5 ms·

If Trump kicks out Twitter, there's always Germany

34 points by throwaway888abc 6y ago

jjgreen 6y ago
Bitte nicht den Horror-Clown
eddieoz 6y ago
For sure there are better jurisdictions who would receive them very well.
WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
How has the world gone from the US being the beacon of freedom to US companies having to move to other countries? Am I old now?
- dillonmckay 6y ago
  With a comment like that, yes, you are old and ignorant.
seemslegit 6y ago
God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech that you (and the service hosting your content) can be sued just for mentioning someone by name in a disparaging context, nothing like the CDA 230 protections exists there in the first place. Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    It's not just the privacy, it also recognizes the right to protect one's reputation and has a much broader construction of defamation and libel than the US (although still not as broad as the UK), but the point is that there are no special liability protections for online services except maybe in the name of journalism and general public interest, also no DMCA - a copyright violation is a copyright violation and if your users commit it you're liable.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Germany strongly respects individual privacy Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in). As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
    - seemslegit 6y ago
      Don't forget the copyright infringement honeypots whose operators have a streamlined access to ISPs to obtain identities of the alleged infringers. Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
    - Gwypaas 6y ago
      I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar. Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
jotm 6y ago
A joke, indeed, seeing as German and other European politicians want the same thing as Trump, for platforms to moderate the users' content.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Isn't Trump upset at Twitter because they were moderating content?
  - niklasd 6y ago
    Yes. But he threatens to remove protections of tech companies from liability if users post defamatory messages on their platforms, which can lead to more moderation.
    - llcoolv 6y ago
      Well, at this point they are a publisher not a platform. In my eyes they eagerly & willingly accepted the responsibility themselves.
- luckylion 6y ago
  ... and are much further along in their quest [1], but it's a political matter now, so people can't be bothered to consider facts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz
- llcoolv 6y ago
  Trump wants the oppsite actually - platforms not to moderate it. Not that it is any of his business this way or the other.
  - krapp 6y ago
    More to the point - when the only options for a platform hosting any user provided content are to shut down to avoid liability or not moderate anything, platforms choosing the latter will become overwhelmed with extremist and right-wing speech, pushing the Overton window towards the cultural normalization of alt-right and white supremacist ideology. Which is the actual goal.
bhaak 6y ago
Just be prepared to throw out any tweet that comes close to Holocaust denial or uses Nazi symbols. Well, that's actually not so bad IMO but the American style "free speech" advocates would be foaming. What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
jumbopapa 6y ago
> “Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake news. We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a perfect fit and I will open any doors for you!” As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.
- paulgb 6y ago
  > Trump's threats don't hold any water Whether they would hold up in court and whether they chill speech are two separate things. (Just ask anyone who has been hit with a SLAPP case)
- nailer 6y ago
  The US's restrictions on speech are indeed less stringent than in Germany. However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pnako 6y ago
    The mood is going entirely in the other direction in Europe though, i.e. they want platforms to police speech even more. That's certainly true in Germany, also in France, and I'm sure other European countries. There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.
    - nailer 6y ago
      We agree with each other. I think you may have accidentally misread the comment you're replying to.
      - pnako 6y ago
        Yes, it was not clear which representatives you were talking about.
Gravityloss 6y ago
There is a natural ebb and flow to societies and civilizations. Things were happening in Athens, Miletos, Alexandria, Baghdad - the intellectual centers of gravity changed over time as rulers had various levels of enlightenment, religious freedom varied etc.
codesuela 6y ago
It is impossible to run anything like Twitter in Germany without being sued into oblivion for defamation etc and get struck with criminal charges for something a user posted. Germanys equivalent of cease and desist letters (Abmahnungen) make running a big site with user generated content very unattractive.
- llcoolv 6y ago
  Or accidentally trigger a three-strike rule or infringe some odd sentence in the 300k pages of regulations that concern your business... Europe is not going to have a big tech company (or even mid-sized for that matter) until this legal approach changes in an extreme way.
- MagnumOpus 6y ago
  VZ/poolworks managed to do just fine for a decade, c&d didn’t kill them. (Shrinking user numbers did as people migrated to FB.)
llcoolv 6y ago
Yeah, massive taxes on all fronts (employment, corporate & VAT) accompanied by insane beuracracy, GDPR and tons of other pointless regulations... My favourite would be "the right to be forgotten", which is probably 20x more outrageous than Trump's current tantrum. Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
sschueller 6y ago
Just a reminder, the 1st Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1] Private entities can do what they want. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
- quantummkv 6y ago
  Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences of said free speech. > Private entities can do what they want. Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed. If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.
tasubotadas 6y ago
Germany is a startup-friendly? In addition to the free speech issues mentioned above, it makes me giggle a bit when I take a look at their 45% tax rate. On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do. Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.
LandR 6y ago
Why is this flagged?
fakwandi_priv 6y ago
Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO? Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate? I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.
- krapp 6y ago
  > Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO? 900+ comments and counting[0]. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161
thdrdt 6y ago
Trump is not going to kick out Twitter. Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus. I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
The key and broader issue here is that Twitter has become a global channel for official governmental communication. As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump. IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed. Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries. This is not a simple issue but it will only grow.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Why use a medium like twitter at all when replies aren't allowed? That would be classical unidirectional top down broadcast. Can surf the *.gov for that, or watch tv. Or ist that the full spectrum dominance across all channels? MLM?
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Replies to official tweets don't really serve any purpose apart from creating a buzz or polemic, i.e. to spread in a viral way but rarely for constructive reasons. Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.
quantummkv 6y ago
Leaving aside all the free speech and German laws, does anyone really believe that Germany or any European nation aside from Russia will harbor anyone in the cross-hairs of the current US establishment? Angering the US will potentially leave the door wide open for Uncle Putin for the Rush B(erlin). No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.

