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Failure to delete hate speech could cost Facebook, Google billions in France
Lawmakers in France this week passed a controversial new law that could impose billions in fines on social media companies that fail to delete certain kinds of content quickly enough—within an hour, in some cases.
The new legislation (page in French) gives online platforms 24 hours from notification to remove certain kinds of content or else face fines.
Content subject to enforcement under the law includes: sexual harassment; child pornography; anything that promotes certain crimes; anything that promotes discrimination, hate, or violence; anything that denies crimes against humanity; and promotion of terrorism. The window for removing content related to child pornography or terrorism is shorter, only one hour.
A company that fails to remove such content within the correct time limit after being notified of it can be fined €1.25 million ($1.35 million). If a regulatory board finds a company is not meeting its obligations, it can impose a maximum fine equal to 4 percent of that company's annual global revenue.
The BBC notes:
Digital rights group La Quadrature du Net said the requirement to take down content that the police considered "terrorism" in just one hour was impractical.
"Except the big companies, nobody can afford to have a 24/7 watch to remove the content when requested," a spokesman for the group said. "Hence, they will have to rely on censorship before receiving a request from the police."
That might be in the form of using an automatic system provided by the largest companies, giving them "more power on what can exist on the web or not".
But there are also fears that such tech could be used against groups such as protesters.
"Since 2015, we already had such a law that allowed the police to ask for the removal of some content if they deemed it to be terrorist... this has been used multiple times in France to censor political content," the spokesman said.
"Giving the police such a power, without any control... is obviously for us an infringement on the freedom of speech."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:26AM (19 children)
"Hate Speech" is a blanket term used to dismiss ideas that one may disagree with.
How about using rational argument to highlight the flaws of those ideas instead?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:23AM
your optimism at others being willing to carefully, rationally consider and debate opposing ideas and even be swayed to change their minds is undone by evidence from every comment section in youtube, facebook and online news sites, and even much of SN.
This is the internet; thinking is optional, if not actively discouraged.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:30AM
Damn right.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:50AM (7 children)
I vehemently disagree with this. Not ideas, you fucking scumsucking lime lizard! We dismiss the hate! And we hate you back, you disgusting excuse for a human, created in the imago dei with the faculty of reason, and you revert to the lizard brain of fear? What kind of total idiot are you? Hate speech is not something humanity "disagrees" with, it is something that humanity will punch in the face, arrest, incarcerate, re-educate, and if all else fails, eradicate. We will not "disagree" with you, we will "kill" you.
This normalization of sociopaths and nazism has gone on long enough. Obamagate is a call to arms. Kill your local white supremacist. Or at least try to take their Barbie doll and noose away. [newsweek.com] So, to repeat, kill the Nazis. Seems some managed to sneak out after the last war. But late is better than never.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @11:42AM (6 children)
I'm not able to tell if the post above is a parody of the rabid online social justice warrior, or the genuine article. Poe's law wins again.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @08:13PM
"Have you been listening to Allied propaganda [youtube.com], again?"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 16 2020, @10:59PM (4 children)
I'm seeing only name calling, not a single rational argument to highlight the flaws into those ideas. Giving up already?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @11:33PM (3 children)
Shut the fuck up, you fucking scumsucking lime lizard.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday May 17 2020, @03:23AM (2 children)
What the heck is a "lime lizard" ?? how am I supposed to know if I should be offended or not when you use such obscure terminology??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @12:14AM
Thus a meme is born. Born Free, scumsucking lime lizards!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @09:28PM
It's obviously a species of lizard that engages in the sucking of scum and procreates. Perhaps it is a shade of light green, or lives in regions rich in calcium. Not to be confused with the indolent lounge lizard, I guess.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:17AM
What they [mideast-times.com] have been doing for the past 10 years is:
1. put together on an abstract list of things to ban that includes a few poison pills that no one in their right mind would agree to
2. immediately ban anyone who questions the poison pills
3. outsource [catbox.moe] the administration to terrorists [centerforsecuritypolicy.org] and foreign [archive.is] powers [archive.is]
4. allow the terrorists to ban any opposition to ISIS
5. claim that anyone who complains about the censorship is a white supremacist
6. collect money from the government to investigate [archive.fo] all of these "white supremacists" and give their names to ISIS
Jewish groups lobbied to stop this, so NATO's security agencies replaced [archive.is] the heads of their organizations with their own preferred Jews. When people notice that the new leaders are committing treason, that gives the contractors and intelligence agencies more targets to go after.
The program is called Countering Violent Extremism and was established by Obama in response to Congressman Peter King holding hearings about al-Shabaab recruiting in Minnesota where they were later found to have embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @10:05AM
Here is a definition by example from my country:
- A pseudo-liberal party representative tells pseudo-conservative governing party that voting in favor of ultra-right parties leads to increasing violence -> hate speech (+ know that governing party used an ultra right wing group in their campaign and then locked them in jail).
- Honoring the Internet troll who writes that abortion clinics should be bombed -> freedom of expression.
So the "hate speech" is any speech criticizing current situation. And if it refers to the history, it's worse for the history.
Generally, I don't know who told this but I remember the quote: "Speaking the truth is a hate speech for those who hate the truth". Might be from some ultra-conservative, but even they are right in some cases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:03PM (4 children)
There's a direct connection between hate speech and genocide. The question of which leads to which is left as an exercise for the reader.
Nazis are the most obvious group - their philosophy (and they do have one, however incoherent) is a clear and present danger to anyone not a Nazi. The modern rebranding under "alt-right" doesn't change that. Hate speech isn't "just an opinion", it's preemptive support for human rights abuses.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:01PM
Any speech I don't like is hate speech.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:25PM
The correct way to incite and perpetrate large scale violence (and get away with it) is to rebrand it as "fighting terrorism", "peace keeping", or "protecting national interests".
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:59PM (1 child)
no, you brainwashed fuck, "Nazi" is a Jew contrived slur against Aryans who dared defend themselves against the Bolshevik Jew subversives who refused to gtfo and had already staged revolutions. These hate speech laws are being pushed by treasonous politicians who are bringing in third world populations to breed out the white natives. These laws are used to reduce opposition. Once again The International Jew is to blame. All the NGOs bringing the third world refugees in are Jewish and it ts The International Jew organized criminal pushing their slave states (USA, UK, etc) to start wars in these third world countries in the first place to destroy the remaining Aryan countries(what is left of them), breed out the remaining white people and create the Greater Israel. "Hate Speech"(no such thing. just more Jew propaganda) is justified and a real holocaust (this time) is in order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @01:59AM
Oy vey, what a putz!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:18PM (1 child)
Rational arguments won't work, but the practice of using loosely defined terms in laws is extremely harmful. Probably worse that what they're attempting to guard against.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday May 17 2020, @03:26AM
That's not a bug, it's a feature. If anything can be declared hateful, then no one dares speak, because anyone can be instantly criminalized at need.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.