4 ms·

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 Austri

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.

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.