Submitted via IRC for guy_
Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies have been given an ultimatum by the European Union: rid your platforms of hate speech or face legal consequences.
European regulators have been pushing social media firms to remove racist and violent posts from their platforms in a timely manner for years. Their patience is running out.
Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google have all pledged to do more. In May 2016, they promised to review a majority of hate speech flagged by users within 24 hours and to remove any illegal content.
But the European Commission, EU's top regulator, said Thursday they are still failing to act fast enough. It said it would pass laws allowing the EU to impose punishments on companies that fail to act.
"The situation is not sustainable: in more than 28% of cases, it takes more than one week for online platforms to take down illegal content," said Mariya Gabriel, the EU's top official in charge of the digital economy and society.
The Commission said it will consider implementing new laws to tackle the problem if the online platforms fail to "take swift action over the coming months."
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/28/technology/hate-speech-facebook-twitter-europe/index.html
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:08PM (7 children)
Different national rules are already splitting the internet - it's a matter of time, rather than doubt, before this blossoms into full-blown balkanisation with carefully-controlled interconnects.
We'll probably end up with a thoroughly castrated Overnet that contains only the most anodyne pap, giving us the illusion of a global internet, while country or regional nets operate according to the dictates of local chest-thumpers.
Oh well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:40PM (2 children)
decentralization
The technical solution to all of this monkey business is not terribly difficult. The only reason I don't want to work on it is because, paradoxically, nobody desirable* will want to use it until its too late. People, somehow, do not seem well adapted to extrapolating the future from the present. 'Well, I can still use things just fine. Well more or less, so why would I ever change?'
* - the corollary of that is that you'll have no shortage of pedos, criminals, and other lovely individuals signing up on day 1 which will ensure further deterrence of the masses
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:45PM
You're dead right. In fact, we need more than pure decentralisation. We need topology independence, and native encryption, encapsulation and forwarding capabilities.
A good first approach may be a sort of automated store-and-forward, a la UUCP.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 30 2017, @02:49AM
That is rather insightful. The various "underground" networks, such as I2P, are currently infested with child porn people. More "desirable" people are in short supply, and when they show up, they quickly leave because of the child porn. It takes a special kind of person to ignore and/or fight the CP, while working on the infrastructure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @08:11PM (1 child)
Meanwhile, on *.onion
...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @08:20PM
Meanwhile, on *.onion we have an identifiably blockable subset of the current system that doesn't solve the primary problems at hand.
Thanks anyway.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @08:21PM (1 child)
All courtesy of the "open borders" crowd who invite murders and rapists into their countries unvetted and want to erect borders online to stop people discussing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @08:40PM
Nah, the reasons are different in different countries. Some want to desperately defend us from nazi ideology, while others want to protect their totally pristine, and in no way already debased culture from evilnasty american thoughtgerms. Some want to make sure that the only profits go to their pet puppies, while others want to make sure that the only voices heard are strictly authorised ones.
Most of the time, it's a combination of the above. But in the final analysis it's all about power.