8 ms·

X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube sign EU code to tackle hate speech

31 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

sneak 2y ago
It’s time we start calling these things what they really are: censorship platforms. They have declared themselves the arbiters of what is or isn’t true, and censor anything that doesn’t align with their views, right or wrong. At one point YouTube was censoring videos telling people to wear masks, as it contravened the government’s recommendations (who were lying to preserve mask availability for healthcare workers). Build and use alternatives. Tell your friends and favorite content creators to stop donating content for free to these censorship platforms.
- dudefeliciano 2y ago
  what are the alternatives, and how are they not "censorship platforms"?
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    The alternative is moderation only on content (CP for example) and not on speech (save for crimes like death threats and so on). The more you censor speech the more radicalized people become against the system setting that censorship. It becomes a self perpetuating feedback loop.
    - dspillett 2y ago
      > and not on speech save for crimes(death threats and so on). Dealing with speech that is, actively encourages, or supports (or engenders fear of in potential victims)¹, such crimes, is exactly what this is trying to get the companies to address. ---- [1] That list being the battery/assault/affray equivalents of hate speech
      - anonymous344 2y ago
        really? how often this has happeden from internet writings? and how many times has happened actual crimes that eu politicans have been lately hiding ?
      - Cumpiler69 2y ago
        >could directly lead to "Could lead to" is a slippery slope to censoring free speech or even to a Minority Report style of enforcing crimes before they happen. The EU already tried dozens of times to ban encrypted chat on the same kind of fearmongering, now they're boiling the frog on free speech.
        dspillett 2y ago
        > > could directly lead to > "Could lead to" is a slippery slope Bad wording on my part, to an extent due to trying to make the battery/assault/affray comparison match better. I've edited it to “directly encourages”, though that is still vague enough to be accused of being the start of a slippery slope. I know why people worry about the slippery slope, and you should be able to say anything but not expect zero comeback (“free speech, but not speech free of consequences” and all that), so until/unless there are practical consequences (is anyone working on slap-over-IPv4?) we need to compromise and start blocking things somewhere along that slope.
  - timbit42 2y ago
    Mastodon is federated, like email so censorship is more difficult as you can switch servers.
pjc50 2y ago
I'm not sure how well that's going to work when the boss of X is doing gestures that are illegal in Germany.
- vanderZwan 2y ago
  > These EU Codes of Conduct are voluntary commitments and companies face no penalties if they decide to back out of the agreement, as Elon Musk did with X (then known as Twitter) in 2022 when he withdrew the company from the Code of Practice on Disinformation. It's pretty obviously a PR stunt done in bad faith to delay actual legal consequences. I don't understand why this kind of "legal" construct even exists tbh.
  - nolok 2y ago
    Contrary to what seems to often be believed, the EU way of doing things is to try to make companies do their own agreement and policing, as to avoid the rigidity of regulation unless we absolutely have to. Another example is how the EU asked the phone manufacturers to agree on a common charger for years on a good will basis, and only had to regulate when samsung said they were going to back out if no regulation was made because apple was not playing ball. So the idea here is "guys, we really don't want to come here and make a law about what is or isn't allowed to be said or what has to be fact checked and everything, we want you to behave like adults and agree together about said rules". I believe in this case, the fact that every company is part of the same country and same bunch of absurdly rich tech companies means it's never going to work at all.
    - kragen 2y ago
      > to try to make companies do their own agreement and policing, as to avoid the rigidity of regulation unless we absolutely have to. This is precisely the censorship policy of the PRC. It ensures that nobody ever knows for sure what speech is permitted, so no speech is completely safe. Platforms compete for users by permitting marginally legal speech and compete for the favor of regulators by censoring it. This system is much more effective at suppressing political dissent than the US system, in which censorship decisions can be challenged in open court.
zfg 2y ago
Twitter's already got something to tackle: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elon-musk-salute https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo... I don't think Musk is helping Tesla sales in Europe.
- gadders 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
    He did it, repeatedly, and clearly. Pls stop trying to sane-wash his actions.
    - gadders 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_learned_nothing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_l... Here is a video. Reference included. Notice the vigor with which he performs the action, notice how the fingers in his hand start spread out but by the time he's erected his hand they are held together as in the reference video.
