Poland Plans To Make Censoring of Social Media Accounts Illegal (theguardian.com) 530
Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump's social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there. From a report: "Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not," wrote the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Facebook earlier this week, without directly mentioning Trump. "There can be no consent to censorship." Morawiecki indirectly compared social media companies taking decisions to remove accounts with Poland's experience during the communist era. "Censorship of free speech, which is the domain of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is now returning in the form of a new, commercial mechanism to combat those who think differently," he wrote. Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is ideologically aligned with Trump on many issues, has itself been accused of trying to limit freedom of speech in recent years.
Country heavily hit by right-wing populists... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's so bad about populism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oxford English, first google hit:
popÂuÂlism /ËpÃpyÉ(TM)ËOElizÉ(TM)m/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: populism
a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
"the question is whether he will tone down his fiery populism now that he has joined the political establishment"
support for populist politicians or policies.
"the government came to power on a wave of populism"
the quality of appealing to or being aimed at ordinary people.
"art museums did not gain bigger audiences through a new populism"
As a normal tax paying nobody, it sounds damned good to me to have a lot of normal people telling self appointed elite that normal people matter. Sounds very Democratic, in fact.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Populism itself isn't bad. It's the manipulation that's involved in trusting people that tell you what you want to hear. What you want to hear is not always the best choice. Especially when people start equating education with elite - which while true to an extent backfires and glorifies willful ignorance.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Insightful)
You literally just explained why populism is bad - it's about lying to people and telling them a story that pushes their buttons and what they want to hear, rather than the honest practical objective truth.
How is that never bad in a political context?
This isn't telling little Timmy the tooth fairy is coming so don't fear losing a tooth...
Re:Doing things that benefit everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
There's dangers with Bernie Sander's style as well.
Ideally, a lawmaker or leader should not be concerned with appealing to the public, but instead, with making the best decision possible for the tribe.
The public has is own ideas about what the best decisions should be. And lawmakers and leaders are often disconnected from the experiences of the public. So it's often true that an elite has no grasp of what is the right decision for a non-elite. Even when the most noble of intentions is being wielded. Likewise, the general public can be less informed or misinformed about matters. At a minimum, every member of the public is at least somewhat insular in its views about what are good decisions for the population at large.
Populism is a terrible approach because it appeals to these very factors. It's a quick, feel-good message that the masses, in the absence of pre-existing biases or deeper thought, will happily accept.
Therefore, the CORRECT approach for a lawmaker or leader to proceed is:
(1) Consult with as many smart people about things as possible. (2) To consult with the population they represent and take their fears, gripes, and biases into account. (3) To consult with other lawmakers and leaders to discuss all these inputs amongst themselves. (4) To take into account historical realities and sociological realities. (5) To propose a plan that will best address the populations needs (6) To SELL THAT VISION using honesty and facts back to the population and amass as much support for the subsequent policies as possible ideally a sizable majority.
Populism, sadly, has the effect of eroding trust of that kind of process because it encourages some leaders to lie to the people to keep them happy. Then the leaders and lawmakers who are trying to follow the formula above, face an uphill battle in step (6).
Campaigning never stops (Score:3)
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:4, Interesting)
why didn't you tell this to Lavandera, whose post [slashdot.org] denounces populism — not any sort of "manipulation" it may or may not bring with it?
Because it always has all the bad mixed in with it.
And not to get in too deep, but you've shared something correct. Poverty can never be the fault of only the poor person. The world has plenty of resources to go around. But disproportionate wealth grows by taking money from those who can't afford to spend it. Wal-Mart shares far more of the blame for poverty as compared to its own employees. This isn't an argument for communism. Just against having no checks on capitalism.
Over-reducing problems to simple forms will not let you solve them. Populism itself isn't bad - but I can't find a single instance where it hasn't brought all the negative aspects along with it.
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And not to get in too deep, but you've shared something correct. Poverty can never be the fault of only the poor person.
