that a company should make assessments of criminality or civil offenses, especially if they aren't provided the same legal privileges that police receive for doing the same thing.
shaki-dora 9y ago
That's such a juvenile reaction... Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. These are laws passed by the national parliament, elected to represent its constituents. The law is subject to approval by not only the national courts, but the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights. To somehow consider it a grave injustice when Twitter is now required to act when they are informed of activity considered illegal in that jurisdiction is ridiculous. Because presumably you're doing so out of some understanding of "democracy". Yet you are ignoring quite a bit of the local democracy that lead to this.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >That's such a juvenile reaction... Ban this user for ageism /s
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. The German people have always had a strong authoritarian "we know best" streak and it has caused a lot of problems in the past. Hence why the peoples of other nations are much more concerned by Germany trying to dictate what constitutes free speech on the internet than they are by a few tweets.
- Amezarak 9y ago
  > There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. One of the reasons people regard these rankings as a total joke is exactly because of incidents like this - Twitter being forced to delete satirical tweets. More broadly, I think most people would agree that beyond the extremes (say, US vs North Korea), the precise rankings of countries on these metrics are based on questionable methodologies with vague priors and are generated largely by politically motivated organizations.
nine_k 9y ago
Twitter, if it wants to continue operating in Germany without facing lawsuits / prosecution, has to bow to German law. It would be better if they could just reliably block the account from reaching German users only, while other users would continue reading the tweets. It, of course, is impossible unless Germany implements a country-wide firewall, the way China did. I don't think it's likely, though. The point of actions like this is not to strictly eliminate any last vestige of hate speech. It is to send a message, so that other would-be-satirists could reconsider starting an account that breaks the law, and that other international companies which deal with UGC knew what to expect, and took preventive measures.
- synotna 9y ago
  Reddit does geofence some subreddits in at least Germany, returning status code 451
  - germanier 9y ago
    Which they are not forced to do as there is no such law that binds foreign companies that would apply to those subreddits. They preemptively blocked it completely after they received a letter with some questions by a German government agency that was thinking about including a subreddit into an official block list used by (voluntary to use) youth-protection software or Google. Even if it had been included in the list, it would have been accessible from Germany.

Twitter should not enforce ridiculous German laws. The tech companies need to call the bluff of countries that demand censorship.

by nsnick 9y ago

Twitter should not enforce ridiculous German laws. The tech companies need to call the bluff of countries that demand censorship.

