SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
[Ed. Note: Behind the invective and political slant in this story is a subject that I think could lead to a fruitful discussion. "The price of liberty is constant vigilance." SoylentNews is a little corner of the 'net that tries to provide a venue for open discussion. Are our days numbered or threatened? What can be done? Just keep doing what we are doing?]
France has turned into one of the worldwide threats to free speech
Just over one year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron came to the United States to import two potentially invasive species to Washington. One was a tree and the other was a crackdown on free speech. Ironically, soon after the tree was planted, officials dug it up to send it to quarantine. However, the more dangerous species was his acorn of speech controls, a proposal that resulted in rapturous applause from our clueless politicians.
While our politicians in the United States may applaud Macron like village idiots, most Americans are hardcore believers in free speech. It runs in our blood. Undeterred, however, Macron and others in Europe are moving to unilaterally impose speech controls on the internet with new legislation in France and Germany. If you believe this is a European issue, think again.
Macron and his government are attempting to unilaterally scrub out the internet of hateful thoughts. The French Parliament has moved toward a new law that would give internet companies like Facebook and Google just 24 hours to remove hateful speech from their sites or face fines of $1.4 million per violation. A final vote is expected next week. Germany passed a similar measure last year and imposed fines of $56 million.
(Score: 2) by Mer on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:34PM
Large companies LOVE this. In fact, they're the ones feeding lies to the french parliament so they can grab more data.
After digital rights movements (that have successfully attacked french law in the past for being unconstitutional or breaking european law) have pointed out to lawmakers that:
>even facebook and google's algorithms are not able to spot hate speech
>the laws remove judges from the censorship circuit
>propagating hate speech is good for the big platforms because they make money out of clicks
>the whole affair is delegating the state's job to the initial culprits
several macron loyalists have expressed that yes, they are aware, and they think it's the right thing.
The same group (la quadrature du net) is already preparing to attack the new law, as it's breaking several european laws.
France is a terrible place to be in right now, it's pushing bad laws at the european level and ignoring the few good european laws. Every single one of these laws goes through the accelerated procedure.
Shut up!, he explained.