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Silicon Valley is a uniquely American creation, the product of an entrepreneurial spirit and no-holds-barred capitalism that now drives many aspects of modern life.
But the likes of Facebook, Google and Apple are increasingly facing an uncomfortable truth: it is Europe's culture of tougher oversight of companies, not America's laissez-faire attitude, which could soon rule their industry as governments seek to combat fake news and prevent extremists from using the internet to fan the flames of hatred.
While the U.S. has largely relied on market forces to regulate content in a country where free speech is revered, European officials have shown they are willing to act. Germany recently passed a law imposing fines of up to 50 million euros ($59 million) on websites that don't remove hate speech within 24 hours. British Prime Minister Theresa May wants companies to take down extremist material within two hours. And across the EU, Google has for years been obliged to remove search results if there is a legitimate complaint about the content's veracity or relevance.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @04:08PM (24 children)
This will persist until alternatives to the "tech giants" that start serving American interests begin cropping up to fill the niches the Europeans try to smash down. And these groups and companies will probably not care too much what Europe thinks, lest they lose their American audience that went to them explicitly because the originals were listening too much to European authorities.
While the ever-present Opinion Police may attempt to redouble their efforts to clog up freedom of speech in the US so they can try to shut down the native alternatives to European oversight, that's easier said than done.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 03 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
The Silicon Valley Question can be fixed with the Final Solution.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @05:43PM
Well, that escalated quickly!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @04:36PM (17 children)
Yep. Basically you can't have it both ways: a company can't have completely free speech because they're American and believe in that, and then also operate in Europe where there's more stringent limits. Pick one: either operate according to EU laws and limit speech, which means you need to silence a bunch of stuff that your American users may post, or don't operate in the EU. If you don't like the laws in a country, you don't have to operate your business there.
Personally, I'd like to see one of the tech giants (esp. Facebook) thumb their noses at these EU laws and disregard the fines. Then it'd be funny to see their assets in the EU seized, their executives jailed, and Zuckerberg with an Interpol arrest warrant on his head and seized when he's on vacation somewhere. Anything that hurts Facebook can't be a bad thing.
Anyway, back on topic: if a company doesn't like EU's non-free-speech laws, they don't have to have a presence in the EU. And if American users don't like that some big tech company is censoring their speech because of EU laws, then it's their responsibility to find an alternative.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 03 2017, @04:56PM (4 children)
ZuckerJew won't throw money away, he's Jewish.
And besides that point, the goal of people like him is to foist European-style free-speech restrictions on Americans. He could state some bullshit like, "Well, we had to comply with European regulations and since we are an international entity we also had to apply the same rules to domestic (American) users."
I hate that faggot-fuck. He's got the face and the shit-eating grin that just makes you want to instinctively punch him. You're making him money and giving all of your info to intelligence agencies, and he thinks you're all dumb-fucks for doing it.
Starve the beast and quit Facebook today.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @06:31PM (1 child)
Another day, another stupid post.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @08:04PM
The form was questionable, the content kinda accurate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @11:52PM (1 child)
Zuckerjew? Don't you mean Jewkerberg?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @02:22PM
Cuckerberg
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by jmorris on Friday November 03 2017, @05:03PM (2 children)
Their problem is they do not only have users from every country, they are multi-national corporations so they can process in ads and sell user data in all those countries. Kinda hard to declare a countries laws do not apply to you when you have a state of the art data center and a big fancy skyscraper HQ.
Contrast to Gab, no ads no multi-national incorporation. So when media reported Germany intended to regulate Gab Torba could post that, basically, Mad Merkel could lick his nutsack. And there isn't anything they can do other than build a "Great Firewall of Germany" which would be hilarious.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @05:09PM (1 child)
Have there been any court cases or any precedents set about this sort of thing?
When you have a company like Google or some other MNC, then that company does need to follow the laws of any country that it as physical operations in. And companies like Google have physical locations in many nations.
But if you have some small company that's only located in one country, expecting them to adhere to laws in other countries is ridiculous. They can't keep users in other countries from going to their site, without setting up a geo-block, but I don't see how they're obligated to do that. (And geoblocks aren't perfect anyway.)
