5 ms·

The title should be rephrased to "A Court Ruling in Austria Could Censor Internet Platforms Worldwide". The Ruling applies to Facebook as a legal person and ha

The title should be rephrased to "A Court Ruling in Austria Could Censor Internet Platforms Worldwide". The Ruling applies to Facebook as a legal person and has no direct effect on other publishers. A contrary example: The Gutenberg Project was ruled illegal (due to a select number of books still in copyright) in Germany and is blocking German IPs ever since, until the issue is resolved. Here the company has chosen another approach. Facebook could decide to withdraw from the Austrian market (which it won't). So it has to stick to Austrian court rulings or pay the sanctions. The problem is not the application of a law. The problem is the current centralization of public speech on huge platforms on the internet.

bennysonething 6y ago
Do you really see no problem with states demanding that their censorship laws apply world wide?
- eznzt 6y ago
  People here don't because the attitude here is "it's Facebook so fuck them".
  - bennysonething 6y ago
    Which I don't really understand, it's an attempt at global censorship, that's the concern. But as it's a ruling against Facebook the general impression I get is casual dismissal
    - hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
      Because people here are thinking based on principles and values shared by the majority. They are thinking based on elitism that thinks highly of itself for disliking facebook. The same happens in US politics, where people disregard the “common good” (you know, healthcare) because “muh freedom trump good obama bad”
    - herbst 6y ago
      Facebook is actively ignoring EU privacy laws by shipping private data out of the EU. You can not reflect this on the whole internet, but on facebook only. As many have said already
  - roadwarrior7822 6y ago
    Not casual dismissal, no "fuck them". Just: This ruling is not about censoring the internet. It's about keeping a huge actor from publishing a type of content. My point was that it is a problem that so many people are dependent on the standing of this single player. If Facebook it outlawed somewhere, this silences everyone on the platform. And not to forget that it gives Facebook the ability to promote or censor content as much as they want. But they wouldn't, because they're all about free speech. Phew!
- roadwarrior7822 6y ago
  Did I say that? I don't think so. I see a problem in a generalization of the kind done in the title of the article. Facebook is not "the Internet". The Austrian court rule does not apply to "The Internet" at all. It applies to Facebook and Facebook only. If someone published the same content on another platform then the court would have to rule again. I see the real problem in Platforms like Facebook becoming the only means of speech on the Internet for the majority of people. Censorship on Facebook happens on a global scale without any state intervention already. (Edit: And that is not because Facebook is evil but because some content is bad for business. And that will be true for any service that aims to be a somewhat neutral and profitable platform.)
  - AdrianB1 6y ago
    Facebook is not Internet, that is right. But the decision that applies to Facebook can apply to anything on Internet within the reach of the Austrian state and, piece by piece, that means almost the entire Internet. Saying it is just a Facebook incident is very short sighted, many people could not care less about FB.
    - roadwarrior7822 6y ago
      I did not say it's just Facebook and I said that the court can rule many times. I did say that the court would have to rule every single time. And if speech on the internet wasn't centralized the way it is today then the court would have to make as many decisions as there are people making the same statement. That would not work effectively if the expressed opinion was backed and expressed by many people in many places. And let's not forget that the content of the opinion in question is not one on which a fruitful political debate can be built, you f ps ;) If it was, the court may have come to an entirely different conclusion. I do not want to defend the court's ruling here and I have too few insights into the Austrian political landscape to understand how (in-)adequate this decision might be. But the fact remains: If I live outside of Austria but my website is reachable from Austria, I can write whatever I want and have nothing to fear from an Austrian court as long as I am not trying to take my website-business to the Austrian market. They may decide to block my IP inside Austria but that would hardly be global censorship (even if it's still an issue worth fighting over). The whole "people couldn't care less about FB" talk really takes this to the wrong place and is making me tired as long as you misinterpret everything else and repeat my own statements as if it was a counter-argument.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Facebook could decide to withdraw from the Austrian market (which it won't) There is another option: defiance. Withdraw employees, liquidate assets, and force Austria to enjoin it overseas and/or block it.
- gonzo41 6y ago
  Or Facebook could just ignore Austrian legislators, kinds of like uber did with local taxi laws.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Or compliance, because having already taken the corporate position that certain electoral messaging is so misleading and damaging it needs content warnings, shadowbanning or even deletion, it would be frankly weird for Facebook to sacrifice its Austrian business on the altar of insisting that actually a series of courts are wrong and memes accusing a leading Green Party figure of being a fascist are not libel but an important truth the world must know.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    the Austrian green party is fishing for right-wing voters who are disgruntled by the FPÖ many scandals. their policies are strange since they seem to want to appeal to the right according to their conservative policy a lot more than to the left. This is counter the tradition of what is "normal" for a Green party in other countries. their ultra conservative approach gobbles up previous FPÖ voters that are disillusioned with the Ibiza scandal and the crowd that screams "ban burkas" or are obsessed with foreigners not "integrating themselves properly" especially brown people (it's ok to live there as a native English speaker you will never feel any of it). Austria is the most West of all the Eastern EU countries so a lot of things that are not normal in Western Europe are so in Austria. The right is cosying up to Putin (who often gets invited to private events like weddings by Austrian politicians) and as close to Russia as Poland is to the US. Many Austrian high-end properties from skiing resorts to Vienna is in the hands of Russians, ... there is a good reason Austrian secret service was dropped as an ally to share information with from other FVEY-allied countries: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-security-idUSKCN1RL2CM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-security-idUSKCN1...
hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
What makes you think FB won’t withdraw Austria’s market? It is tiny and globally irrelevant

bennysonething 6y ago

Do you really see no problem with states demanding that their censorship laws apply world wide?