Sure it can. Someone can choose to live in poverty deliberately, not get a job, not do anything to earn a living, not try to get an education, etc. For the vast majority of people, it is not a choice, but "never" is a bit too strong, IMO. :-)
The world has plenty of resources to go around. But disproportionate wealth grows by taking money from those who can't afford to spend it. Wal-Mart shares far more of the blame for poverty as compared to its own employees. This isn't an argument for communism. Just against having no checks on capitalism.
It's more than just that. It's an argument for having politicians who are smarter.
Walmart is a classic example of a sociopathically run corporation. Every time government adds restrictions, it finds ways to cheat the system while remaining strictly legal. And the le
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, as per Democracy and the current political structures.
Re: What's so bad about populism? (Score:3)
That is nationalism.
What's so bad about nationalism?
Re: What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's so bad about nationalism?
It promotes the idea that people of living in one place are somehow better and/or more deserving than those in another place.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Informative)
It is perhaps worse in the Eastern bloc because not only do they have this bullshit but they also have an ingrained totalitarian streak which the likes of Russia are more than happy to cultivate and divide with.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, in the Eastern Bloc, they are _recovering_ from a totalitarian streak, which they have first hand experience of, having had a population that lived through it (rather than the starry eyed "But, we'll do it right. We'll make sure we know which people to trample, and it'll be glorious.".
Have you been to Poland and engaged with their populace (I have). Worked with Poles? Know them well (the actual current Polish, not people who've moved a couple of generations ago)?
They're intensely practical and hard working. The older Poles have had a real tough time living under the iron heel, and really do understand just how bad it is when you need to watch what you say, otherwise out of nowhere someone will suddenly turn up and cancel (disappear) you for speaking against the group think.
When a group like that turns round and says "This is getting uncomfortably close to something we recognise very well.", it would be wiser to actually sit down, listen, and try and work out what they're getting at, rather than say "Nah, can't be bothered. They must be totalitarian and purely populist". That's pure intellectual laziness.
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> they are _recovering_ from a totalitarian streak,
And implementing their own instead. The EU is concerned enough at this, they are insisting on funding being dependent on the Polish and Hungarian governments respecting the rule of law:
https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
"Hungary and Poland are still vetoing implementation of the European Union’s $900 billion fiscal stimulus package agreed in July, as the European Central Bank is likely to ease monetary policy further later this week.
The two governmen
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Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, in the Eastern Bloc, they are _recovering_ from a totalitarian streak, which they have first hand experience of, having had a population that lived through it (rather than the starry eyed "But, we'll do it right. We'll make sure we know which people to trample, and it'll be glorious.".
Have you been to Poland and engaged with their populace (I have). Worked with Poles? Know them well (the actual current Polish, not people who've moved a couple of generations ago)?
They're intensely practical and hard working. The older Poles have had a real tough time living under the iron heel, and really do understand just how bad it is when you need to watch what you say, otherwise out of nowhere someone will suddenly turn up and cancel (disappear) you for speaking against the group think.
When a group like that turns round and says "This is getting uncomfortably close to something we recognise very well.", it would be wiser to actually sit down, listen, and try and work out what they're getting at, rather than say "Nah, can't be bothered. They must be totalitarian and purely populist". That's pure intellectual laziness.
And yet they are plummeting in freedom of the press rankings [notesfrompoland.com] under this government that is supposedly championing free speech.
Fun Fact: I knew without looking that I'd find declining freedom of the press. That's because right wing populists are consistently hostile to free speech, the only time they raise objections is when their ability to spread their message is inhibited.
Re: What's so bad about populism? (Score:4, Funny)
freedom of the press rankings That's rich. The press trying to maintain it's monopoly on spin and the cancel culture. I'd say Poland should get extra points for prohibiting the silencing of free speech. But that would just result in my being can... [NO CARRIER]
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Informative)
It's kinda funny you accuse right wing populists of things that leftists do a lot, as evidenced by recent events. Actually, all people in power want to control speech, and we shouldn't let them.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.oxfordlearnersdict... [oxfordlear...naries.com]
"Definition of populism noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary
a type of politics that claims to represent the opinions and wishes of ordinary people"
The bold is my emphasis on the problem. Because when the populist leader/party says they represent the opinions and wishes of ordinary people that also means that their legitimacy to hold power is higher that the other parties.