Have there been any cases where some company tried to prosecute a site in another country, which did not have any operations at all in the country of prosecution?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday November 03 2017, @05:39PM
Plenty of legal precedent. A U.S. corporation is only subject to U.S. law unless it creates legal presence in another jurisdiction. There are a very few things you have to worry about. If you have a customer type relationship with a foreigner it is on the customer to obey local law with very rare exception. If you ship a physical product into a country that is illegal you could be liable, there are laws and treaties regulating common carrier shipping that would get you. You are liable if you do not correctly declare the contents for purposes of customs. But you are not responsible for any sales / use taxes. Heck, a U.S. based corp isn't even required to collect sales / use taxes in Interstate commerce. Streaming content across borders doesn't cause a problem for violating the other country's laws, it is the breaking of the regional distribution license here, although there also international copyright treaties to consider in edge cases. If you take a paid subscriber you probably are ok, plenty of U.S. publications with subscriptions to foreign addresses, for example, provide enough precedent to give cover.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @06:22PM (1 child)
It's not just EU, Canada also has anti-hate speed laws as does most of the world. It's just until now no one wanted to mess with American companies since other nations, especially western nations, looked up to America. That's changing now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday November 03 2017, @08:58PM
Just don't exceed the anti-hate speed and you'll be fine.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday November 03 2017, @08:40PM (6 children)
Hm, is that really how you all feel about EU regulations? Let's not forget that they're the ones that fought the good fight against Microsoft's browser monopoly and forced them to highlight other competing products. Sure, it's not a "free market" solution, but it's better than the very-much-not-free market that we were all otherwise fighting against.
I'm disappointed in all of you. Left-wing politics does still mean fighting to preserve the rights of the little guy. At least in some places.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @09:11PM (2 children)
If you read my post that you replied to, it should be fairly obvious that I'm not actually advocating either the US's or EU's laws. I'm just pointing out that the laws may be in conflict, and companies have to follow the laws in jurisdictions in which they operate, and if that results in the company applying laws from one jurisdiction to another (as censoring posts on a site in accordance with EU law isn't illegal in the US, whereas refusing to censor may get them in trouble with EU authorities; basically this is like a "lowest common denominator"), then ultimately it's up to the users to decide whether they want to continue using that service, or find an alternate service which doesn't try to follow the laws in multiple jurisdictions.
Basically I'm saying the end-users should stop expecting big corporations to cater to them and their whims.
Somewhat related, I'm getting sick of hearing people, esp far-right people, whining about sites like Facebook and YouTube "censoring" them, yet they keep using these sites anyway. The right-wingers are usually screaming about "private property rights", but then when a big corporation exercises those rights they cry foul. So hypocritical. If you don't like it, don't use it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @01:09AM (1 child)
It's hard to imagine a world in which Facebook and YouTube censored your stuff, but try. Wouldn't you find that horribly offensive? What could you realistically do about it?
Let's just take things to an extreme. In this alternate world, major web sites are all far-right. Negative comments about Trump will get your account locked, unless perhaps you are complaining that he is too liberal. (you could say "lock her up" or "build the wall", and even call him a lazy ass for not getting it done, but NO complaints if he does it) Suggesting that there might be a global climate problem will get your account locked. You can get your account locked by saying anything remotely positive about muslims, Mexicans, abortion, CNN, fact checkers, Obama, Hillary, subsidies, or government health care.
In this alternate world, all of current culture is still on Facebook and YouTube. Your friends, family, and coworkers all expect to communicate with you on these platforms. You still need to communicate with conservative people, and they aren't about to leave these platforms. Whenever you post, you fear losing access. You have to self-censor because you can't afford to lose access. Meanwhile, all the conservative people are happily posting away. The most extreme far-right and alt-right people can post whatever they like. You fear posting responses because you'll lose your account.
Sure, you could go to voat or gab.ai and be all by yourself, but "all by yourself" isn't useful at all.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 06 2017, @03:33PM
It's hard to imagine a world in which Facebook and YouTube censored your stuff, but try. Wouldn't you find that horribly offensive? What could you realistically do about it?