rimliu 9y ago

So you say thech companies are above the law? What could go wrong…

nsnick 9y ago
Certainly not. Germany can block twitter, but I don't think the German people will accept that. Countries that love censorship need to realize that if they want to be part of the global discourse, they need to be part of all of the global discourse.
- somenewacc 9y ago
  I'm not sure that calls for genocide are part of the global discourse.
  - abiox 9y ago
    this seems like a red herring or something... are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about? is there a legitimate possibility that, say, bob goes on twitter and says 'kill all romanians!' and suddenly there's a genocide of romanians? it's doesn't make sense. i mean, i get that it's attempting to appeal to one's aversion to a very bad idea, but random bob can't cause a genocide. a strong dictatorship a la hitler or stalin on the other hand... well, that's a much bigger problem than trying to regulate mean words.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      are 'calls for genocide' actually a thing worth caring about? If you're a member of the subject group, then they most certainly are. Instead of constructing silly examples, let me suggest you look into the history of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia or Hutu-Tutsi animus in Rwanda.
      - abiox 9y ago
        military or organized physical violence is not the same as a random yokel saying dumb things on the internet. invoking real world violence as a stand-in for which one calibrates their regard for a person's tweets seems more like an emotional appeal rather than a logical dialog.
        anigbrowl 9y ago
        The internet is a great organizing tool, and you have no way to know whether any given comment is random or coordinated.
        abiox 9y ago
        seems like a nonsequitur; either way, if a bad guy wants to throw away opsec and publicly document information for a court to use as evidence... well, i guess it's nice that they're making policework much easier.
  - nine_k 9y ago
    Sorry, here's reality for you. A lot of unpleasant, dangerous, and clearly wrong ideas are present outside your filter bubble. Being aware of them may be also unpleasant and dangerous, but pretending they do not exist, and are not being voiced, is delusional. Choose your poison.
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      We all know these ideas existed. Nobody's pretending that they don't exist. We can be aware of ideas existing without being advocates of them.
  - sintaxi 9y ago
    That isn't an argument. People who call for genocide can be charged with a crime. There is no reason to remove the content from public record until there is a conviction, and even then there is an argument to be made to leave the content online as an example of what not to say if you want to stay out of jail.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      You can charge them with a crime, but leaving specifically objectionable content up is rather pointless because you're not litigating whether it's specifically prohibited (as calls for genocide are in Germany) but whether liability attaches to the apparent speaker/writer (whose account might have been compromised, for example). Another reason not to leave it up is because it's frightening to the subjects of such eliminationist discourse, who shouldn't have to put up with being considered acceptable targets for systematic violence.
  - nsnick 9y ago
    If you are not sure, I say we err on the side of freedom of speech.
abiox 9y ago
if the law states that companies are deputized to act as police and enforce the law of the land, then i guess they have to comply. do the companies engaging in policing actions receive the same protections and considerations as actual police and government officials when it comes to legal issues involved with the act of law enforcement? i feel it's better that the state should be expected to take responsibility for and enforce it's own laws.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  Companies aren't "deputised". They are just required to follow laws. It's nothing new, nor limited to Germany, nor nefarious: US companies are routinely required to cooperate with the government. When they submit tax information, have the foodstuffs they sell inspected for contamination, when they ask for your driver's license before selling you alcohol or when they put a "you must be this tall" cardboard cutout at the roller-coster's entrance.
  - abiox 9y ago
    what i mean is: if a law just says 'people can't say mean words', is every private company expected to thereafter analyze all words that exist on it's platform (be it twitter, or sms text, or gmail, etc) make a determination as to whether those words violate the law, and are then expected to take some action, based on it's assessment that a crime or civil offense has been committed? that's what i mean by deputized. if the law doesn't say the company is required to take an action, the company should be mostly indifferent to the law's interaction with third parties. further, it's a bit silly for a law to say that a company should make assessments of criminality or civil offenses, especially if they aren't provided the same legal privileges that police receive for doing the same thing.

shaki-dora 9y ago

That's such a juvenile reaction... Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. These are laws passed by the national parliament, elected to represent its constituents. The law is subject to approval by not only the national courts, but the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights. To somehow consider it a grave injustice when Twitter is now required to act when they are informed of activity considered illegal in that jurisdiction is ridiculous. Because presumably you're doing so out of some understanding of "democracy". Yet you are ignoring quite a bit of the local democracy that lead to this.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
creaghpatr 9y ago
>That's such a juvenile reaction... Ban this user for ageism /s
sheepmullet 9y ago
> Germany is considering a stable, open, democratic, peaceful, constructive and successful country. The German people have always had a strong authoritarian "we know best" streak and it has caused a lot of problems in the past. Hence why the peoples of other nations are much more concerned by Germany trying to dictate what constitutes free speech on the internet than they are by a few tweets.
Amezarak 9y ago
> There are any number of rankings/scoring regarding freedom of the press and of expression, resilience to corruption, democracy, economic opportunity etc in which Germany scores better than the US. One of the reasons people regard these rankings as a total joke is exactly because of incidents like this - Twitter being forced to delete satirical tweets. More broadly, I think most people would agree that beyond the extremes (say, US vs North Korea), the precise rankings of countries on these metrics are based on questionable methodologies with vague priors and are generated largely by politically motivated organizations.

nine_k 9y ago

Twitter, if it wants to continue operating in Germany without facing lawsuits / prosecution, has to bow to German law. It would be better if they could just reliably block the account from reaching German users only, while other users would continue reading the tweets. It, of course, is impossible unless Germany implements a country-wide firewall, the way China did. I don't think it's likely, though. The point of actions like this is not to strictly eliminate any last vestige of hate speech. It is to send a message, so that other would-be-satirists could reconsider starting an account that breaks the law, and that other international companies which deal with UGC knew what to expect, and took preventive measures.

synotna 9y ago
Reddit does geofence some subreddits in at least Germany, returning status code 451
- germanier 9y ago
  Which they are not forced to do as there is no such law that binds foreign companies that would apply to those subreddits. They preemptively blocked it completely after they received a letter with some questions by a German government agency that was thinking about including a subreddit into an official block list used by (voluntary to use) youth-protection software or Google. Even if it had been included in the list, it would have been accessible from Germany.