eznzt 6y ago
People here don't because the attitude here is "it's Facebook so fuck them".
- bennysonething 6y ago
  Which I don't really understand, it's an attempt at global censorship, that's the concern. But as it's a ruling against Facebook the general impression I get is casual dismissal
  - hahaiscjaaka 6y ago
    Because people here are thinking based on principles and values shared by the majority. They are thinking based on elitism that thinks highly of itself for disliking facebook. The same happens in US politics, where people disregard the “common good” (you know, healthcare) because “muh freedom trump good obama bad”
  - herbst 6y ago
    Facebook is actively ignoring EU privacy laws by shipping private data out of the EU. You can not reflect this on the whole internet, but on facebook only. As many have said already
- roadwarrior7822 6y ago
  Not casual dismissal, no "fuck them". Just: This ruling is not about censoring the internet. It's about keeping a huge actor from publishing a type of content. My point was that it is a problem that so many people are dependent on the standing of this single player. If Facebook it outlawed somewhere, this silences everyone on the platform. And not to forget that it gives Facebook the ability to promote or censor content as much as they want. But they wouldn't, because they're all about free speech. Phew!
roadwarrior7822 6y ago
Did I say that? I don't think so. I see a problem in a generalization of the kind done in the title of the article. Facebook is not "the Internet". The Austrian court rule does not apply to "The Internet" at all. It applies to Facebook and Facebook only. If someone published the same content on another platform then the court would have to rule again. I see the real problem in Platforms like Facebook becoming the only means of speech on the Internet for the majority of people. Censorship on Facebook happens on a global scale without any state intervention already. (Edit: And that is not because Facebook is evil but because some content is bad for business. And that will be true for any service that aims to be a somewhat neutral and profitable platform.)
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  Facebook is not Internet, that is right. But the decision that applies to Facebook can apply to anything on Internet within the reach of the Austrian state and, piece by piece, that means almost the entire Internet. Saying it is just a Facebook incident is very short sighted, many people could not care less about FB.
  - roadwarrior7822 6y ago
    I did not say it's just Facebook and I said that the court can rule many times. I did say that the court would have to rule every single time. And if speech on the internet wasn't centralized the way it is today then the court would have to make as many decisions as there are people making the same statement. That would not work effectively if the expressed opinion was backed and expressed by many people in many places. And let's not forget that the content of the opinion in question is not one on which a fruitful political debate can be built, you f ps ;) If it was, the court may have come to an entirely different conclusion. I do not want to defend the court's ruling here and I have too few insights into the Austrian political landscape to understand how (in-)adequate this decision might be. But the fact remains: If I live outside of Austria but my website is reachable from Austria, I can write whatever I want and have nothing to fear from an Austrian court as long as I am not trying to take my website-business to the Austrian market. They may decide to block my IP inside Austria but that would hardly be global censorship (even if it's still an issue worth fighting over). The whole "people couldn't care less about FB" talk really takes this to the wrong place and is making me tired as long as you misinterpret everything else and repeat my own statements as if it was a counter-argument.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Facebook could decide to withdraw from the Austrian market (which it won't) There is another option: defiance. Withdraw employees, liquidate assets, and force Austria to enjoin it overseas and/or block it.

gonzo41 6y ago
Or Facebook could just ignore Austrian legislators, kinds of like uber did with local taxi laws.
notahacker 6y ago
Or compliance, because having already taken the corporate position that certain electoral messaging is so misleading and damaging it needs content warnings, shadowbanning or even deletion, it would be frankly weird for Facebook to sacrifice its Austrian business on the altar of insisting that actually a series of courts are wrong and memes accusing a leading Green Party figure of being a fascist are not libel but an important truth the world must know.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  the Austrian green party is fishing for right-wing voters who are disgruntled by the FPÖ many scandals. their policies are strange since they seem to want to appeal to the right according to their conservative policy a lot more than to the left. This is counter the tradition of what is "normal" for a Green party in other countries. their ultra conservative approach gobbles up previous FPÖ voters that are disillusioned with the Ibiza scandal and the crowd that screams "ban burkas" or are obsessed with foreigners not "integrating themselves properly" especially brown people (it's ok to live there as a native English speaker you will never feel any of it). Austria is the most West of all the Eastern EU countries so a lot of things that are not normal in Western Europe are so in Austria. The right is cosying up to Putin (who often gets invited to private events like weddings by Austrian politicians) and as close to Russia as Poland is to the US. Many Austrian high-end properties from skiing resorts to Vienna is in the hands of Russians, ... there is a good reason Austrian secret service was dropped as an ally to share information with from other FVEY-allied countries: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-security-idUSKCN1RL2CM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-security-idUSKCN1...

hahaiscjaaka 6y ago

What makes you think FB won’t withdraw Austria’s market? It is tiny and globally irrelevant