If that does not happens they claim the democratic rules and institutions are flawed and must be discarded.
Usually with the kind of results like we saw a few day ago.
Re:What's so bad about populism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Populism is only good if you believe in democracy. If you believe that you're special, and know what's best for everyone than they do themselves, then populism is in the way.
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I am pretty sure that Russian trolls do not support the current Polish government, which is openly hostile to Russia due to past occupation. They really wanted US troops to station in Poland (hence are nice to Trump), which definitely is not in Russian interest.
Re:Country heavily hit by right-wing populists... (Score:4, Informative)
I'll consider this to be "censorship of free speech" when there's an attempt to make shouting fire in a crowded theatre illegal.
IMHO, the actual scandal here is that they let powerful people get away with repeatedly and egregiously violating their rules that apply to everyone else (and sometimes the law), until said powerful people are no longer powerful.
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Addressing your correction, shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre in US is legal. It being illegal is a far left talking point that came from CNN trying to spin their usual political BS about dangers of free speech over sanctioned speech. There was a decision that made it de jure illegal over a century ago that was overturned half a century ago.
This is so well documented, that it even managed to stay up on wikipedia in spite of attempts to moderate it out of sight.
Re:Country heavily hit by right-wing populists... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's sad then that right-wing populists are the ones dedicated to preserving freedom of speech.
Except they aren't. The Polish Government has excluded other voices from the state controlled television and threatened to shut down the few remaining newspapers which oppose them. In the US, the "right wing populists" started a "free speech network" called Parler where they shadow banned everyone by default and only allowed them to speak if they agreed with the group think of the site.
There are problems with this on the "left" too of course. "No platforming" is in principle not the same as censorship, but if you have a speaker coming in to a place already and then you scream at them to no-platform them then it becomes censorship. If that person is not a supporter of violence then that becomes problematic. If you look further then Venezuela is not a bastion of free speech.
The fundamental to realise is that "left" vs "right" is a mind trick to stop you thinking. As if there can only be one type of bad person; the one on the other end and so everyone else on whatever end you are must be okay. In fact Stalinists were terrible and Hitlerites were terrible. Poland is one of the places where the extreme right proved they could work with and were very close to the extreme left [wikipedia.org]. The people being shot for demanding freedom didn't notice that they were being shot with a "right wing" bullet or a "left wing" bullet and feel the freedom. Instead there were plenty of people who fought against both Hitler and Stalin at different times. It is sad when Poland, one of the places destroyed by both extreme left and right ends up in the hands of either.
Everybody decent has to unite against the authoritarian idiots destroying our freedom. Chavez bad; Trump bad; Koch bad; Li bad; Gomulka bad; Kaczynski bad. Just labelling yourself a "libertarian" or a believer in "social justice" doesn't make you okay.
Re: Country heavily hit by right-wing populists... (Score:5, Interesting)
Your accusations at parler lack evidence you marxist idiot. I was there from beginning till end nobody shadowbanned far left. Far lft is too stupid to defend themselves and actuall its far left tacymtic on twatter and farcebook to censor everyone with difference if views. You have no fing clue what youre talking about on parler you tool.
The whole point about shadowbanning is that "useful idiots" (I guess that makes you the marxist) like you don't think they were ever shadow banned because you get no notification. Fortunately someone who was inside their moderation process has given the game away [twitter.com] and written up exactly how it worked so we know you are under-informed or more likely lying.
I did wonder if someone would question that. It's a perfect proof what I was talking about - by trying to put me into the "marxist" box you try to get people to ignore my point instead of thinking about it. My family cat probably did more to fight "marxists"/Stalinists than you have ever done for the good of humanity.
