4 ms·

Do you have a precedent where this resulted in unlawful restriction of speech or it’s just a generic speculation? I had a look once at the form in one of Meta

Do you have a precedent where this resulted in unlawful restriction of speech or it’s just a generic speculation? I had a look once at the form in one of Meta services to report hate speech: it does require some effort to fill the form and it does require the issue to be reported to police. If you don’t want to report the case to authorities, the platform will not take down the content. I do not see how this could result in a real censorship in a state with the rule of law.

nfreising 5y ago
I have looked at the NetzDG reporting on YouTube and Twitter and while both of them require you to cite a specific law the content is in violation of, they both do not require any report to authorities. The NetzDG doesn't require involvement of authorities, it was especially designed with the goal of moving the work from the state to private companies.
usrusr 5y ago
Laws that are bad because of abuseability didn't somehow transcend from good to bad the first time they were abused, they would have already been bad before that event. But you still have a point in so far as that you can't look at a law ignoring the legal conventions and processes of the environment where "the code is run", something that would be perfectly fine in one environment could be terrible in another.
car_analogy 5y ago
A few examples (though the reporting could be clearer): https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/12/second-time-week-german-hate-speech-laws-results-deletion-innocent-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/12/second-time-week-german-... https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-slammed-for-censoring-german-street-artist/a-42155218 https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-slammed-for-censoring-german-... Fortunately for the defenders of that law, the notoriously opaque censorship of social media companies helps hide what is going on, so few examples surface. I could not find anything as convenient as a list of (wrongfully or not) censored content by this law. Often the censored party is not even told that the NetzDG was involved. Silence on this issue should not be confused with a lack of problems, however. For example, in Germany: “it can be a criminal offense in Germany to call another person a ‘jerk,’ or even to use the informal du, or ‘thou,’” to communicate a lack of respect for the recipient. German courts have penalized other similar “derogatory epithets,” including “asshole,” “bastard,” “old goat, “fathead,” “dope,” and “whore.” [..] German courts heard 26,757 criminal insult cases that year, leading to 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines. - https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/germanys-netzdg-and-threat-online-free-speech https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/germanys-netzdg-and... To me this looks like a severe overreach of speech restrictions, even if one doesn't idealize the US 1st amendment, and accepts the need for some government censorship. Yet I've only learned about it just now, from a very obscure post.
- lupire 5y ago
  Your first two links don't support the claim. Twitter removed an impersonator spreading fake news. Unlabeled satire posted context-free to Twitter where it gets interpreted at true and repeated, is a different complicated problem (and why Twitter is a fundementally terrible design).

nfreising 5y ago

I have looked at the NetzDG reporting on YouTube and Twitter and while both of them require you to cite a specific law the content is in violation of, they both do not require any report to authorities. The NetzDG doesn't require involvement of authorities, it was especially designed with the goal of moving the work from the state to private companies.

usrusr 5y ago

Laws that are bad because of abuseability didn't somehow transcend from good to bad the first time they were abused, they would have already been bad before that event. But you still have a point in so far as that you can't look at a law ignoring the legal conventions and processes of the environment where "the code is run", something that would be perfectly fine in one environment could be terrible in another.

car_analogy 5y ago

A few examples (though the reporting could be clearer): https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/12/second-time-week-german-hate-speech-laws-results-deletion-innocent-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/12/second-time-week-german-... https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-slammed-for-censoring-german-street-artist/a-42155218 https://www.dw.com/en/facebook-slammed-for-censoring-german-... Fortunately for the defenders of that law, the notoriously opaque censorship of social media companies helps hide what is going on, so few examples surface. I could not find anything as convenient as a list of (wrongfully or not) censored content by this law. Often the censored party is not even told that the NetzDG was involved. Silence on this issue should not be confused with a lack of problems, however. For example, in Germany: “it can be a criminal offense in Germany to call another person a ‘jerk,’ or even to use the informal du, or ‘thou,’” to communicate a lack of respect for the recipient. German courts have penalized other similar “derogatory epithets,” including “asshole,” “bastard,” “old goat, “fathead,” “dope,” and “whore.” [..] German courts heard 26,757 criminal insult cases that year, leading to 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines. - https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/germanys-netzdg-and-threat-online-free-speech https://law.yale.edu/mfia/case-disclosed/germanys-netzdg-and... To me this looks like a severe overreach of speech restrictions, even if one doesn't idealize the US 1st amendment, and accepts the need for some government censorship. Yet I've only learned about it just now, from a very obscure post.

lupire 5y ago
Your first two links don't support the claim. Twitter removed an impersonator spreading fake news. Unlabeled satire posted context-free to Twitter where it gets interpreted at true and repeated, is a different complicated problem (and why Twitter is a fundementally terrible design).