I Shouldn’t Have to Publish This in The New York Times
The way we regulated social media platforms didn’t end harassment, extremism or disinformation. It only gave them more power and made the problem worse.
I shouldn’t have to publish this in The New York Times.
Ten years ago, I could have published this on my personal website, or shared it on one of the big social media platforms. But that was before the United States government decided to regulate both the social media platforms and blogging sites as if they were newspapers, making them legally responsible for the content they published.
The move was spurred on by an unholy and unlikely coalition of media companies crying copyright; national security experts wringing their hands about terrorism; and people who were dismayed that our digital public squares had become infested by fascists, harassers and cybercriminals. Bit by bit, the legal immunity of the platforms was eroded — from the judges who put Facebook on the line for the platform’s inaction during the Provo Uprising to the lawmakers who amended section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a bid to get Twitter to clean up its Nazi problem.
While the media in the United States remained protected by the First Amendment, members of the press in other countries were not so lucky. The rest of the world responded to the crisis by tightening rules on acceptable speech. But even the most prolific news service — a giant wire service like AP-AFP or Thomson-Reuters-TransCanada-Huawei — only publishes several thousand articles per day. And thanks to their armies of lawyers, editors and insurance underwriters, they are able to make the news available without falling afoul of new rules prohibiting certain kinds of speech — including everything from Saudi blasphemy rules to Austria’s ban on calling politicians “fascists” to Thailand’s stringent lèse-majesté rules. They can ensure that news in Singapore is not “out of bounds” and that op-eds in Britain don’t call for the abolition of the monarchy.
But not the platforms — they couldn’t hope to make a dent in their users’ personal expressions. From YouTube’s 2,000 hours of video uploaded every minute to Facebook-Weibo’s three billion daily updates, there was no scalable way to carefully examine the contributions of every user and assess whether they violated any of these new laws. So the platforms fixed this the Silicon Valley way: They automated it. Badly.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/opinion/future-free-speech-social-media-platforms.html
Or read on TG:
https://t.me/BlackBox_Archiv/467
#Facebook #DeleteFacebook #USA #harassment #extremism #disinformation
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES
The way we regulated social media platforms didn’t end harassment, extremism or disinformation. It only gave them more power and made the problem worse.
I shouldn’t have to publish this in The New York Times.
Ten years ago, I could have published this on my personal website, or shared it on one of the big social media platforms. But that was before the United States government decided to regulate both the social media platforms and blogging sites as if they were newspapers, making them legally responsible for the content they published.
The move was spurred on by an unholy and unlikely coalition of media companies crying copyright; national security experts wringing their hands about terrorism; and people who were dismayed that our digital public squares had become infested by fascists, harassers and cybercriminals. Bit by bit, the legal immunity of the platforms was eroded — from the judges who put Facebook on the line for the platform’s inaction during the Provo Uprising to the lawmakers who amended section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a bid to get Twitter to clean up its Nazi problem.
While the media in the United States remained protected by the First Amendment, members of the press in other countries were not so lucky. The rest of the world responded to the crisis by tightening rules on acceptable speech. But even the most prolific news service — a giant wire service like AP-AFP or Thomson-Reuters-TransCanada-Huawei — only publishes several thousand articles per day. And thanks to their armies of lawyers, editors and insurance underwriters, they are able to make the news available without falling afoul of new rules prohibiting certain kinds of speech — including everything from Saudi blasphemy rules to Austria’s ban on calling politicians “fascists” to Thailand’s stringent lèse-majesté rules. They can ensure that news in Singapore is not “out of bounds” and that op-eds in Britain don’t call for the abolition of the monarchy.
