3 ms·

Europe schools Elon Musk that Twitter’s wings are already clipped

6 points by ryzvonusef 4y ago

origin_path 4y ago
The summary here is that the EU Commission has decided to head towards a sort of China-Lite style set of policies. It is now banning "disinformation" (what China calls "rumours") using only the self-censorship requirements, instead of implementing a firewall. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_20_2348 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... "> Platforms must mitigate against risks such as disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online" (guess 'cyber violence' against men is OK). As is common now for EU law the definitions used are open to endless interpretation - the Digital Services Act only applies to "very large" platforms, requires them to implement "risk based" mitigations against "disinformation" and yet must be "carefully balanced" against restrictions on freedom of expression, although of course this is impossible, because the rule is all about restricting freedom of expression. It's not only in the area of information control that the EU is following China. https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/22/eu-sets-out-commitment-to-lockdowns-vaccine-passports-mask-mandates-and-legally-binding-global-pandemic-treaty/ https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/22/eu-sets-out-commitment-t... "> It also encourages governments to counter “misinformation” in the media and online to ensure “clear, consistent and evidence-based messaging demonstrating the continued safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines”. It links worries about vaccine safety with “anti-Western and anti-EU narratives” and with websites which also go off-narrative on the Ukraine war." It has recently laid out a re-commitment to pre-emptive lockdowns and mask mandates that attempt to stop tiny numbers of COVID infections growing, even though COVID is already endemic. The ideological nature of the rules can be seen in the fact that it strongly discourages travel bans, because eliminating internal borders is a political imperative for the EU, whilst also insisting on measures that proved to be useless. Anyway, the EU is going to say this to Twitter very shortly - continue banning anyone who makes the EU Commission officials unhappy (regardless of factuality, and without knowing exactly what such views are) or else we'll levy massive fines on you. We can assume a few possible outcomes: 1. Musk plays hardball and withdraws any corporate presence (offices, datacenters etc) in the EU, proceeds to allow free speech that the EU doesn't like, refuses to pay any fines. 2. USA gets free speech, EU gets officially mandated censorship. Unclear how this works given the basic Twitter model. 3. Musk folds and implements EU censorship globally.
- psychoslave 4y ago
  > Platforms must mitigate against risks such as disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online" That one statement especially got my attention. The main issue with disinformation, to my mind, is who have means and interests to use them. > cyber violence against women The only occurrence of "women" in the actual legal text is there[1]: In view of possible cross-cutting elements that may be of relevance for other regulatory frameworks at Union level, the Board should be allowed to cooperate with other Union bodies, offices, agencies and advisory groups with responsibilities in fields such as equality, including equality between *women* and men, and non-discrimination, data protection, electronic communications, audiovisual services, detection and investigation of frauds against the EU budget as regards custom duties, or consumer protection, as necessary for the performance of its tasks. So the press release goes too far in simplification, at least in my taste. If women are more likely to suffer cyber violence, it should just states it explicitly, but not tacitly exclude adults males. It seams that researchers even coined the term "fear of crime gender paradox" as often males are more likely to be victim of violent crime.[2] No I don’t say men and women are on pare regarding being bullied online, I have no idea. The few research I made on the fly give mixed results, [3] is focus on females right from the start which doesn’t help, while [4] says that their data are too weak to be conclusive on that point. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0825&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men [3] https://eige.europa.eu/news/cyber-violence-growing-threat-especially-women-and-girls https://eige.europa.eu/news/cyber-violence-growing-threat-es... [4] https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-statistics-age-gender-sexual-orientation-race https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-statistics-age-gende...
ryzvonusef 4y ago
> The European Commission’s internet market commissioner, Thierry Breton — who is fairly obsessively online himself — quickly tweeted back at Musk, offering a passive-aggressive emoji wave greeting, following by a further punch: “In Europe, the bird will fly by our [EU flag emoji] rules. #DSA” > DSA is a reference to the Digital Services Act — aka, the bloc’s newly minted reboot of ecommerce and digital services rules which intends to drive accountability on Internet businesses by laying out governance expectations for how they handle societal risks like illegal speech.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
I really can't stand how americans treat other countries, and even, apparently, continents, as puppets in their culture war. One EU bureaucrat does not represent europe. I also have to ask myself: If some russian bureaucrat reminded twitter that it has too keep following russian laws banning certain speech, would they cheer on that as well? Anyway, Elon Musk can have as much freedom of speech as he wants on twitter in the US. If you want to censor your opponents in your culture war, the EU won't help you.
pr337h4m 4y ago
Elon could assert dominate by banning Breton for "repeated use of violent threats". Private property after all :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

