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Digital Berlin wall: How the German prototype for online censorship went global
- bannedbybros 4y agoCensorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism. Not just controlling the hegemonic narrative through media, etc. But also the founder of SciHub is stalked by the fedz for liberating science, etc. IP is censorship.
- distrohopper 4y agomeds now!
- fedzt 4y ago[dead]
- nix23 4y ago>Censorship is a crucial foundation of capitalism No, nothing to do with capitalism, but elitism, that happens in capitalism communism and even tribalism. >fedz for liberating science Again no, liberating the free (as in free beer) access to papers. If you want to liberate science you need to pay the scientist for what they want to study (and not you)
- nine_k 4y agoCapitalism somehow existed well before the modern IP rights system. The US patent office was created in 1832, the UK's, in 1850s, and the modern form of patent laws appeared in 1880s. Copyright goes all the way to 1660s, but until relatively recently, the terms of copyright were much shorter, and extent, narrower.
- mminer237 4y agoPatents are, like, the opposite of censorship. They're the government saying that if you want legal protection for your invention then you have to openly share exactly how you did it with the world. (Except for military patents.)
- dleslie 4y agoThe legal protection includes the assurance that the government will use force to prevent others from engaging in certain expression or activities, on your behalf, under threat of financial penalties or worse.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- flatearth22 4y ago
- orange_joe 4y agoI don’t believe the historic record shows this to be true. The liberal democracies (all capitalist) of the west have the least amount of censorship in human history. Communist regimes would(and continue) send people to camps, monarchs would behead those who offended them, and empires would crucify dissenters. The actual material conditions of our history don’t really show capitalism as being particularly dependent on censorship compared to other governmental/economic systems.
- mdiesel 4y agoBecoming rich in capitalism beyond what you can earn from your own labour often requires exploiting some imbalance in the system. That imbalance is very regularly something we find out about later and the general public considers unethical. Whether it's the sweatshops of the clothing industry, sitting on science like tobacco/oil, the predatory lending of the banks... Every industry does it and it relies on getting rich and getting out before people find out.
- sharperguy 4y agoAn actual free market would do away with patent and copyright laws, since they violate property rights. If I truly owned a computer, it would be my right to execute any pattern of bits that doesn't actively create a connection to the outside and cause chaos to other people's property, even if it goes against the wishes of the original person who defined that pattern of bits. Likewise, if I built a factory with parts I have purchased, I could produce any widget I had the plans to, even if it happens to function similarly to plans specified in some public library of patents.
- dleslie 4y agoBold of you to be critical of capitalism around here; but I can't completely disagree with you. IP rights exist as a result of state force; copyright and patents can't really exist without it. They are fundamentally reliant upon the state using its force to censure those who use intellectual property without authorization. And yes, before someone states as much: digitally enforced proof of ownership is just an automated, digital state. But capitalism doesn't require intellectual property to operate, and so I wouldn't call censorship a crucial foundation of capitalism.
- V__ 4y ago> Even if there are good reasons to counter online hate speech and disinformation, the approach prototyped by the German NetzDG law will exacerbate the decade-long global free speech recession which is part and parcel of the wider democratic recession.” > “Once democracies cede the high ground and renege on their commitment to free speech by privatizing and outsourcing regulation, authoritarians will rush in creating a regulatory race to the bottom. There are a lot of problems with the NetzDG, the small timeframe, the huge fines, which could incentivize platforms to be overcautious etc. What this article doesn't mention, however, is that this law only forces platforms to delete content which is already illegal by German law. It just makes it easier to enforce the law.
- DocTomoe 4y agoThe problem is that the platform has to decide if a given piece of content actually is illegal under German law, something courts may take years to decide, and forces them to make that decision in minutes. On the other hand, it does not provide an instrument to punish malicious use of that instrument. In that situation, platforms will - and do - just block by default. We have independent courts for a reason. Privatizing legal decisions in international corporation hands is not a good idea.
- V__ 4y agoThat is a valid criticism, and I agree. At the same time, due to the reach of social media and the possible implications and the timely manner in which action should be taken, I think there has to be a system with some middle ground. Maybe, forcing platforms to hide the content for some period of time and establishing a new court which only handles these cases, so a quick judgement can be made. But it's a really hard problem to solve.