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Re: Country heavily hit by right-wing populists... (Score:2)
To cite a former Danish minister of justice: "We must make it clear that we don't tolerate intolerance." At that point in the 1990s your were per definition a racist, if you expressed concerns over emigration.
That said: the tech companies could do what they want, if they were small entities and had a lot of compe
Twat (Score:4, Funny)
If the Polish govt is worried about it then they can set up their own platform for right-wing nut jobs. They can call it "The Polish Government Website".
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So much for "small government".
Target parler owners for shadowbans? (Score:3)
So, I'm assuming that Poland will be targeting the administrators of Parler for banning right wingers who didn't follow their groupthink [vivaldi.net]? News Flash: today some right wingers were surprised to discover their fascist friends are authoritarians. "Oh, that's what Americans fought World War II about. I never realised." they said.
Uh yeah (Score:2, Interesting)
Just in case anyone skipped TFS, "Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is ideologically aligned with Trump on many issues, has itself been accused of trying to limit freedom of speech in recent years." Gee. I wonder if they have problems with neo-n@zis in poland, too [wikipedia.org]. And oh, look, their white supremacists are also largely Catholic. From the viewpoint of the USA, it's like looking into a mirror.
Re:Uh yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Just in case anyone skipped TFS, "Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is ideologically aligned with Trump on many issues, has itself been accused of trying to limit freedom of speech in recent years." Gee. I wonder if they have problems with neo-n@zis in poland, too [wikipedia.org]. And oh, look, their white supremacists are also largely Catholic. From the viewpoint of the USA, it's like looking into a mirror.
Try standing on a street corner in 1/3 of Poland waving a rainbow flag and see whether or not you get "censored"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Forcing speech. (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems that forcing speech is also something that authoritarian and totalitarian governments do as well. The law better carve out a section that disallows any liability due to speech.
Why is it that the extreme right wing is so incompetent that they can't make and host their own servers and platforms?
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Because people start going after their payment processors, hosting providers, and everyone else in an attempt to silence them which just spreads them everywhere else.
Nonsense (Score:2)
Amazon was warning Parler about hosting illegal content as far back as November.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
If nobody will do business with you then you just might be an asshole.
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And buildings to work in. Produce their own food and build water treatment plants and delivery pipes. Sewage works and so on.
Unelected technocrats vs. voters (Score:2, Insightful)
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Twitter has the right to ban anyone they want from their platform for any reason including made-up reasons and no reason. If a government employee can declare part of a website to be a #safespace where he is exempt from the rules, he can start paying the bills.
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Twitter has the right to ban anyone they want ...
Their rights are limited by laws. And the government of Poland wants to pass a law that would limit the right to ban accounts
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Man, I guess Twitter is now fundamental to democracy. Guess we should be nationalizing it.
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Maybe they should and maybe they should not but earlier when Trump tried to block certain followers on the platform it was ruled it was official government communications and he could not do so.
Legal hair splitting aside; its a pretty silly position the President can be banned from the platform but on his personal account while in office was not permitted to use the platforms own privacy tools. Everyone on both sides wants to have their cake and eat it here. Its pretty sad how intellectually and morally ba
Re:Unelected technocrats vs. voters (Score:4, Insightful)
Twitter has not censored Trump in any way at all. Why should Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. be FORCED to do business with Trump and FORCED to give him their megaphone. Was it also wrong that Deutsche Bank decided to stop doing business with Trump? Should the PGA be forced to keep doing business with Trump?
Trump is the current president but that does NOT give him special rights for force companies to work with him. He said things that violated the CONTRACT he had with these companies and they terminated their relationship with him. He had previous violated those same terms and they kept justifying why they had not removed the account but after the capital was attacked and they saw the real world consequences of his violations they terminated the relationship.
If you have a private business should I be able to make you allow me inside and be given a megaphone to say whatever I want to all your other customers?
At this point Trump is damaging to these companies reputations and finances and I see no reason to force them to keep associating with Trump.
