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How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? If every country

How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? If every country with an economy the size of 1 or 2 large US states start making up their own censorship laws and trying to force companies to enforce them, at some point this causes huge inefficiencies. I can see two end states to this: 1. If the censoring country has enough international legal influence, companies will probably have to block users from that country from using their services. 2. If the censoring country does not have enough international legal influence, the company ignores them and the government has to explicitly censor its citizens' internet connections. I kind of prefer the second because it's more visible and dramatic - I think a lot of people probably aren't even aware when their country has censorship laws. This also creates economic opportunities for two classes of alternative content distribution: 1. Content distribution based out of legally friendly countries, a la the Sultanate of Kinakuta. Expect to see the media start using terms styled after "tax haven", like "cybercrime haven", for countries that don't enforce US/EU censorship/copyright laws. 2. Content distribution based off of peer-to-peer networks that are harder to wage lawfare against. Bittorrent, IPFS, etc. fit the bill here.

zozbot234 6y ago
> How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? We saw it happen with GDPR already. Though we also see many companies play ball with censors, e.g. in places like China. If suddenly a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon is judged to be "hate speech", it's easy to just censor the cartoons. Most users won't exactly care, there's plenty of government-endorsed content that they're still allowed to access.
- bad_user 6y ago
  What happened with GDPR exactly?
  - ggreer 6y ago
    Many sites hosted in the US aren't accessible from the EU due to GDPR. Also GDPR reduced VC investment in EU startups by 1/3rd.[1] 1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3278912 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3278912
jimbob45 6y ago
France is a relatively small market?
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  yes. Especially if they actually try to fine someone like reddit "4% of the global annual revenue of the company" for not deleting someone's hateful comment.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  France is a medium-sized market, roughly equivalent to California—much smaller than the US, China or Japan, but larger than many countries.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Unless the market size for a population is not proportional to that population, then I'm missing something. France is ~67 million people. California is ~40 million people. There are ~330 million US citizens. So France is ~double California and ~ a fifth of the US.
    - redwall_hp 6y ago
      And car companies comply with California's emissions laws rather than miss out on California sales, so it seems like "pulling out" is unlikely.
      - cjhopman 6y ago
        That's only the case as long as complying with California's emissions laws is not too much harder than what they would otherwise have to comply with. That's a complicated analysis, it's kinda got a bit of prisoner's dilemma to it. As long as companies are following CA's restrictive emissions laws, there's little incentive for other areas to make their own laws more restrictive. If companies started to ignore CA's laws (and not sold there or sold different versions) you should expect other states to start to pass more and more restrictive laws.
nickff 6y ago
There is a third possible 'end state', which is that each restrictive country with a large market ends up in a 'sandbox'. This could look a lot like the Great Firewall, but outsourced.
- filoleg 6y ago
  Given enough time, this is just simply the end-result of option 1.
- ScottFree 6y ago
  Isn't there already a de-facto sandboxing by language?
  - nickff 6y ago
    Not really, many countries share languages but not regulations. In addition to that, many people move from one country to another, while staying in touch with their old friends. Facebook has also been working hard on their translation features to reduce language barriers.
- jhanschoo 6y ago
  Practically speaking, businesses that lack resources and interest are just going to adopt the most restrictive censorship that they find worthwhile for access to their market. For example, Chinese services are still available beyond the firewall, just not catered to the average non-Chinese. To the consumer, most don't care, for most purposes; c.f. TikTok's popularity.
jhanschoo 6y ago
> How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? Hasn't the same thing happened with respect to copyright in the other direction? Any online business with proper revenue already needs to abide by laws to take down copyrighted material, and the same arguments had been made when enforcement of them became a thing. I don't see that the burden with respect to hate speech is fundamentally different, arguably even lower.

zozbot234 6y ago

> How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? We saw it happen with GDPR already. Though we also see many companies play ball with censors, e.g. in places like China. If suddenly a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon is judged to be "hate speech", it's easy to just censor the cartoons. Most users won't exactly care, there's plenty of government-endorsed content that they're still allowed to access.

bad_user 6y ago
What happened with GDPR exactly?
- ggreer 6y ago
  Many sites hosted in the US aren't accessible from the EU due to GDPR. Also GDPR reduced VC investment in EU startups by 1/3rd.[1] 1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3278912 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3278912

jimbob45 6y ago

France is a relatively small market?

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
yes. Especially if they actually try to fine someone like reddit "4% of the global annual revenue of the company" for not deleting someone's hateful comment.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
France is a medium-sized market, roughly equivalent to California—much smaller than the US, China or Japan, but larger than many countries.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Unless the market size for a population is not proportional to that population, then I'm missing something. France is ~67 million people. California is ~40 million people. There are ~330 million US citizens. So France is ~double California and ~ a fifth of the US.
  - redwall_hp 6y ago
    And car companies comply with California's emissions laws rather than miss out on California sales, so it seems like "pulling out" is unlikely.
    - cjhopman 6y ago
      That's only the case as long as complying with California's emissions laws is not too much harder than what they would otherwise have to comply with. That's a complicated analysis, it's kinda got a bit of prisoner's dilemma to it. As long as companies are following CA's restrictive emissions laws, there's little incentive for other areas to make their own laws more restrictive. If companies started to ignore CA's laws (and not sold there or sold different versions) you should expect other states to start to pass more and more restrictive laws.

nickff 6y ago

There is a third possible 'end state', which is that each restrictive country with a large market ends up in a 'sandbox'. This could look a lot like the Great Firewall, but outsourced.

filoleg 6y ago
Given enough time, this is just simply the end-result of option 1.
ScottFree 6y ago
Isn't there already a de-facto sandboxing by language?
- nickff 6y ago
  Not really, many countries share languages but not regulations. In addition to that, many people move from one country to another, while staying in touch with their old friends. Facebook has also been working hard on their translation features to reduce language barriers.
jhanschoo 6y ago
Practically speaking, businesses that lack resources and interest are just going to adopt the most restrictive censorship that they find worthwhile for access to their market. For example, Chinese services are still available beyond the firewall, just not catered to the average non-Chinese. To the consumer, most don't care, for most purposes; c.f. TikTok's popularity.

jhanschoo 6y ago

> How long until internet companies decide that relatively small and litigious markets aren't worth their time and simply ignore laws like this? Hasn't the same thing happened with respect to copyright in the other direction? Any online business with proper revenue already needs to abide by laws to take down copyrighted material, and the same arguments had been made when enforcement of them became a thing. I don't see that the burden with respect to hate speech is fundamentally different, arguably even lower.