- DocTomoe 4y agoEven hiding potentially illegal speech (if you believe such a thing should exist) for some time creates considerable potential of abuse. A group of malicious political actors could still suppress opinions and thus make it appear that there is a public consensus on the opposing opinion. Especially with a state which has deliberately unclear and flexible (in the sense of 'rubber', not 'agile') laws, this is too big a risk. For example, right now it appears to be illegal to use the letter Z as a symbol in Germany, because some people think that this somehow glorifies/justifies the illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, which is illegal in itself. (No such provision seem to exist against glorifying/justifying the illegal wars of aggressions which "NATO partners" have staged). So, if we think we need to ban free speech, the strictest controls need to be set up to prevent abuse, and that includes: 1. after a report, a judge ordering a post to be taken down (this could be done by an "Einstweilige Verfügung" until a final verdict can be made) 2. clear guidelines which speech is illegal enough to justify this strong response, defined in a way that does not allow for a slow and secret extension over time. Beware of rubber vocabularies like 'Hate Speech', which can be anything. While we are at it, get rid of 'illegal speech' laws that only make speech illegal when a sufficiently large number (how many?) of other people (that may then decide to become violent) may find offensive (looking at you, blasphemy) 3. Sensible instruments to punish people and/or organisations who abuse this process. 4. These blocking cases need to be publicly documented to avoid "things just disappearing". Anything less than that, and we really cannot claim to be any better than the many autocratic regimes who ignore human rights.
- eigenrick 4y agoAs much as I worry about online bullying (not quite legally hate speech, but obviously hate speech) and also misinformation (anti-vax, etc), I think that anything that squelches the ability to have open discussions on any topic is wrong. It seems that we've strongly overgeneralized any fake news to be anything that is antithetical to the idea du jour, whether there is any merit to the idea or not. This harms society in 2 ways: 1. It could be that the idea du jour, or parts of it are wrong, maybe not the central idea, but maybe its ramifications, or edge cases. 2. People having been indoctrinated differently, with a different set of inputs, will naturally come to a different set of conclusions. Their conclusions might be wrong, but ostracizing folks and kicking them off of public discourse is guaranteed to make them hold fast to their wrong conclusions. Engagement and open discussions seem like the only way to get to the root of their (possibly) misguided ideas.
- soco 4y agoHowever Twitter and al are not exactly a place to hold discussions, by definition. They facilitate (if not straight up favor) quick visceral reactions and whatever type of bullying will feel at ease in there. So I agree with you on the point of censorship being bad, but disagree on calling bullying "open discussions". Yes I'm aware that real life bullying is in some places tolerated just as well, and I fully disagree to that too - does that make me a censor? Or if I ask for violence on the streets, am I having an open discussion?
- eigenrick 4y agoTwitter is definitely a bad place for nuanced discussion. I disagree about the 'and al', though. Other platforms are much better for for long form communication and open discussion, e.g. Reddit, Zulip, etc.
- soco 4y agoI never heard of Zulip and kinda agree with you on Reddit (but which is also censored). To my unpopular point above I must clarify that most of the complaints about censorship are that it tries to censor traditional bullying attempts at minorities. Yes, there are also exceptions where unpopular thought pieces are attacked, but still, the big majority complains why can't they call names a certain group anymore.
- mortenjorck 4y agoWorth considering in context of the newly-created Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board. Given the infrastructure that’s already in place for NetzDG compliance in other markets, it seems plausible that it would be cited as a model for future American “disinformation governance”.
- nfreising 4y agoThe colouring in the „World Press Freedom Index“ graphics doesn‘t seem to make any sense. Countries with very different placements on the index have a similar shade of red and the only greenish looking country is Vietnam, placed 175/180.
- ivan_gammel 4y agoOne calls it censorship, someone else calls it protection of democracy and freedoms, because freedom of speech is not absolute and not of higher priority than other human rights. Human rights are always in conflict with each other: today USA is deciding to violate right of property for Russian oligarchs because rights of Ukrainian citizen are violated. Right for free movement was restricted during Covid pandemic for many people and often restricted as a punishment for crimes. How freedom of speech is so different that people cry about it without considering the context? Why people think that Germany is a model state for censorship, when there are states which censor media for real, before publication, do it for longer, more efficiently and to suppress opposition? Just for reference, Germany has the same high HFI index as United States: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...