  - zfg 2y ago
    What are you claiming? That The Guardian doctored the video?
  - ribadeo 2y ago
    Uh no, you can watch the video for yourself. Mush clearly made 2 back to back nazi salutes: Forcefully and unambiguously
  - 2y ago
CodeCompost 2y ago
As long as those services are operated by companies based in the Fascist Idiotic Republic, I'm not going to believe a word they say.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zb3 2y ago
Hate speech = political speech you don't like
- thrance 2y ago
  No, in France it specifically refers to "Harmful speech targeted toward individuals or groups on the basis of intrisinc characteristics [to this group], that may threaten social peace." [1] If your particular political ideology requires this sort of speech, you should probably do some introspection. [1] https://www.un.org/fr/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/what-is-hate-speech https://www.un.org/fr/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/...
  - zb3 2y ago
    This is already a political position - you might consider something is harmful to a particular group, but I might view this as the opposite. I think it's very easy to see a practical example of this..
    - thrance 2y ago
      That's why we have a text of law and jurists that came up with more rigorous definitions. I basically gave you the shortest tldr of a tldr of the subject. I can only recommend you read up on it more, because this really isn't the censorship tool you make it up to be.
      - zb3 2y ago
        I see how this is used in practice. I don't know about France, but in Poland both sides use that label when convenient, and of course they refer to completely different things, yet always done by their political opponents.
        thrance 2y ago
        Can you point to any specific cases? You are being very vague and seem to rely on anecdotal evidence.
thrance 2y ago
Will Zuckerberg add another clause to his TOS, taking it from "it's OK to call someone mentally ill but only if they're queer" [1] to "it's OK to call someone mentally ill but only if they're queer AND don't live in Europe"? More seriously, I don't see how those companies can enforce this while not severing US users from EU users. They'll probably just ignore it anyway. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies-change/ https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies...
anonymous344 2y ago
do you remember 10 years ago when google promised only to tackle cp with their sensorship? and what happened in 2020-2023? all non-pharmaprofital messages were banned, deleted or flagged. Even 100% facts and even questions. wilder than in nz germany. There are already dozens of politicans in eu who has been convited of hate speech when all they did was publish public statistics of rpe crimes or vio1ence. Why the government officials are not working to prevent actual physical crimes that ruin the rest of the lives of so many young children around the europe?
- dathinab 2y ago
  you argument is basically nit picking negative aspects from one side, sometimes taking out of context, too, and then pretending you paint a very clear picture when in fact you do not Firstly wrt. YouToube censorship a lot is abuse of the copyright system YT doesn't care about because it doesn't make them money. There is still ton's of "non-pharmaprofital" content and similar on YT which wouldn't be there if YT would systematically censor it. Wrt. politicians while people tend put all kinds of labels onto politicians being "convicted" of hate speech is a very different thing. Not only is it not very common, but in close to all case I had looked into it was done very rightfully so. It's just that after the conviction some (most times) right wing propaganda sources love to ignore a lot of the fundamental aspects/claims/arguments the legal process was based on and then focused on some partial side point which by itself isn't enough to convict anyone for anything and pretends they where convinced for that. And if you would be you I wouldn't write "even just questions". Because questions aren't necessary any less hate speech then non question. E.g. holocaust denier love to formulate their conspiracy theories in questions (and naturally will ignore or claim fake news if someone answers their questions). But just because you formulate a conspiracy theory as a row of question doesn't make it not a conspiracy theory. And the same for hate speech. You always have to take more then just a sentence into context, something legal proceedings tend to do, and something people hit by such proceedings tend to claim they don't. In general YT "censorship" as in people abusing the copyright system and similar approaches to "take down" content they don't like is an issue, one which spawns to Google and other places, too. But giving how much mis-information, propaganda and non-pharmaprofitable information and similar you find on YT _even if you are not looking for it_ claiming that there is a huge problem with systematic censorship _today_ is kinda dump. (Yes in the pandemic there had been and issue, for a short time, before it got replaced by banners. It was a very unusual station no one was quite sure how to handle and people did make mistakes. But taking a short period in history and pretending nothing else change since then when a lot changed isn't very useful).
cgull8 2y ago
Hate speech is against only one religion. Against all other religions, it is perfectly ok according to these people as well as in Congress.