jjgreen 6y ago

Bitte nicht den Horror-Clown

eddieoz 6y ago

For sure there are better jurisdictions who would receive them very well.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

How has the world gone from the US being the beacon of freedom to US companies having to move to other countries? Am I old now?

dillonmckay 6y ago
With a comment like that, yes, you are old and ignorant.

seemslegit 6y ago

God I love the dunning-kruger view of Germany as the last bastion of internet liberty, it's utterly wrong - Germany has so many laws restricting online speech that you (and the service hosting your content) can be sued just for mentioning someone by name in a disparaging context, nothing like the CDA 230 protections exists there in the first place. Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?

ForHackernews 6y ago
Germany strongly respects individual privacy (perhaps because many Germans remember the Gestapo) but they don't have the same notions of free speech rights that Americans do.
- seemslegit 6y ago
  It's not just the privacy, it also recognizes the right to protect one's reputation and has a much broader construction of defamation and libel than the US (although still not as broad as the UK), but the point is that there are no special liability protections for online services except maybe in the name of journalism and general public interest, also no DMCA - a copyright violation is a copyright violation and if your users commit it you're liable.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Germany strongly respects individual privacy Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in). As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
  - seemslegit 6y ago
    Don't forget the copyright infringement honeypots whose operators have a streamlined access to ISPs to obtain identities of the alleged infringers. Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
  - Gwypaas 6y ago
    I feel this is a big difference between the US and Europe in many cases with the difference being the US system is scared to actually face the questions. It's all conventions and traditions that has become culture and unchangeable, with some arcane bench of judges making modern interpretations on 1700's thoughts, sometimes for the better, sometimes separate but equal. Ridiculous to trust an institution like that to make progress in a society. This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar. Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.

jotm 6y ago

A joke, indeed, seeing as German and other European politicians want the same thing as Trump, for platforms to moderate the users' content.

p1necone 6y ago
Isn't Trump upset at Twitter because they were moderating content?
- niklasd 6y ago
  Yes. But he threatens to remove protections of tech companies from liability if users post defamatory messages on their platforms, which can lead to more moderation.
  - llcoolv 6y ago
    Well, at this point they are a publisher not a platform. In my eyes they eagerly & willingly accepted the responsibility themselves.
luckylion 6y ago
... and are much further along in their quest [1], but it's a political matter now, so people can't be bothered to consider facts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz
llcoolv 6y ago
Trump wants the oppsite actually - platforms not to moderate it. Not that it is any of his business this way or the other.
- krapp 6y ago
  More to the point - when the only options for a platform hosting any user provided content are to shut down to avoid liability or not moderate anything, platforms choosing the latter will become overwhelmed with extremist and right-wing speech, pushing the Overton window towards the cultural normalization of alt-right and white supremacist ideology. Which is the actual goal.