- sieabahlpark 4y agoAny censorship is disgusting and should be rejected. Regardless of context. Disagreement with that means you're a threat to democracy, period.
- croes 4y agoSo because others are worse Germany's laws are good? I don't know but laws that allow someone to be locked up indefinitely without conviction don't sound like freedom to me.
- ivan_gammel 4y agoWhat laws are you referring to specifically?
- croes 4y agoBavarian Police Act
- swayvil 4y agoDemocracy is a conversation where we, as a society, craft policy. What makes it a democracy is that all members of society participate in that conversation. Freely. Anything less is mere tyranny. But if we need a way to manage spam, lies and the other poisonous forms of conversation, then empower the individual to handle that. Because we do not trust you.
- simion314 4y agoWhat idiot believes that authoritarian governments were incapable of censorship until some democratic one decided to update their laws for misinformation /hate/defamation to also apply to social media / internet ? Bad faith article, I would use more competent authors to push my agenda.
- xbar 4y agoNo idiot, nor the author I suspect, believes that. The author probably exaggerated the total risk to people living under authoritarian regimes. I think his inspiration from the article can be seen in this statement: "Erdogan’s Turkey – one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists – is citing NetzDG as inspiration for its new draconian law on “The Regulation of Publications made in the Internet Environment” I removed his conclusion. I will give you mine: NetzDG is a bad law and a poor model for lawmakers to follow. It has not solved any problem ( "ICYMI: New Report on Germany's NetzDG Online Hate Speech Law Shows No Threat of Over-Blocking". Counter Extremism Project. Retrieved 11 January 2022. Echikson, William; Knodt, Olivia (2018). Germany's NetzDG: A key test for combatting online hate (PDF). Centre for European Policy Studies) And it is chilling for free speech which I consider the greatest of public goods.
- DocTomoe 4y ago> "Erdogan’s Turkey – one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists – is citing NetzDG as inspiration for its new draconian law on “The Regulation of Publications made in the Internet Environment” I would like to remind everyone that during the Nuremberg trials, leading Nazis cited then-current US policy as an inspiration for both their eugenics and race separation laws. Bad actors will use your bad laws to justify their greatest atrocities. And your bad laws will look horrific once the storm has passed. Thus be careful what you consider 'good policy'. Considering the impact lawmakers have, I am all for considerable punishments (as in: several years of jail time) for everyone who voted yes on a law that was later struck down by the respective country's Supreme Court equivalent.
- simion314 4y agoBut If I am paid to make a case this German law I would honestly do a better job then "some dictator somewhere said that he likes this law", dictators like a lot of things like music,sports,cars and they also lie a lot. I would probably find or if I am a fake journalist invent some story about a poor child, mother, freedom fighter hurt by this law. Edit, don't want to give a judgement for this specific law just saying the article did not convinced me, gives me a feel of bad reddit,HH comment.
- swayvil 4y agoWe can't have the hoi polloi just freely talking to each other willy nilly.
- tablespoon 4y ago> We can't have the hoi polloi just freely talking to each other willy nilly. They can freely talk all they want, but it might have been a mistake to give them all frictionless broadcasting licenses. In those conditions, it seems like crowdsourced viral misinformation is quite competitive in the marketplace of ideas, perhaps even to the point of winning fair and square.
- swayvil 4y agoIf we have a problem with "misinformation" (what a delicious figure of newspeak!) then provide us with the tools for managing that. We do not desire your kindly administration.
- tablespoon 4y ago> If we have a problem with "misinformation" (what a delicious figure of newspeak!) then provide us with the tools for managing that. The point is maybe the hoi polloi can't manage that in this environment, regardless of tools. > We do not desire your kindly administration. Administration happens when people aren't solving problems on their own. So if you don't desire administration, solve the problem without it. Don't do stuff like declaring it a non-issue or hiding behind some principle, because that doesn't actually work. The former is obviously unserious, and the latter just weakens and eventually destroys the principle.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- helloworld11 4y agoGod forbid people should have the unlicensed freedom to misinform. Before, this privilege was only in the hands of the same major media giants that now rail about the supposed epidemic in misinformation of the type that they had no problem themselves creating however it suited their purposes or political alignments previously. That anyone who even basically believes in the importance of free speech and individual freedom should jump on the same bandwagon of paranoia about members of the public holding and promoting ideas that aren't always "correct" or literally correct and calling this a threat to freedom is absurd. This is a complete turning of cause and effect upon its head. No, the danger is explicitly much more so in the idea that some supposedly proper consensus of ideas should be enforced so that nobody does something silly, like voting for the "wrong" candidate, or viewing certain medical mandates in the "incorrect" way.