31 points by isaacfrond 2y ago

It’s time we start calling these things what they really are: censorship platforms. They have declared themselves the arbiters of what is or isn’t true, and censor anything that doesn’t align with their views, right or wrong. At one point YouTube was censoring videos telling people to wear masks, as it contravened the government’s recommendations (who were lying to preserve mask availability for healthcare workers). Build and use alternatives. Tell your friends and favorite content creators to stop donating content for free to these censorship platforms.

dudefeliciano 2y ago
what are the alternatives, and how are they not "censorship platforms"?
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  The alternative is moderation only on content (CP for example) and not on speech (save for crimes like death threats and so on). The more you censor speech the more radicalized people become against the system setting that censorship. It becomes a self perpetuating feedback loop.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    > and not on speech save for crimes(death threats and so on). Dealing with speech that is, actively encourages, or supports (or engenders fear of in potential victims)¹, such crimes, is exactly what this is trying to get the companies to address. ---- [1] That list being the battery/assault/affray equivalents of hate speech
    - anonymous344 2y ago
      really? how often this has happeden from internet writings? and how many times has happened actual crimes that eu politicans have been lately hiding ?
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      >could directly lead to "Could lead to" is a slippery slope to censoring free speech or even to a Minority Report style of enforcing crimes before they happen. The EU already tried dozens of times to ban encrypted chat on the same kind of fearmongering, now they're boiling the frog on free speech.
      - dspillett 2y ago
        > > could directly lead to > "Could lead to" is a slippery slope Bad wording on my part, to an extent due to trying to make the battery/assault/affray comparison match better. I've edited it to “directly encourages”, though that is still vague enough to be accused of being the start of a slippery slope. I know why people worry about the slippery slope, and you should be able to say anything but not expect zero comeback (“free speech, but not speech free of consequences” and all that), so until/unless there are practical consequences (is anyone working on slap-over-IPv4?) we need to compromise and start blocking things somewhere along that slope.
- timbit42 2y ago
  Mastodon is federated, like email so censorship is more difficult as you can switch servers.

pjc50 2y ago

I'm not sure how well that's going to work when the boss of X is doing gestures that are illegal in Germany.

vanderZwan 2y ago
> These EU Codes of Conduct are voluntary commitments and companies face no penalties if they decide to back out of the agreement, as Elon Musk did with X (then known as Twitter) in 2022 when he withdrew the company from the Code of Practice on Disinformation. It's pretty obviously a PR stunt done in bad faith to delay actual legal consequences. I don't understand why this kind of "legal" construct even exists tbh.
- nolok 2y ago
  Contrary to what seems to often be believed, the EU way of doing things is to try to make companies do their own agreement and policing, as to avoid the rigidity of regulation unless we absolutely have to. Another example is how the EU asked the phone manufacturers to agree on a common charger for years on a good will basis, and only had to regulate when samsung said they were going to back out if no regulation was made because apple was not playing ball. So the idea here is "guys, we really don't want to come here and make a law about what is or isn't allowed to be said or what has to be fact checked and everything, we want you to behave like adults and agree together about said rules". I believe in this case, the fact that every company is part of the same country and same bunch of absurdly rich tech companies means it's never going to work at all.
  - kragen 2y ago
    > to try to make companies do their own agreement and policing, as to avoid the rigidity of regulation unless we absolutely have to. This is precisely the censorship policy of the PRC. It ensures that nobody ever knows for sure what speech is permitted, so no speech is completely safe. Platforms compete for users by permitting marginally legal speech and compete for the favor of regulators by censoring it. This system is much more effective at suppressing political dissent than the US system, in which censorship decisions can be challenged in open court.

zfg 2y ago

Twitter's already got something to tackle: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elon-musk-salute https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo... I don't think Musk is helping Tesla sales in Europe.

gadders 2y ago
[flagged]
- PartiallyTyped 2y ago
  He did it, repeatedly, and clearly. Pls stop trying to sane-wash his actions.
  - gadders 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_learned_nothing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i68puj/have_we_l... Here is a video. Reference included. Notice the vigor with which he performs the action, notice how the fingers in his hand start spread out but by the time he's erected his hand they are held together as in the reference video.
- zfg 2y ago
  What are you claiming? That The Guardian doctored the video?
- ribadeo 2y ago
  Uh no, you can watch the video for yourself. Mush clearly made 2 back to back nazi salutes: Forcefully and unambiguously
- 2y ago