I'd do the same thing I do with Apple, because I find apple's products and business practices offensive: I'd stop using them. Same with Microsoft, except I'm stuck using their crap at work, but at least I don't spend a dime of my personal money on their junk. Same with Best Buy; I had one bad experience about 12 years ago, and haven't bought anything from them since. Same with TGIFriday's: I find their crappy food horribly offensive, so I don't eat there.
Let's just take things to an extreme. In this alternate world, major web sites are all far-right.
What world are you in? In the world I inhabit, Facebook is a far-right website. Zuckerberg may personally spout liberal platitudes, but the people actually using his site for political purposes are all far-right from what I've seen. I see no shortage of insane right-wing garbage on there, posted by dumb friends of my relatives. The liberals don't seem to be on there; they're probably too busy commenting on Slate or HuffPost articles or something. Honestly, Facebook is very low-brow; intelligent, highly-educated people do not spend time posting utter inanity in a social forum.
In this alternate world, all of current culture is still on Facebook and YouTube.
"Still"? Since when is "all of current culture" on these two sites? That is literally the stupidest thing I've heard all day. (To be fair, it's still morning here.) Do you honestly believe that bullshit? Get off your computer and go experience real life: there's a lot more to "current culture" than these stupid sites.
Your friends, family, and coworkers all expect to communicate with you on these platforms.
If you have to use Facebook to communicate with your coworkers, you need to look for a new job. That's seriously stupid. And if your friends will only talk to you on Facebook, find some new friends. Do your friends insist you get an iPhone too, or tell you which cellular service you must use to talk to them?
Honestly, your post is idiotic. No one is realistically requiring you to use Facebook to avoid being shunned into hermit-dom. Anyone who refuses to talk to you by some other method (like, oh, telephone?? Or SMS texting? Or email?) is someone you don't need in your life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @10:27PM
Monopoly regulations are not what concern me. Hate speech laws and such, however, do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @01:02AM (1 child)
Yes.
Monopolies and censorship are two entirely separate kettles of fish, and the US did more to stop Microsoft than Europe ever did. Microsoft only started with things like Windows 10 once the US's oversight had expired.
Good. I tire of Eurotrolling. Frankly if the EU wants to be censored and indoctrinated I don't really care too much (although I do think it is very unfortunate and am sympathetic to those who don't agree but have little practical recourse), but I take exception when it becomes impractical to avoid EU censorship in the US. It isn't now, but with the ever-expanding reach of a few companies it's pretty obvious the building blocks for this and a lot of other nasty things are being put in place or are already there. The EU has made it plain they intend to extend their tentacles as far as they will go. This is not unexpected as most countries do that, but that also means they shouldn't expect a positive response when they try to entangle others. People bitch whenever the US sneezes in the wrong direction, so the EU shouldn't be surprised if it gets a similar reaction.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Sunday November 05 2017, @01:33AM
IF you’re really worried about foreign censorship leaking into US operations, you’re paying attention to the wrong game. China is the big fish here, and unlike the EU where hate speech laws are democratic and theoretically exist for the benefit of the people, in China the Party censors anything it wants, with no democratic oversight, for its own benefit. And while the influence of the EU is shrinking, the influence of China is growing.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @06:31PM (3 children)
so uh
can you tell me what the european services were for email, search engine use, and social networking happened to be? maybe a character limited instant messaging service as well.
if my history is correct, there were none of those things that mattered in the US and the people that had any of those on a server at home were using products that were not in europe, mostly not by european programmers, nor could they get their family to log in or even call the damned bulletin board to play as a dummy in some door based game.
it took widespread high speed internet and either money or time. it geeks that set up the aforemented were employed already and thus a big company had to do it for the most part.
those companies didnt care what europe thinks, but then most people using America Online didn't either.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Gaaark on Friday November 03 2017, @07:23PM
OMG!: Archy has joined SN!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy_and_Mehitabel [wikipedia.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Informative) by dry on Saturday November 04 2017, @02:17AM
Used to be a nice anonymous email service operating out of Finland until the Americans forced them to shut down due to the types of speech they were enabling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 04 2017, @04:11AM
> can you tell me what the european services were for email, search engine use, and social networking happened to be? maybe a character limited instant messaging service as well.
The Pirate Bay.