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Does anyone have more information about what the infringements are? It would be very obviously hypocritical for the EU to be publicly alleging "breach of transp

Does anyone have more information about what the infringements are? It would be very obviously hypocritical for the EU to be publicly alleging "breach of transparency obligations", if they arn't willing to be transparent about the allegations.

stainablesteel 3y ago
[flagged]
- sanp 3y ago
  So do Facebook, Faux News, Sky (and anffiliates in the continent) and any number of other right-wing media sources. Do we see federal or EU regulators going after them?
  - stainablesteel 3y ago
    nope just elon, which is exactly my point
layer8 3y ago
More details here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_6709 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... Note that they are now starting a formal investigation, whose purpose is to determine whether there are indeed infringements or not.
- mightyham 3y ago
  I'm still not seeing any reference to specific violations by X, just some surrounding context and listing of allegations. The EU has broad discretion to start formal inventigations, but specifically CHOSE to begin litigation against X for specific reasons. I would expect a transparent governing body to provide a litany of information to the public about why they are choosing to take that action. If there is a lack of said information, that would lead one to suspect that information is being purposely concealed and/or that it is a targeted partisan political action.
  - psd1 3y ago
    Alternative hypotheses: the information is published but not reported; the information is reported but you haven't seen the reporting; the information will become available at trial.
    - mightyham 3y ago
      I hope that is the case, and tried to be very careful with the wording of my last post to leave open the possibility for other explanations.
  - Vinnl 3y ago
    > partisan political action. Just to clarify, since I believe "partisan" in the US is often meant to refer to one of the two parties, that the EU has several bodies, and the European Commission specifically consists of people nominated by the member countries and do not necessarily come from the same party (to the limited extent that EU-wide parties even exist).
    - mightyham 3y ago
      Just to clarify, I meant partisan as any common political cause, which in some cases can cut across parties and countries.
  - SiempreViernes 3y ago
    With Musk publicly tearing down lots of the existing moderation and compliance infrastructure and welcoming back highly problematic disinformation actors like Trump and Alex Jones, Twitter seems like an obvious choice?
    - mightyham 3y ago
      Yes, it's quite possible twitter platforming certain unsavory people is part of the reason the EU is perusing litigation, but that also somewhat de-legitimizes this action as a legalistic inquiry. As an aside, the idea of "disinformation" is fundamentally political/partisan because it defines a grouping of conflicting people and ideas. Furthermore, one of the core principles of liberalism is that people in a society will never be able to agree on "hard questions" (i.e. religion, culture, values, economic system) so the government should not take stances on them. If the EU is a liberal institution, then it is totally contrary to be perusing something as arbitrary and difficult as defining what is and isn't "disinformation". They should be leaving that to individuals and private organizations.
ofcourseitsab 3y ago
[flagged]
- dmos62 3y ago
  EU members criticize each other all the time. What do you mean?
nvm0n2 3y ago
This is an organization that is overrun with secrecy. Making EU law is done in secret: https://euobserver.com/eu-political/136630 https://euobserver.com/eu-political/136630 The process of selecting the current leader was done in secret. Even the single-option EU Parliament ballot with her name on it, was a secret ballot. She replaced the previous leader who is on the record as saying, "Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup [...] I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious [...] I am for secret, dark debates." Then she negotiated massive vaccine purchases from Pfizer that were far too large, and the deal was secret. People wanted to know what sort of negotiation process led to buying hundreds of millions of shots that then had to be destroyed because nobody wanted them, and it turned out she negotiated it via SMS and those messages were ... yep, secret. (in fact, destroyed). This came as no surprise because at the time she got the job she was under investigation in Germany for corruption, but the investigation stalled after phones that were confiscated turned out to have had all their data deleted before being handed over. The EU insists that almost every website spam you with reams of boilerplate in the name of transparency, but systematically refuses transparency for itself.

stainablesteel 3y ago

[flagged]

sanp 3y ago
So do Facebook, Faux News, Sky (and anffiliates in the continent) and any number of other right-wing media sources. Do we see federal or EU regulators going after them?
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  nope just elon, which is exactly my point

layer8 3y ago

More details here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_6709 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... Note that they are now starting a formal investigation, whose purpose is to determine whether there are indeed infringements or not.

mightyham 3y ago
I'm still not seeing any reference to specific violations by X, just some surrounding context and listing of allegations. The EU has broad discretion to start formal inventigations, but specifically CHOSE to begin litigation against X for specific reasons. I would expect a transparent governing body to provide a litany of information to the public about why they are choosing to take that action. If there is a lack of said information, that would lead one to suspect that information is being purposely concealed and/or that it is a targeted partisan political action.
- psd1 3y ago
  Alternative hypotheses: the information is published but not reported; the information is reported but you haven't seen the reporting; the information will become available at trial.
  - mightyham 3y ago
    I hope that is the case, and tried to be very careful with the wording of my last post to leave open the possibility for other explanations.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  > partisan political action. Just to clarify, since I believe "partisan" in the US is often meant to refer to one of the two parties, that the EU has several bodies, and the European Commission specifically consists of people nominated by the member countries and do not necessarily come from the same party (to the limited extent that EU-wide parties even exist).
  - mightyham 3y ago
    Just to clarify, I meant partisan as any common political cause, which in some cases can cut across parties and countries.
- SiempreViernes 3y ago
  With Musk publicly tearing down lots of the existing moderation and compliance infrastructure and welcoming back highly problematic disinformation actors like Trump and Alex Jones, Twitter seems like an obvious choice?
  - mightyham 3y ago
    Yes, it's quite possible twitter platforming certain unsavory people is part of the reason the EU is perusing litigation, but that also somewhat de-legitimizes this action as a legalistic inquiry. As an aside, the idea of "disinformation" is fundamentally political/partisan because it defines a grouping of conflicting people and ideas. Furthermore, one of the core principles of liberalism is that people in a society will never be able to agree on "hard questions" (i.e. religion, culture, values, economic system) so the government should not take stances on them. If the EU is a liberal institution, then it is totally contrary to be perusing something as arbitrary and difficult as defining what is and isn't "disinformation". They should be leaving that to individuals and private organizations.

ofcourseitsab 3y ago

[flagged]

dmos62 3y ago
EU members criticize each other all the time. What do you mean?

nvm0n2 3y ago

This is an organization that is overrun with secrecy. Making EU law is done in secret: https://euobserver.com/eu-political/136630 https://euobserver.com/eu-political/136630 The process of selecting the current leader was done in secret. Even the single-option EU Parliament ballot with her name on it, was a secret ballot. She replaced the previous leader who is on the record as saying, "Monetary policy is a serious issue. We should discuss this in secret, in the Eurogroup [...] I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious [...] I am for secret, dark debates." Then she negotiated massive vaccine purchases from Pfizer that were far too large, and the deal was secret. People wanted to know what sort of negotiation process led to buying hundreds of millions of shots that then had to be destroyed because nobody wanted them, and it turned out she negotiated it via SMS and those messages were ... yep, secret. (in fact, destroyed). This came as no surprise because at the time she got the job she was under investigation in Germany for corruption, but the investigation stalled after phones that were confiscated turned out to have had all their data deleted before being handed over. The EU insists that almost every website spam you with reams of boilerplate in the name of transparency, but systematically refuses transparency for itself.