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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: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @08:23PM (9 children)
And what did the Pilgrims do after they established themselves in Massachusetts?
They made their religion the official one and if you didn't like it... well... you are free to leave...
(Oh, the irony! Just ask Roger Williams who founded Rhode Island.)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:00PM (8 children)
So? They built a place and set the rules for that place. If you didn't like 'em, you could mosey on off somewhere else. What's wrong with that?
(Score: 3, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday September 29 2017, @10:19PM (1 child)
Are you saying this doesn't also apply to Europe?
Or were you being sarcastic?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:26PM
It applies to everyone, everywhere, the Lockean principles which state that when someone mixes their labor with an unclaimed resource, such a process is "ownership". Facebook and Twitter are private companies - if they want a presence in someone else's place, they need to follow the rules set forth by the owner.
I'm a big fan of freedom and exclusive self-ownership, but there's barely one place on Earth where that claim is even laughably made. It ain't in Europe. Here's hoping that the people of Europe free themselves soon, though!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday September 29 2017, @10:21PM (3 children)
What's wrong with that is that the number of reasonably accessible locations is limited. Good luck finding a "somewhere else" that you can actually get to and inhabit that isn't already full of people enforcing their own set of stupid laws.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:38PM (2 children)
That's definitely a problem today. Arguably wasn't an unsolvable problem for the Pilgrims.
My argument for today is: find a place that claims to be made and run by free people, and then hold them to that claim. The USA's Constitution claims to have authority by way of an enumerated list of powers delegated to it by individual people. People in a group have no more authority than does a single individual: if I can't take 50% of my neighbor's income myself, neither can I delegate that ability to the IRS. Therefore US governments have no more authority than I as an individual do.
Lying governments don't like to be called out, though. They've been busy murdering [youtube.com] the peaceful [youtube.com] free [youtube.com] folk [youtube.com] infesting the USA for some time now. The living free folk have been watching the murders for decades, patiently observed that the "justice system" provides none of its namesake, and have adjusted out mindsets accordingly. There are going to be more government murders of free folk. But free folk will be alive after the death of the criminal US governments.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday September 29 2017, @11:55PM (1 child)
"... governments have no more authority than I as an individual do."
Sure they do. You can in most likelihood only shot one person at a time.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @12:36AM
Power is quite different from authority. A robber with a gun has power to rob, but no authority to rob.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @11:34PM
--Robert A Heinlein
Exactly! Let's rev up that Libby-Sheffield drive and make like a preacher (and get the flock outa here!!
Oh, wait...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 01 2017, @09:43AM
The rules say I'm not allowed to leave. The rules everywhere else say I'm not allowed to enter.