- raverbashing 4y agoThe text comes out in a condescending tone and most of it just sounds like "blah blah free speech" But the core of the argument seems to be this > vaguely defined categories of hate speech and fake news by placing responsibility on the social media platforms for user content. (this) creates big incentives for social media companies to over-regulate online speech and risk pushing extremists towards platforms that are even harder to survey. If you take the liability out of the platform, you're pushing for deanonimization of content (which should be worrying as well) When we talk about "free speech" we think mostly about our least-liked politician talking crap but there's a whole layer of stalking/threats/gaslighting (to most underserved users) that needs to be taken care of
- kmeisthax 4y agoFWIW free-speech absolutist America already has this kind of law on the books. It's called DMCA 512; it only requires the allegation of a copyright infringement in order to trigger the same kind of censorship[0] as NetzDG appears to do. If you have been unfairly targeted, you can counter-notify, but that requires doxing yourself. There's also a subpoena process to explicitly request the unmasking of anonymous users[1]. YouTube is chock full of DMCA extortion scams that specifically target smaller channels and demand payment to avoid getting one's channel deleted. Those scams work precisely because Google has an active and ongoing[2] policy of summarily executing rule breakers without explanation or recourse. Laws like DMCA 512 and NetzDG only have these kinds of censorious effects[3] specifically because social media is itself a kind of scam. Regular publishers actually spend money to fund the creation of creative works that they expect to make a profit off of; platforms create a container and incentives for other people to fill it with amorphous "content". Publishers take on the risk of publication, including defamation and copyright liability; while platforms are set up specifically to shift that liability onto people who cannot bear that burden. The end result is that most people on social media choose to self-censor; even if they have no intention to defame, misinform, hate upon someone, or infringe a copyright. [0] We are assuming for the sake of example that the targeted content is novel speech and not infringing. America does not consider copyright infringement to be speech. [1] The Darkspilver / Jehovah's Witness case is a prime example of how to abuse a DMCA 512 subpoena request; we're lucky the courts came to their senses and decided not to unmask them. [2] As far as I can tell, since the company's founding [3] For the purpose of discussion I'm not going to argue whether or not hate speech or misinformation should be censored, we're just going to assume that it should.
- nness 4y agoI was curious about the article's inclusion of Australia, so I looked into the reference. The similarities are the "intermediate liability" and method of calculating fines, which Australia introduces in the "Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act 2019" Except, the Australian law has limits on the applicability of the amendment for research purposes, journalism, good faith, and matters of public interest. But it does fall into similar traps. Its not possible to know whether the violent content was published by someone other than the perpetrator, i.e. a victim, public bystander, or journalist. The social media company doesn't even need to know the content exists for them to be liable as intermediary (which is an interesting contrast to the safe-harbour provisions of the DMCA). It is a particularly broad amendment which will probably just result in the wholesale banning of anything approaching violent media. I can see why such a thing might hinder free expression and the press within Australia. (At the same time, if it were to prevent footage the Christchurch mass shooting from being shared, I can see the upside.)
- ChrisArchitect 4y ago(2020)
- quzyp 4y ago> “The fact that Erdogan’s Turkey – one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists – is citing NetzDG as inspiration for its new draconian law on “The Regulation of Publications made in the Internet Environment” should send a clear warning signal to democracies that this model is a good faith effort gone bad. This just sounds like the author was easily fooled by Erdogan's narrative. The nazis cited british laws to justify their genocide and I'm sure that Putin tells his people that every other nation has opressing laws similar to Russia. Remember kids, don't believe a single word said by dictators and autocrats.
- ivan_gammel 4y agoExactly! Putin does refer to US and European laws when signing off the oppressive laws. Interestingly, they often make some sense, but are abused by law enforcement in absence of independent courts. Context matters a lot!
- bsedlm 4y ago"Accidentally" ? this presents a choice as to what to belive: - that they are so incompetent that they do not know what they're doing. - they are perfectly aware of what they're doing and the journalists are trying to be extremely diplomatic about how they call them out on it. as if they journalist are apologizing for this attack on individual freedoms.