bhaak 6y ago

Just be prepared to throw out any tweet that comes close to Holocaust denial or uses Nazi symbols. Well, that's actually not so bad IMO but the American style "free speech" advocates would be foaming. What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

jumbopapa 6y ago

> “Here you are free to criticize the government as well as to fight fake news. We have a great startup and tech ecosystem, your company would be a perfect fit and I will open any doors for you!” As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.

paulgb 6y ago
> Trump's threats don't hold any water Whether they would hold up in court and whether they chill speech are two separate things. (Just ask anyone who has been hit with a SLAPP case)
nailer 6y ago
The US's restrictions on speech are indeed less stringent than in Germany. However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pnako 6y ago
  The mood is going entirely in the other direction in Europe though, i.e. they want platforms to police speech even more. That's certainly true in Germany, also in France, and I'm sure other European countries. There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.
  - nailer 6y ago
    We agree with each other. I think you may have accidentally misread the comment you're replying to.
    - pnako 6y ago
      Yes, it was not clear which representatives you were talking about.

Gravityloss 6y ago

There is a natural ebb and flow to societies and civilizations. Things were happening in Athens, Miletos, Alexandria, Baghdad - the intellectual centers of gravity changed over time as rulers had various levels of enlightenment, religious freedom varied etc.

codesuela 6y ago

It is impossible to run anything like Twitter in Germany without being sued into oblivion for defamation etc and get struck with criminal charges for something a user posted. Germanys equivalent of cease and desist letters (Abmahnungen) make running a big site with user generated content very unattractive.

llcoolv 6y ago
Or accidentally trigger a three-strike rule or infringe some odd sentence in the 300k pages of regulations that concern your business... Europe is not going to have a big tech company (or even mid-sized for that matter) until this legal approach changes in an extreme way.
MagnumOpus 6y ago
VZ/poolworks managed to do just fine for a decade, c&d didn’t kill them. (Shrinking user numbers did as people migrated to FB.)

llcoolv 6y ago

Yeah, massive taxes on all fronts (employment, corporate & VAT) accompanied by insane beuracracy, GDPR and tons of other pointless regulations... My favourite would be "the right to be forgotten", which is probably 20x more outrageous than Trump's current tantrum. Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

sschueller 6y ago

Just a reminder, the 1st Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1] Private entities can do what they want. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

quantummkv 6y ago
Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences of said free speech. > Private entities can do what they want. Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed. If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.

tasubotadas 6y ago

Germany is a startup-friendly? In addition to the free speech issues mentioned above, it makes me giggle a bit when I take a look at their 45% tax rate. On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do. Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.

LandR 6y ago

Why is this flagged?

fakwandi_priv 6y ago

Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO? Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate? I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.

krapp 6y ago
> Has there been a thread on HN that discusses the actual EO? 900+ comments and counting[0]. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161

thdrdt 6y ago

Trump is not going to kick out Twitter. Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus. I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

The key and broader issue here is that Twitter has become a global channel for official governmental communication. As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump. IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed. Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries. This is not a simple issue but it will only grow.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Why use a medium like twitter at all when replies aren't allowed? That would be classical unidirectional top down broadcast. Can surf the *.gov for that, or watch tv. Or ist that the full spectrum dominance across all channels? MLM?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Replies to official tweets don't really serve any purpose apart from creating a buzz or polemic, i.e. to spread in a viral way but rarely for constructive reasons. Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.

quantummkv 6y ago

Leaving aside all the free speech and German laws, does anyone really believe that Germany or any European nation aside from Russia will harbor anyone in the cross-hairs of the current US establishment? Angering the US will potentially leave the door wide open for Uncle Putin for the Rush B(erlin). No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.