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Freedom of speech and Freedom of movement are two pretty fundamental rights in modern democracies. There are not many justifiable reasons to limit either. So consider the following hypothetical scenario.
Lets say Self Driving Tesla's operating on an Uber like system become a thing. Tesla owns all of them, and you can hail them as needed. Lets say it captures 60% of the market for all personal driving trips in urban areas. Lets say Elon Musk takes the company private. And lets say that one day Musk gets
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Because the rights of corporations (imaginary entities) should never take precedent over the rights of actual people.
So, if you invite me into your house and I start reciting the Satanic Bible in a Cockney accent while crab walking around your living room like Zoidberg you can do nothing about it, because it's my right to free speech as an actual person?
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So basically, you are saying if you EVER allow the president onto your property no matter what he says or does you can't have him removed in the future so long as he is president? If twitter had never allowed him on this would not be a problem but since twitter did allow him on they have to keep him no matter how toxic he gets? How much damage does he have to do to them before they are allowed to no longer associate with him?
If someone is shouting and me and saying things I don't like I am certainly free to
Re:Unelected technocrats vs. voters (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has a room in his house dedicated to speaking with the media. You should be asking Trump why he refuses to use it.
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Because the rights of corporations (imaginary entities) should never take precedent over the rights of actual people.
Time for Citizens United to be overturned then?
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If Trump has something to say, I am sure people will be able to hear it, even without Twitter.
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Because the mainstream TV networks have not literally cut away from white house pressers, and or talked over them with their own editorializing.
Your argument is basically a denialist fiction. Kind like saying SuperPACs don't violate campaign finance laws because they didn't coordinate with the campaign, when in practice someone at said PAC staffed by people who all go to the same cocktail parties, sits refreshing the campaign website every 10min watching for talking points to parrot and events to cover. It
Above the law? (Score:3)
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A TOS is not a law. Contracts which violate the laws are not valid. If the law is found to in conflict with a TOS or is changed so it becomes in conflict with a TOS, the TOS inst worth the paper it was never printed on.
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Is the Twitter TOS a violation of US law? Seems like an easy win for the president then.
Re: Unelected technocrats vs. voters (Score:2)
It's funny, the same yokels screaming about the sanctity of contracts and private property suddenly don't care when they feel entitled to break contracts and use someone else's property.
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So your argument is because its the president he should be exempt. So who else is on your exemption list?
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I'll agree when social media is the only platform politicians have to communicate with their followers.
If being banned on social media affects the government's ability to communicate with its citizens we have much bigger problems than we realize.
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Everyone who signed-up for Twitter in effect voted for Dorsey. This is not tyranny, this is market action.
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Nobody voted for Jack Dorsey
In the free market, people vote for products with their wallets. Or their time and viewership, in the case of social or ad-supported services.
As long as people continue using the service, they are effectively voting for its policies.
Don't like what Twitter does? Then leave. I don't use Twitter, and my life is fine.
You can't have a cabal of technocrats deciding what is or is not allowable speech by a President.
The President has a press room AND a government-run web site to communicate anything he wants to the rest of the world. So he always has avenues to speak out.
But guess what? If he wants to use a n
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Can you give exact examples on how we the people were injured by Trump being banned from twitter. Is/Was he unable to communicate with the country? Did this banning cause harm to Americans due to not being able to read his tweets?
It's fucking twitter, it should be the last option for getting an important message to Americans.
Good idea! (Score:3)
If you're looking to have your country blocked from literally every service on the Internet, this is how you do it.
In other news, VPN subscriptions to billing addresses in Poland will increase by a few orders of magnitude.
Legal definition of "Censorship of free speech" (Score:2, Informative)
How does Poland legally define "free speech" and "censorship"
Poles are allowed [wordpress.com] “to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
"Article 196 of the Penal code reads, “anyone found guilty of offending religious feelings through public calumny of an object or place of worship is liable to a fine, restriction of liberty or a maximum two year prison sentence."
