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Indeed. GDPR, cookie laws, draconian anti-free speech content policies. I'm not a fan at all of the US government but Europe has proven to be the last place on
by bbqfog 2y ago
Indeed. GDPR, cookie laws, draconian anti-free speech content policies. I'm not a fan at all of the US government but Europe has proven to be the last place on earth you want to host something.
- Tanjreeve 2y agoIf your "tech innovation" isn't capable of restricting child pornography and calls for terrorism and genocide maybe it's not 100% a loss for everyone else?
- bbqfog 2y agoThere are calls for terrorism and genocide coming daily from the MSM in Europe and the US.
- Tanjreeve 2y agoYou'd agree that there are limits to free speech then?
- bbqfog 2y agoI think you may have replied to the wrong comment or this is a very drastic non sequitur.
- Tanjreeve 2y agoEither one would agree that if the "MSM" were publishing bad things then there's a need to control it. At which point the question is why is a social media website different. Or you'd say that child porn and other bad things being published on websites are fine and there's no need to control things. At which point you'd be pretty wildly out of step with the majority of the population.
- bbqfog 2y agoMSM are publishing bad things, freedom of speech is important and I don't think we need to "control" anything (child porn is illegal by any measure, it's an abuse issue, not a speech issue). I can't even imagine how you jumped to that conclusion. Just because I don't agree with something, it doesn't mean I'm ok with eliminating it through fascism.
- Tanjreeve 2y agoYou can't claim to support total free speech and also accept that there is content that is bad for society that needs to be controlled. The moment you accept the latter premise you then need to build enforcement mechanisms and have debates that boil down to political preferences on what constitutes bad. I think it's kind of a navel gazing gesture to just hand wave at "I support the good free speech' and wash your hands of any of the coercion/"fascism" that comes with how the sausage is made.
- bbqfog 2y agoI do not accept that content should be controlled. I explicitly keep saying that, so I have no idea where you're getting that from.
- Nasrudith 2y agoSo tear down the bulletin boards. No not the electronic ones, the wooden ones.
- PhilipRoman 2y agoone of these things is not like the others
- everfrustrated 2y agoThe US has DCMA and strong free speech protections. There is no free speech protection in any EU country. DCMA is overlooked but it's hugely beneficial for US companies and means they're not liable for what their users publish/write on their site. In Europe you have to staff moderation teams to remove defamatory content etc or become liable to be sued yourself.
- watwut 2y agoI don't find USA to have meaningful speech protection. Retaliatory lawsuits are frequent and the process itself is and the process itself is the punishment. Plus, current goverment don't care about laws and people on top of it have history of retaliating against speech.
- AdrianB1 2y agoIt is still a lot better than the nothing that exists in EU as free speech. Also the current government does not care about laws and the previous did not want free speech, but in the end there is plenty of it.
- aranelsurion 2y agoYet almost all US companies where users can publish stuff operate in EU just as well. Seems like the upside of the market size outweights the downside of risks.
- Anamon 2y agoI'll challenge you to find any EU member state where free speech is not protected by constitution.
- ako 2y agoThere is free speech in Europe, just not free lies. I think it’s a good thing if voter manipulation through Russian lies is addressed, this is just a piece of online warfare from Russia.
- bbqfog 2y agoThis is the kind of thing you don't have to contend with if you host outside of Europe. I don't care about your beef with Russia, I do care about free speech though.
- rwyinuse 2y agoIt's indeed easy not to care about "our beef with Russia" when you're far away from them. The feeling is quite different when you live next to them, and know that your home might get bombed one day because of Putin's geopolitical fantasies you have absolutely no control over. I like free speech, but I would rather not die because an army of Russian trolls managed to replace Western democratic governments with Russian puppets.
- bbqfog 2y agoJust food for thought... I have a hard time viewing the people who want to restrict speech as my ally. Quite the opposite. I'll take so-called (likely fictional) "trolls" over restrictions of speech any day of the week.
- rwyinuse 2y agoI don't see why anybody would doubt the existence of those trolls. It's quite obvious that social media can be cheap and efficient tool for spreading propaganda, and information warfare / spreading propaganda among your enemies is nothing new. It's done by many nation states and other actors, Russia is just among the most successful. Anyway, I tend to agree that "too much" freedom of speech is not the real issue here. Across Western world, neoliberal economic policy has failed to bring prosperity among large segments of population. Politicians have also ignored very real issues, such as failed humanitarian migration policies, DEI-policies which discriminate against particular "privileged" groups and so on. Trolls would have much lower success rate, and far right parties would be much smaller if these concerns had been taken seriously before by mainstream parties. People who are happy and optimistic about their lives and future rarely become extremists.