But not the platforms — they couldn’t hope to make a dent in their users’ personal expressions. From YouTube’s 2,000 hours of video uploaded every minute to Facebook-Weibo’s three billion daily updates, there was no scalable way to carefully examine the contributions of every user and assess whether they violated any of these new laws. So the platforms fixed this the Silicon Valley way: They automated it. Badly.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/opinion/future-free-speech-social-media-platforms.html
Or read on TG:
https://t.me/BlackBox_Archiv/467
#Facebook #DeleteFacebook #USA #harassment #extremism #disinformation
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES
Russia court bans Facebook, Instagram on extremism charges
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-technology-business-moscow-facebook-456db70cbe8e9bb639fca9fe2d793b10
A Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram on Monday for what it deemed extremist activity in a case against their parent company, Meta.
The Tverskoy District Court fulfilled a request from prosecutors to outlaw Meta Platforms Inc. and banned Facebook and Instagram for what they called extremist activities. Russian prosecutors have accused the social media platforms of ignoring government requests to remove what they described as fake news about Russian military actions in Ukraine and calls for anti-war protests in Russia.
The court’s ruling bans Meta from opening offices and doing business in Russia. Meta declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
Prosecutors haven’t requested to ban the Meta-owned messaging service WhatsApp, which is widely popular in Russia. The authorities also emphasized that they do not intend to punish individual Russians who use Facebook or Instagram.
Instagram and Facebook were already blocked in Russia after the country’s communications and media regulator Roskomnadzor said they were being used to call for violence against Russian soldiers. In addition to blocking Facebook and Instagram, Russian authorities also have shut access to foreign media websites, including BBC, the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza
Continuing the effort, Roskomnadzor on Monday blocked the website of Euronews, a European news network. The regulator has also cut Euronews broadcasts.
The court’s verdict comes amid multipronged efforts by Russian authorities to control the message about Russia’s military action in Ukraine, which the Kremlin describes as a special military operation intended to uproot alleged neo-Nazi nationalists.
A new law fast-tracked on March 4 by the Kremlin-controlled parliament, a week after Russia launched the attack on Ukraine, envisions prison terms of up to 15 years for posting fake information about the military that differs from the official narrative.
#Russia #facebook #instagram #ban #extremism #meta
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-technology-business-moscow-facebook-456db70cbe8e9bb639fca9fe2d793b10
A Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram on Monday for what it deemed extremist activity in a case against their parent company, Meta.
The Tverskoy District Court fulfilled a request from prosecutors to outlaw Meta Platforms Inc. and banned Facebook and Instagram for what they called extremist activities. Russian prosecutors have accused the social media platforms of ignoring government requests to remove what they described as fake news about Russian military actions in Ukraine and calls for anti-war protests in Russia.
The court’s ruling bans Meta from opening offices and doing business in Russia. Meta declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
Prosecutors haven’t requested to ban the Meta-owned messaging service WhatsApp, which is widely popular in Russia. The authorities also emphasized that they do not intend to punish individual Russians who use Facebook or Instagram.
Instagram and Facebook were already blocked in Russia after the country’s communications and media regulator Roskomnadzor said they were being used to call for violence against Russian soldiers. In addition to blocking Facebook and Instagram, Russian authorities also have shut access to foreign media websites, including BBC, the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza
Continuing the effort, Roskomnadzor on Monday blocked the website of Euronews, a European news network. The regulator has also cut Euronews broadcasts.
The court’s verdict comes amid multipronged efforts by Russian authorities to control the message about Russia’s military action in Ukraine, which the Kremlin describes as a special military operation intended to uproot alleged neo-Nazi nationalists.
A new law fast-tracked on March 4 by the Kremlin-controlled parliament, a week after Russia launched the attack on Ukraine, envisions prison terms of up to 15 years for posting fake information about the military that differs from the official narrative.
#Russia #facebook #instagram #ban #extremism #meta
AP NEWS
Russia court bans Facebook, Instagram on 'extremism' charges
MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram on Monday for what it deemed extremist activity in a case against their parent company, Meta. The Tverskoy District Court fulfilled a request from prosecutors to outlaw Meta Platforms Inc.