"Article 256 [wikipedia.org] makes anyone found guilty of promoti
Good for them. (Score:2)
The remedy for bad ideas is better ideas. This has been widely understood since antiquity.
When bad people can control the marketplace of ideas, their ideas tend to become the norm.
Poland has the right idea, and we should learn from their example.
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Yeah what a shining progressive example, unless you happen to be gay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Private property (Score:3, Insightful)
For the millionth time... (Score:3, Insightful)
For the millionth time, inciting violence is not a "view". Verifiable facts are not "views". Corporate giants are not deciding which views are right and wrong (though even if they were, as private, non-government entities that is fully within their rights, just as religions can dictate what is right and wrong to their members).
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https://thehill.com/homenews/a... [thehill.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
That should come as no shock given he's had significant ties, business and personal, with mobs pretty much his entire adult life on top of the fact he's a wannabe tough guy with autocratic world views.
Grandstanding at it's finest (Score:5, Informative)
Tossing aside for a minute the apparent contradiction of compelled speech (forced platforming of someone like Trump) as a pro-free speech move - generally free-speech has also included the right to abstain from speech - This outlaws essentially any sort of platform moderation. There goes any attempt to remove calls to violence (whether for or against the ruling party), pornography (of any kind), doxxing of government agents, their spouses, children, or secret paramours, publication of state secrets, etc. All content moderation goes out the window since nothing can be removed until the government sends a letter approving its removal.
My understanding from people who've travelled there extensively (I've only been once), Poland is a largely homogeneous catholic country with all sorts of things that they find offensive as a matter of course. LGBTQ, Atheism, Feminism, etc. are all "out of fashion" with the government there, and they'd probably not like the sudden influx of previously moderated content from social media within the country if government approval was necessary in all cases.
Ultimately this is all more totalitarian culture war bullshit
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I think Poland has now joined Brazil as one of the few countries in the world with politics more toxic than America's. Culture war is societal cancer.
Unless you're gay! (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't use it to spread "LGBT Propaganda", of course!!!!
In the US the government grants free speech (Score:3)
The US government won’t restrict speech based on the first amendment and there is a solid argument that the new digital “town square” being 100% private means we are handing over free speech to corporations where monopolies become dangerous. Its against the first amendment spirit to be censored or blacklisted or whatever because someone like Jeff Bezos doesn’t like me. So the solution is simple: a public square is public. The government should host a social platform that guarantees freedom of speech as outlined in law. You would need to provide some kind of proof of who you are, as a citizen or resident of the US, but this would be private. You would have a unique ID you’re not allowed to change. There isn’t freedom from speech so the government would have the right to post for all to see provided it’s stripped of as much opinion and as fact rich as possible. No one can delete others speech, but you can still curate by filtering and each user can choose what to see.
This would guarantee freedom of speech while letting users have some privacy yet keep extremest groups at least somewhat tethered to reality. Also, it would remove bots, foreign actors, and most of the spam all without changes to corporate social media regulation.
Save and protect free speech! (Score:3)
First they want websites to take more control over their content. Then they want them to take less control, because the "wrong" person got banned ... This is a behaviour typical of people who are used to being in control and who hate it when they have none. To them will it never be right, nor do they seem to have an idea on what they really want or what is actually happening. They need to start looking closer and not just create random laws meant only to chase symptoms without understanding the causes.
Social media has got a far different and worse problem than making the occasional mistake in banning the "wrong" person. By catering content tailored to specific interest groups is social media fuelling misinformation, trends and cults in the worst possible way and are at the root of the problems. This is why social media finds itself repeatedly in the crossfire of politics in the first place. Creating tailored content is as bad as censoring content. It is the equivalent of telling a lie by leaving out parts of the truth. When companies make money by no longer giving people the whole truth, but only the convenient ones and filtering out the hard truths, then it's the same as censoring. Shielding one from inconvenient and hard to accept truths makes it only harder for one to accept these when we need to. This is why it got so bad. Of course, this was never meant to end as badly as it has now, but when people are no longer being treated like people, but as property and products, and as a result are being herded and their interests exploited for profit, and it ends in blood, then the practise of monetising interests is what needs to stop.
