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: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 29 2017, @08:56PM (3 children)
Facebook is between a rock and a hard place.
EU says: get rid of hate speech.
Twitter says: it is the 1st amendment right of orange clowns to express hate speech.
If Twitter were to apply uniform TOS to orange clowns as it does to the rest of their user base, then there could be a class action on behalf of the orange clowns.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 29 2017, @09:06PM
Before anyone thinks I am singling out any orange clown in particular, I am not. I referred to ALL orange clowns collectively and without discrimination. Further I was arguing that orange clowns be fairly treated with the same TOS as the rest of us. So I'm not hating on orange clowns in general or any specific one in particular.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday September 29 2017, @09:11PM (1 child)
Time to geofence hate speech, I guess.
> Twitter says: it is the 1st amendment right of orange clowns to express hate speech.
Twitter is technically correct, but misleading. Orange clowns cannot be prevented by the government from expressing hate speech ("shall make no laws...").
Twitter is not the government, and therefore technically free to censor any speech they feel like on their platform. That they chose not to, because Orange clown speech is good for business, has nothing to do with the First.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:07AM
Not quite nothing, it provides a strong moral argument in their favor. The government claims rights and abilities private citizens don't have, eg taxes, eminent domain, drug laws, etc.
If it is wrong for the State to do something it is quite probably wrong for an individual (or company) to do it too.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.