6 points by ryzvonusef 4y ago

The summary here is that the EU Commission has decided to head towards a sort of China-Lite style set of policies. It is now banning "disinformation" (what China calls "rumours") using only the self-censorship requirements, instead of implementing a firewall. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_20_2348 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_... "> Platforms must mitigate against risks such as disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online" (guess 'cyber violence' against men is OK). As is common now for EU law the definitions used are open to endless interpretation - the Digital Services Act only applies to "very large" platforms, requires them to implement "risk based" mitigations against "disinformation" and yet must be "carefully balanced" against restrictions on freedom of expression, although of course this is impossible, because the rule is all about restricting freedom of expression. It's not only in the area of information control that the EU is following China. https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/22/eu-sets-out-commitment-to-lockdowns-vaccine-passports-mask-mandates-and-legally-binding-global-pandemic-treaty/ https://dailysceptic.org/2022/10/22/eu-sets-out-commitment-t... "> It also encourages governments to counter “misinformation” in the media and online to ensure “clear, consistent and evidence-based messaging demonstrating the continued safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines”. It links worries about vaccine safety with “anti-Western and anti-EU narratives” and with websites which also go off-narrative on the Ukraine war." It has recently laid out a re-commitment to pre-emptive lockdowns and mask mandates that attempt to stop tiny numbers of COVID infections growing, even though COVID is already endemic. The ideological nature of the rules can be seen in the fact that it strongly discourages travel bans, because eliminating internal borders is a political imperative for the EU, whilst also insisting on measures that proved to be useless. Anyway, the EU is going to say this to Twitter very shortly - continue banning anyone who makes the EU Commission officials unhappy (regardless of factuality, and without knowing exactly what such views are) or else we'll levy massive fines on you. We can assume a few possible outcomes: 1. Musk plays hardball and withdraws any corporate presence (offices, datacenters etc) in the EU, proceeds to allow free speech that the EU doesn't like, refuses to pay any fines. 2. USA gets free speech, EU gets officially mandated censorship. Unclear how this works given the basic Twitter model. 3. Musk folds and implements EU censorship globally.

psychoslave 4y ago
> Platforms must mitigate against risks such as disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online" That one statement especially got my attention. The main issue with disinformation, to my mind, is who have means and interests to use them. > cyber violence against women The only occurrence of "women" in the actual legal text is there[1]: In view of possible cross-cutting elements that may be of relevance for other regulatory frameworks at Union level, the Board should be allowed to cooperate with other Union bodies, offices, agencies and advisory groups with responsibilities in fields such as equality, including equality between *women* and men, and non-discrimination, data protection, electronic communications, audiovisual services, detection and investigation of frauds against the EU budget as regards custom duties, or consumer protection, as necessary for the performance of its tasks. So the press release goes too far in simplification, at least in my taste. If women are more likely to suffer cyber violence, it should just states it explicitly, but not tacitly exclude adults males. It seams that researchers even coined the term "fear of crime gender paradox" as often males are more likely to be victim of violent crime.[2] No I don’t say men and women are on pare regarding being bullied online, I have no idea. The few research I made on the fly give mixed results, [3] is focus on females right from the start which doesn’t help, while [4] says that their data are too weak to be conclusive on that point. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0825&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men [3] https://eige.europa.eu/news/cyber-violence-growing-threat-especially-women-and-girls https://eige.europa.eu/news/cyber-violence-growing-threat-es... [4] https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-statistics-age-gender-sexual-orientation-race https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-statistics-age-gende...

ryzvonusef 4y ago

> The European Commission’s internet market commissioner, Thierry Breton — who is fairly obsessively online himself — quickly tweeted back at Musk, offering a passive-aggressive emoji wave greeting, following by a further punch: “In Europe, the bird will fly by our [EU flag emoji] rules. #DSA” > DSA is a reference to the Digital Services Act — aka, the bloc’s newly minted reboot of ecommerce and digital services rules which intends to drive accountability on Internet businesses by laying out governance expectations for how they handle societal risks like illegal speech.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

I really can't stand how americans treat other countries, and even, apparently, continents, as puppets in their culture war. One EU bureaucrat does not represent europe. I also have to ask myself: If some russian bureaucrat reminded twitter that it has too keep following russian laws banning certain speech, would they cheer on that as well? Anyway, Elon Musk can have as much freedom of speech as he wants on twitter in the US. If you want to censor your opponents in your culture war, the EU won't help you.

pr337h4m 4y ago

Elon could assert dominate by banning Breton for "repeated use of violent threats". Private property after all :)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]