So when governments want to make laws then they should make the exploitation of people's interests illegal that are detrimental to free speech. And this should apply for social media as well as all forms of media, including TV. Until then is there no chance of uniting people with different interests and only then can we find meaning in free speech again. The value of free speech does not come from its ability to reach a few people, but it comes from its ability to reach everyone. All forms of tailoring and censoring, direct or indirect, can only diminish its value.
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^ This!
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Poland is already run by the far right. The government overthrow already happened (although try advocating something truly extreme like voting for a second party and see what happens)
Well I mean, it'll still be OK to censor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Best of luck (Score:5, Insightful)
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And they have laws that enforce blocking minors from sexually explicit and violant content,
Do they follow the same standards as Russia on "sexually explicit" content? Like where this [attitude.co.uk] would be illegal while this [sheknows.com] would be fine?
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Ahh, the old "I know better than everyone else on a subjective matter" defense.
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Ahh, the old "I know better than everyone else on a subjective matter" defense.
So, 2 men kissing is sexually explicit while a man and woman kissing isn't?
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Will the Polish government allow pro abortion information on social media? I'm going with a strong no on that one.
Re:Under the heel of Communism (Score:5, Informative)
Poland is currently under a right-wing authoritarian government, censured by the EU for violation of Article 7 ensuring its member states have free and fair elections. The right wing took over all three branches of government and cemented their power. This has nothing to do with free speech (oh, they've started arresting people for anti-government speech) and simply making a statement that if Twitter/FB want Poland money, they have to support the government. Like China, but on a small scale
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The polish Government is Nothing like China.
Every time neo-liberals lose an election the right is branded as 'authoritarian' when their actual policy implementation is nothing of the sort and almost always far more liberal in terms of individual liberties than the neo-liberals policies.
Yep. So liberal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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DING DING DING - Someone gets it. Now if only the occupants of the professorial stuff of our universities and incoming state department officials could realize the obvious!
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IPoland was under the brutal heel of Communism/Socialism for decades. They know better than most how censoring opinions and speech is a steppingstone to authoritarian government.
Germans also remember Stasi [wikipedia.org] and this is why Merkel, who hates Trump, publicly condemned banning of Trump. It does not matter if you see these actions as justified and reasonable, it opens the door for similar actions in the future which might not be justified or reasonable. What Jack Dorsey did is put a loaded gun on The Republic's table and walked away.
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Re:Under the heel of Communism (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore the government has branded everyone who teaches sex ed a pedophile who tries to get minors interested in sexual acts and turn people gay.
And they have "LGBT ideology free zones".
So much for respecting free speech.
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Most of the rest of the world, with the notable exception for some Islamic places, seems to deal just fine with it.
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I claim that those fears of are unfounded, because many other countries that employ sex ed in schools seem to do just fine, without widespread child abuse by teachers and or children turning gay because they learned that there is something like homosexuality.
You know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And claiming that sex ed doesn't do these things isn't the extraordinary claim.
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It's wonderful to see the position countries take based on their past experiences. Poland was under the brutal heel of Communism/Socialism for decades. They know better than most how censoring opinions and speech is a steppingstone to authoritarian government.
Germany too was under the brutal heel of an authoritarian government. They know better than most how censoring speech is a steppingstone to authoritarian government. Oh no, wait a minute, they actually have extremely strong censoring laws - which is why there isn't blood and gore in German releases of video games, and why public holocaust denial is punishable by five years in prison.
It's almost as if what you describe isn't an actual trend, but just cherry-picked examples to suit your own agenda.
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Yes, after seeing how the Notsee* regime used racism to divide their people and commit genocide, Germany outlawed certain hate speech.
* Slashdot's "lameness filter" won't let me use the correct word. How ironic.
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