CodeCompost 2y ago

As long as those services are operated by companies based in the Fascist Idiotic Republic, I'm not going to believe a word they say.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

zb3 2y ago

Hate speech = political speech you don't like

thrance 2y ago
No, in France it specifically refers to "Harmful speech targeted toward individuals or groups on the basis of intrisinc characteristics [to this group], that may threaten social peace." [1] If your particular political ideology requires this sort of speech, you should probably do some introspection. [1] https://www.un.org/fr/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/what-is-hate-speech https://www.un.org/fr/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/...
- zb3 2y ago
  This is already a political position - you might consider something is harmful to a particular group, but I might view this as the opposite. I think it's very easy to see a practical example of this..
  - thrance 2y ago
    That's why we have a text of law and jurists that came up with more rigorous definitions. I basically gave you the shortest tldr of a tldr of the subject. I can only recommend you read up on it more, because this really isn't the censorship tool you make it up to be.
    - zb3 2y ago
      I see how this is used in practice. I don't know about France, but in Poland both sides use that label when convenient, and of course they refer to completely different things, yet always done by their political opponents.
      - thrance 2y ago
        Can you point to any specific cases? You are being very vague and seem to rely on anecdotal evidence.

thrance 2y ago

Will Zuckerberg add another clause to his TOS, taking it from "it's OK to call someone mentally ill but only if they're queer" [1] to "it's OK to call someone mentally ill but only if they're queer AND don't live in Europe"? More seriously, I don't see how those companies can enforce this while not severing US users from EU users. They'll probably just ignore it anyway. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies-change/ https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies...

anonymous344 2y ago

do you remember 10 years ago when google promised only to tackle cp with their sensorship? and what happened in 2020-2023? all non-pharmaprofital messages were banned, deleted or flagged. Even 100% facts and even questions. wilder than in nz germany. There are already dozens of politicans in eu who has been convited of hate speech when all they did was publish public statistics of rpe crimes or vio1ence. Why the government officials are not working to prevent actual physical crimes that ruin the rest of the lives of so many young children around the europe?

dathinab 2y ago
you argument is basically nit picking negative aspects from one side, sometimes taking out of context, too, and then pretending you paint a very clear picture when in fact you do not Firstly wrt. YouToube censorship a lot is abuse of the copyright system YT doesn't care about because it doesn't make them money. There is still ton's of "non-pharmaprofital" content and similar on YT which wouldn't be there if YT would systematically censor it. Wrt. politicians while people tend put all kinds of labels onto politicians being "convicted" of hate speech is a very different thing. Not only is it not very common, but in close to all case I had looked into it was done very rightfully so. It's just that after the conviction some (most times) right wing propaganda sources love to ignore a lot of the fundamental aspects/claims/arguments the legal process was based on and then focused on some partial side point which by itself isn't enough to convict anyone for anything and pretends they where convinced for that. And if you would be you I wouldn't write "even just questions". Because questions aren't necessary any less hate speech then non question. E.g. holocaust denier love to formulate their conspiracy theories in questions (and naturally will ignore or claim fake news if someone answers their questions). But just because you formulate a conspiracy theory as a row of question doesn't make it not a conspiracy theory. And the same for hate speech. You always have to take more then just a sentence into context, something legal proceedings tend to do, and something people hit by such proceedings tend to claim they don't. In general YT "censorship" as in people abusing the copyright system and similar approaches to "take down" content they don't like is an issue, one which spawns to Google and other places, too. But giving how much mis-information, propaganda and non-pharmaprofitable information and similar you find on YT _even if you are not looking for it_ claiming that there is a huge problem with systematic censorship _today_ is kinda dump. (Yes in the pandemic there had been and issue, for a short time, before it got replaced by banners. It was a very unusual station no one was quite sure how to handle and people did make mistakes. But taking a short period in history and pretending nothing else change since then when a lot changed isn't very useful).

cgull8 2y ago

Hate speech is against only one religion. Against all other religions, it is perfectly ok according to these people as well as in Congress.